About Us

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About Us

The Peacebuilding Citizenship Education Project

This Peacebuilding Citizenship Teaching Resource website is created by Dr. Kathy Bickmore and Dr. Yomna Awad, based on the valuable collaboration of many participants and team members over several years.  First, we thank the 51 teachers (16 in Bangladesh + 14 in Canada + 21 in México) and 172 students (36 in Bangladesh + 55 in Canada + 81 in México) who shared their understandings and experiences of social conflict, violence, citizenship and peace in focus group workshops in their schools.  Core members of the Peacebuilding Citizenship research team, in addition to Kathy and Yomna, include Dr. Patricia Carbajal (co-coordinator of the México inquiry), Dr. Ahmed Salehin Kaderi (co-coordinator of the Bangladesh inquiry), Dr. Diego Nieto Sachica, Ms. Angela Guerra-Sua, and Ms. Paloma Ramirez.  Shorter-term members of the team have included Diana Barrero, Bita Correa, Rim Fathallah, Shashank Kumar, Maria Popa, Angela Radjenovic, Chrystal Smith, Zohreh Sojoudi, Tanja Urbancic, and Majd Zouda.  Warm thanks to every member of this transnational team for their valuable contributions.

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Kathy Bickmore

Kathy Bickmore Ph.D., is Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy and Comparative International and Development Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and director of the Peacebuilding Citizenship Education project.  During the year 2022-23, she was Visiting Professor in the Canada Program of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.  She studies young people’s school learning opportunities for building and making peace and democratic justice, in comparative transnational and local perspectives.  Kathy is the author of Alternatives to Violence: A Manual for Teaching Peacemaking to Youth and Adults (1984).  She is co-editor of Comparative and International Education: Issues for Teachers (2nd edition 2017), and guest editor of Peace-building (in) Education: Democratic Approaches to Conflict in Schools and Classrooms (issue of Curriculum Inquiry, 2014).

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Yomna Awad

Yomna Awad Ph.D., is an Education, Awareness, and Outreach Consultant with the Office of the Vice-President Equity and Community Inclusion at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). She has a PhD in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development with a collaborative specialization in Comparative International & Development Education (CIDE) from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE), the University of Toronto, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the American University in Cairo. Dr. Awad is a Sessional Lecturer and a post-doctoral scholar at CIDEC-OISE at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are teacher professional learning, online learning, peace-building and citizenship education in conflict zones and relatively democratic societies.