Bassel Akar

Notre Dame University - Louaize, Lebanon · Faculty of Humanities

Palestinians have relied on education to maintain their culture, sovereignty, and dignity. In this article, we present the perspectives of two groups of 11th-grade Palestinian students on how and why historical discourse in school is critical for justice and freedom. One group argued that they should learn about how other nations lived, fought, sta...

Governments around the world have expressed various degrees of commitment to promoting approaches to environmental sustainability through their national curricular aims. Critical and dialogic pedagogies can support learning for environmental sustainability, but teachers in countries affected by armed conflict struggle to facilitate such pedagogies...

Government agencies and civil society organisations in nation-states and areas affected by conflict strive to develop citizenship education programmes to empower children as agents of change. However, the pedagogical culture within these contexts demands that children memorise information provided by higher authorities and avoid sensitive and contr...

In their introduction, the editors of the special issue call for a re-examination of GCE and how we research it. Following a discussion of the complexities and inadequacies inherent in the terminologies, theories and practices around GCE in debates to date, they explain the necessity for a profound epistemological, ontological and methodological sh...

Citizenship Education in Conflict-Affected Areas examines the practices of learning and teaching citizenship in Lebanon, and explores the implications of the research findings for those working in other sites affected by conflict. Bassel Akar analyses rich empirical data, such as semi-structured interviews with teachers and open-ended survey pack...

This study is the third of a series of three commissioned by Caritas Austria in order to inform the development and implementation of the Regional Holistic Education Programme (RHEP) designed and launched by Caritas Austria in 2015 in Lebanon and Jordan. The qualitative study examined relationships between caregivers and Syrian refugee and vulnerab...

We argue that education reform for the most contested of educational programs demands a teacher-driven theory of change. Education reform in conflict-affected areas typically isolate teacher agency from top-down initiatives. We report on the work and reflections of four history teachers in Lebanon who have influenced degrees of reform in history ed...

The war in Syria has forced millions of people to risk their lives to take refuge in neighbouring countries. This has brought to spotlight a generation of young people from birth to adolescence ridden with deprivation and direct violence. Provision of formal and non-formal education has been among the many interventions intended to minimize the imp...

Large-scale quantitative studies on citizenship and citizenship education research have advanced an international and comparative field of democratic citizenship education. Their instruments, however, informed by theoretical variables constructed in Western Europe and North America mostly measure young people’s understandings of a predefined constr...

The development of education policies is in many aspects driven by nationalist aims, especially when demonstrating postcolonial autonomy. In the case of Lebanon, Arab and Lebanese forms of nationalism have framed education policy development when transitioning out of the French mandate to an independent republic and during pan-Arab movements agains...

The development of education policies is in many aspects driven by nationalist aims, especially when demonstrating postcolonial autonomy. In the case of Lebanon, Arab and Lebanese forms of nationalism have framed education policy development when transitioning out of the French mandate to an independent republic and during pan-Arab movements agains...

Through a review of contemporary literature on child development, we define fundamental variables in early childhood development (ECD) and extrapolate key approaches and issues in education for the most vulnerable of children. With the support of research teams in Lebanon and Jordan, researchers gathered qualitative information about government pol...

The goal on Education is 1 of 17 Sustainable Development Goals that comprises a target to ensure all learners around the world have an opportunity to develop the competencies to promote sustainable approaches to living, including appreciating of cultural diversity, non-violence, and gender equality. Extracurricular activities and non-formal educati...

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Many educational programmes in societies affected by armed conflict aim to promote dialogic engagement as a fundamental aim and pedagogy for social reconstruction. Despite supporting government policies, classrooms show very little or no evidence of dialogic practices where learners (co-)construct knowledge with peers and engage in critical and app...

In its Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) from 2005-2014, the United Nations emphasized the importance of education for achieving sustainable development and positive change. Under sustainability, environmental protection is an essential feature as are social development and economic growth, necessitating equitable access to qua...

This report aims to inform the development of a framework of concepts, aims and approaches for a holistic educational program for Syrian refugee children. First, a literature review identifies basic indicators of holism in education, which will be examined in existing programs for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Then, eight educational and psychosocial...

Education for active citizenship continues to be a critical response for social cohesion and reconstruction in conflict-affected areas. Oftentimes, approaches to learning and teaching in such contexts can do as much harm as good. This study qualitatively examines 435 students’ reflections of their civics classroom learning experiences and their exi...

This article addresses issues of methodology and ethical reflexivity when attempting to investigate the opinions of young people. Drawing specifically on three studies of young people's understandings of citizenship and their views on topical issues, two from England and one from Lebanon, the authors present ways in which the ethical and practical...

In this chapter, we examined women’s experiences of becoming and being school principals in Lebanon. By conducting a comprehensive literature review of studies on women managers in the Arab region, we drew up a conceptual framework showing a range of injustices and locations where they manifest, namely, when accessing principalship, developing as p...

National and Civic Education is a program of study compulsory across all grade levels in Lebanon aimed at promoting social cohesion and active citizenship. A sample of 19 civics teachers in Lebanon across four of the six governorates participated in semi-structured interviews. The conversations delved into their conceptions of citizenship and citiz...

One winter morning in 2007, I sat with a civics teacher during her break between classes. In the middle of our conversation on her teaching experiences inside the civics classroom, she paused and raised a folder that carried her papers. “Look”, she said, “it’s gray”. “If it was orange, the kids would say “Hey, are you with General Aoun?” If it were...

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Lebanon's pluralisms of multiconfessional and multicultural communities continue to sway the nation to and fro between conflict and post-conflict statuses. Since 1946, however, leaders in government and education have focused on citizenship education as a fundamental vehicle for social cohesion,...

Lebanon continues to use citizenship education as a tool for social cohesion in its post-conflict sectarian society. Recently, teachers from previous studies (Akar, 2006) have raised certain issues concerning the challenges of teaching citizenship in Lebanon’s National and Civic Education classrooms. This initial study in Lebanon explores some of t...

Education for social cohesion and a unified identity in post-conflict Lebanon faces numerous challenges. While previous research has concentrated on curriculum design and educational reform, this particular study focuses on teaching and learning within the classroom. To start exploring the challenges of teaching citizenship education in Lebanon, a...