Macedonia: Policy Disjuncture between Global Education, Ethnicity and Conflict

随着当今暴力冲突的性质日益复杂，国际社会对教育可能发挥的改善作用重新产生了兴趣（Novelli等人，2014年）。因此，西方组织将教育和发展项目出口到非西方国家，这些国家具有显著不同的社会历史背景，但共同努力平衡多样性和统一性，以应对民族宗教冲突吞噬国家的危险。一个恰当的例子是前南斯拉夫的后共产主义和冲突后国家，主要是小国和麻烦的马其顿共和国，在2001年涉及该国两个最大的民族的武装叛乱之后，国家的教育计划发生了重大变化。在西方干预的推动下，马其顿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民众的工具，以建立一种安全的民族团结形式。然而，这似乎已经动摇，只是加剧了现有的族裔分歧，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中（ECRI 2016; UNESCO 2009）。因此，本研究的中心主旨是质疑自2001年以来西方对马其顿共和国教育体系的干预的逻辑和影响，以及这在哪些方面有助于可持续的和平建设？强调这项研究的重要性的是，缺乏足够的数据，有关超国家的教育议程的制定，其合法性，以及它的能力，以满足受冲突影响的社会的需求。需要对参与马其顿这些干预行动的强大多边机构之间的政策脱节进行更深入的分析。虽然他们可能代表了西方现代性，但仔细审视，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”的背景指标（Boulden和Kymlicka 2015：14）。这对正在实施的这些举措的成功具有重大影响，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，这种脱节和监督实际上可能有助于创造一个更加种族根深蒂固和隔离的教育体系（Shuayb 2012）。通过将民族志方法与政治经济学的理论工具，标量分析和批判性全球化理论相结合，它使国家与教育在全球背景下不断变化的关系成为问题。这就决定了需要超越简单的“政策论述”，采取一种更能够在多尺度和多地点领域内建立和追踪政策设计和方向之间联系的办法。在此范围内，将设计一种混合方法策略，包括与关键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到的数据进行定量分析，以确定最近的结构趋势。其目的不仅是帮助马其顿教育系统实现转型，而且是绘制全球教育政策的轮廓，在受冲突影响的脆弱地区，在西方主机之外应用时存在局限性。它呼吁更广泛的共识，更大的承诺和包容性，通过治理和学术界的跨学科方法来建立一个可持续的，综合的和高功能的解决冲突的教育体系。

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.