Macedonia: Policy Disjuncture between Global Education, Ethnicity and Conflict

随着当今暴力冲突日益复杂的性质，国际社会对教育可能发挥的改善作用重新产生了兴趣（Novelli et al. 2014）。因此，西方组织向非西方国家输出教育和发展项目，这些国家有着明显不同的社会历史背景，但在努力平衡多样性和统一性方面有着共同的努力，以对抗民族-宗教冲突吞没国家的危险。一个恰当的例子是前南斯拉夫的后共产主义和后冲突国家，主要是小而麻烦的马其顿共和国，这是本研究的地点。在2001年涉及该国最大的两个民族的武装叛乱之后，该州的教育计划发生了重大变化。在西方干预的推动下，采取了一些自由的多元文化政策：积极鼓励马其顿利用教育作为管理其多样化人口的工具，以建立一种安全的国家统一形式。然而，这似乎已经动摇，只会加强现有的种族分歧，并导致近年来紧张局势和政治争议的升级。这反映在日益隔离的教育体系上（ECRI 2016; Unesco 2009）。因此，本研究的中心主旨是质疑自2001年以来西方干预马其顿共和国教育系统的逻辑和影响，以及这对可持续和平建设有何贡献？强调这项研究的重要性的是缺乏关于超国家教育议程设置，其合法性以及解决受冲突影响社会需求的能力的足够数据。需要对参与马其顿干预的强大多边机构之间的政策脱节进行更深入的分析。虽然他们可能代表西方现代性，但在更仔细的审查下，他们不仅持有相互冲突和竞争的教育议程，而且往往忽视了他们处理“他者”的方式中有关“差异”的上下文指标（Boulden和Kymlicka 2015: 14）。这对这些倡议的成功实施具有重大影响，特别是在受武装冲突及其遗留问题影响的情况下。正如马其顿很好地说明的那样，这种脱节和监督实际上会导致建立一个更加种族根深蒂固和隔离的教育系统（Shuayb 2012）。通过将民族志方法与政治经济学、标量分析和批判性全球化理论的理论工具相结合，它提出了国家在全球背景下与教育不断变化的关系的问题。这决定了需要超越简单的“政策话语”，采用一种更能够在多尺度和多地点地形中形成和追踪政策设计和方向之间联系的方法。在此基础上，将设计一种混合方法策略，包括与主要利益相关者进行详细的半结构化访谈，对关键政策文件进行话语分析，系统的文献综述，以及对从官方网站检索的数据进行定量分析，以确定最近的结构趋势。其目的不仅是为了帮助马其顿的教育系统实现转型，而且是为了绘制出全球教育政策的轮廓，以及它在西方大国之外、在脆弱的受冲突影响地区应用时的局限性。它要求在治理和学术界内以跨学科方法为纽带，达成更广泛的共识、更大的承诺和包容性，以发展一个可持续、综合和高功能的冲突解决教育体系。

With the increasingly complex nature of violent conflict today, there is renewed interest within the international community over the ameliorative role education can potentially play (Novelli et al. 2014). Hence, Western organisations export education and development projects to non-Western countries, which have significantly different socio-historical contexts, but share in common a struggle to balance diversity and unity in efforts to counter the danger of ethno-religiousconflict engulfing the nation. A case in point is the postcommunist and post-conflict states of the former Yugoslavia, and primarily the small and troubled state of the Republic of Macedonia, the site of this study.Following the armed insurgence in 2001 involving the country's two largest ethnic groups, the state's education programme was significantly altered. Driven by Western intervention a number of liberal multicultural policies were adopted: to actively encourage Macedonia to employ education as a tool to manage its diverse populaces in constructing a secure form of national unity. Nevertheless, this appears to have faltered and has only reinforced existing ethnic divides and contributed to the escalation of tensions and political controversy in recent years. This is mirrored by an increasingly segregated education system (ECRI 2016; Unesco 2009).Therefore, the central thrust of this research is to question the logic and impact of Western intervention on the education system of the Republic of Macedonia since 2001 and in what ways has this contributed to sustainable peace building?What underscores the importance of this research is the lack of sufficient data concerning supranational education agenda setting, its legitimacy, and its ability to address the needs of conflict-affected societies. Greater analysis is needed concerning policy disjuncture between the powerful multilateral institutions involved in these interventions in Macedonia. As while they may represent Western modernity, under closer scrutiny they not only hold conflicting and competing education agendas, but also often overlook the contextual indicators concerning 'difference' in the way they handle 'the Other' (Boulden and Kymlicka 2015: 14). This has a significant impact on the success of such initiatives being realised,particularly in contexts affected by armed conflict and its legacies. As Macedonia well illustrates, such disconnect and oversight can actually contribute to creating a more ethnically entrenched and segregated education system (Shuayb 2012).By combining an ethnographic approach with the theoretical tools of political economy, scalar analysis, and critical globalisation theory it problematizes the State's changing relationship with education in a global setting. This determines the need to move beyond simple 'policy discourse' to an approach more able to forge and trace connections between the designs and directions of policies within a multi-scalar and multisited terrain. Within this a mixed method strategy willbe devised, comprising detailed semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, a discourse analysis of key policy documentation, an systematic literature review, and a quantitative analysis of data retrieved from official sites to define recent structural trends.The aim is not only to help bring about a transformation in Macedonia's education system but to map the contours of global education policy and its limitations when applied outside the Western mainframe in fragile conflict affected regions. It calls for a broader consensus, greater commitment and inclusivity, bound by a cross disciplinarily approach within governance and academic circles to develop a sustainable, integrated, and high functioning conflict resolving education system.