EDUCATION AS A PEACEBUILDING POLICY IN COLOMBIA: EVIDENCE, LEARNING AND LESSONS FOR LATIN AMERICA
Over the past three decades, Colombia has incorporated education into its peacebuilding policies through normative instruments, institutional programs, and pedagogical experiences of varying scope. The 1991 Political Constitution, human rights education, citizenship competencies, Law 1620 of 2013 on school coexistence, the Peace Chair created by Law 1732 of 2014, and the educational strategies associated with the 2016 Final Peace Agreement form part of this accumulated body of work.
This trajectory deserves to be examined with critical distance. The persistence of various forms of violence, social polarization, territorial inequality and exclusion compels us to ask what these initiatives have actually achieved, what obstacles have limited their impact, what institutional lessons can be recognized, and what conditions are necessary for education to contribute effectively to consolidating a culture of peace.
The symposium calls for papers analyzing public policies, educational programs, school, university or community experiences, as well as intervention projects aimed at peacebuilding in Colombia. Research providing empirical evidence, implementation assessments, results analyses, territorial studies, or comparative approaches with other Latin American countries will be especially relevant.
The discussion seeks to situate the Colombian experience as a case of special interest for Latin America—not as a finished model, but as a field of lessons, tensions and warnings. From this perspective, the symposium aims to identify useful lessons for designing educational peace policies, civic education, democratic coexistence, and the construction of evidence-based research agendas.
