Project Description

Peacebuilding in unequal and diverse societies requires more than the absence of conflict - it calls for education that nurtures empathy, critical reflection, social responsibility, and active citizenship. Drawing on traditions of peace education, critical pedagogy, and service-learning, this project examines how education for and through social justice can foster the knowledge, dispositions, and capacities needed to contribute to more just and peaceful communities.

Using a mixed-methods Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach, the study explores how experiential, project-based learning influences students' awareness, empathy, perspective-taking, sense of purpose, compassionate action, and civic engagement in under-resourced schools in rural and semi-urban India. It also investigates the pedagogical practices and institutional conditions that support the effective implementation, sustainability, and scaling of peacebuilding education. By generating evidence on both educational outcomes and implementation processes, the project aims to inform research, practice, and policy on justice-oriented education and peacebuilding.

Bio

Dr. Sangeeta Bhatt is a mixed-methods researcher working at the intersection of education, youth, community-based interventions and social change. She currently serves as a Research Associate at the THRIvE (Transformative Holistic Research for Integral and Inclusive Education) Research Centre and Systems Coordinator at TIDE (Together in Development and Education) Foundation, where she contributes to research, grants application, program design, systems strengthening, program implementation, and evaluation. Through her research and practice, she seeks to design and evaluate educational experiences that foster social responsibility, well-being, peacebuilding, and meaningful youth participation. She is particularly interested in understanding how diverse educational approaches and philosophies could be meaningfully integrated within mainstream education systems.  She holds a PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and has been recipient of Newton Bhabha PhD Placement Grant and University Grants Commission (UGC)- Senior Research Fellowship.