This thesis critiques institutional peace education frameworks – particularly those developed by UNESCO and UNICEF – for reproducing liberal hegemonies that constrain youth agency and erase structural violence in conflict-enduring contexts. Grounded in decolonial theory and critical pedagogy, this argument shows how peace frameworks govern youth through timelines of emotional regulation and civic readiness, casting resistance as immaturity and peace as a deferred reward. Focusing on Palestine as a case study, the thesis analyzes institutional programs such as Global Citizenship Education (GCED), the Associated Schools Network (ASPnet), Learning for Peace, and the Inter-Agency Peace Education Programme. These initiatives, while framed as empowering, often impose depoliticized curricula that obscure the structural conditions shaping young lives. In response, the thesis proposes the Temporal Disruption Model: a pedagogical framework that centers youth storytelling – subversive, testimonial, and speculative – as a mode of temporal resistance. This model challenges the liberal peace's scripts of emotional maturity and delayed agency, reclaiming memory, refusal, and imagination as valid and urgent forms of political presence.
Danyah Thnaibat (Sun,) studied this question.