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Congratulations to our student paper award recipient Darren Rabinowitz from Teachers College Columbia University for his paper "Peacebuilding Inc.: Neoliberal Influences on Rwanda’s Vulnerable Youth"

Abstract

 

Despite the notion that lasting peace is dependent upon youth participation, their contributions to peacebuilding are often overlooked by policymakers and scholars. Drawing on the case of Rwandan vulnerable youth, this article discusses how youth frame and describe their role in the national neoliberal peace agenda. This study draws from a mixed-method study with a survey and focus groups based at a Rwandan non-governmental organization secondary boarding school. Findings suggest that a neoliberal national narrative plays an important role in youth prioritizing economic participation and engaging in entrepreneurship as primary paths toward peacebuilding.

More about Darren

 

Darren Rabinowitz is a doctoral candidate (PhD) in International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia. His research focuses on three areas: Climate Change, Sustainable Peace, and Social Movements. Darren's current research explores how education can curtail human behaviors that contribute to the climate crisis and, in turn, support countries' sustainable development efforts toward greener economies, political structures, and societies. His research aims to uncover how education discourses are globally diffused and how they become embedded within the state. Through his research, he unveils how students make sense of global discourses and how they inform their decisions and futures. Darren is a research associate at the Teachers College Center for Sustainable Futures and previously served as a JDC Entwine Fellow in Rwanda in 2017. He holds an M.A. in International Education Development from Teachers College, Columbia University, with a specialization in Peace and Human Rights, and a B.A. from American University in Interdisciplinary Studies.

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