Vernacularising ‘child rights’ in Melanesian secondary schools: Implications for transitional justice

Abstract

As the linkages between education and transitional justice have become more explicit in the last decade (Cole 2007; Ramírez-Barat and Duthie 2015), attention has centred overwhelmingly on the role of the state in those linkages. Cole and Murphy (2009, 3) have framed education as a justice institution where 'students first come into contact with official structures of their society'. Paulson (2009, 10) has argued that post-conflict investment in education could signal to citizens their government's commitment to peace. And Cole (2007, 123) argues that for transitional justice, education can 'potentially function as a secondary phase (after trials and truth commissions) that reflects the state's commitment to institutionalising transitional justice'. Even at the school level, King (2014), McCully (2012) and Quaynor (2012) have argued that pedagogical reform to promote critical thinking and open dialogue among students models democratic politics far better than the rote memorisation of curricular content.