Becoming Rwandan: Education, Reconciliation, and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen

Becoming Rwandan explores the understudied role of education in facilitating peacebuilding and transitional justice in societies that have experienced violent conflict.

Drawing on the case of post-genocide Rwanda, this book examines how the Rwandan state has attempted to use education to address the violent past and to build a peaceful society. Since the 1994 genocide that left more than 800,000 people dead, the regime in Kigali has viewed the education system as a powerful tool with which to address the legacy of conflict and foster reconciliation.  Through  an  analysis  of empirical data gathered from more than 500 students through questionnaires, classroom observations, and over 100 student interviews, as well as 20 interviews with teachers, this book demonstrates the ways in which local actors, including teachers and students, respond to global and national discourses and shift the intent and meaning of these broader models. By exploring how national education policies are actually implemented at the local level in Rwanda, this book uncovers major tensions and contradictions between policymakers' intentions and the reality on the ground.