Editorial Note: Journal on Education in Emergencies: Volume 3, Number 1

Every theme that appears in the Journal on Education in Emergencies is by definition timely and important. In this special issue of JEiE, we focus on education and peacebuilding. Although humanitarians for many years credited education with creating or fostering peace, the understanding of this relationship grew more nuanced at the start of the 2000s, with the publication of The Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict (Bush and Saltarelli 2000). This publication ushered in a period of reflection on the role of education, not just in promoting peace but in promoting conditions for conflict through uneven access, biased classroom practices, or negative ideological content (Brock 2011; Burde 2014; Burde, Kapit, Wahl, Guven, and Skarpeteig 2017; Gross and Davies 2015; King 2014; Ostby and Urdal 2010; Shields and Paulson 2015; Smith 2007). Although educators were as committed as always to the transformative potential and power of education, they were no longer as sanguine about its delivery or content in humanitarian crises.