EDUCATION AS SATYAGRAHA: AN INTERCULTURAL PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABALE DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION TOWARD PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE

Abstract

Our holistic well-being is threatened by our interconnected planetary crises including the normalization of disproportionate rates of poverty and hunger, regional lack of access to clean water and sanitation, structural social inequalities and systemic injustices, violent armed conflict and inadequate initiatives for peace and security, environmental degradation, destruction of entire species and habitats, loss of biodiversity, and increasing climate change (see the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals). The United Nations (UN) has identified “quality education” as having a crucial role in addressing these global problems by empowering the individual with the values and skills to increasingly accomplish the other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the “promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence” (UN, Target 4.7, 2015).This critical ethnographic research explores how an alternative philosophy of education interwoven with the philosophy of satyagraha can expand the role of education to align with this definition of quality education. This project provides a case study for how educators at two local schools in Gujarat, India are innovating ways to integrate and contextualize the philosophy of satyagraha into a philosophy of education to cultivate a culture of peace and nonviolence by empowering and equipping individuals with the values and skills to positively transform their daily lives and local communities. This study was guided by two research questions: (1) How are educators in post-colonial contexts, specifically India, interweaving an intercultural philosophy of education for two-eyed seeing that draws equally on critical consciousness and Indian cultural knowledge? (2) How does this alternative, intercultural philosophy of education empower individuals to accomplish and experience the SDGs and create a culture of peace and nonviolence? Educators who participated in this case study in the local schools in Gujarat provided valuable insights into how this alternative philosophy of education is being envisioned, understood, and implemented today. Through ethnographic data collection and analysis, this study highlights how universal kinship serves as the fundamental principle of satyagraha and describes how the obligations of universal kinship inherent within the philosophy are being interpreted by educators in Gujarat and formed into a philosophy of education that promotes nonviolent cultural transformation at the individual, community, and societal levels. The findings of this study have several implications and can provide policy makers, community development agencies, and local educators with a philosophy of education that can be contextualized to help them address their concerns that align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, especially including the goal of quality education for the “promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence” (UN, Target 4.7, 2015). The findings can also provide future researchers fundamental guidance for investigating how such an alternative philosophy of education can be contextualized in various additional locations globally.