A study of Ugandan children’s perspectives on peace, conflict, and peace-building: A liberation psychology approach

Abstract

Bulhan (2015) urged psychologists to advance their research and practice by attending to metacolonialism, a structural phenomenon built on a history of violence and oppression that assaults all manner of individual, community, and societal well-being. In line with this urging, a primarily Ugandan team of researchers conducted a study of primary schoolchildren’s perspectives on conflict, peace, and peace-building. In the original study, which is briefly reviewed in this manuscript, the children were drawn from 2 Ugandan schools, one located in the northern region and the other in the central region. At each stage of the research process, the team members sought to recognize and resist the reproduction of metacolonialism while move toward more emancipatory practices. In this theoretical article, we explain how we applied a liberation psychological approach to the design, conduct, and analysis of the study. We also show how the findings of the study contribute to our ongoing work in fostering structural changes in one of the schools, its surrounding region, and the nation as a whole.