Divided by Design: Decentralization, Parallel Schooling, and the Politics of Education and Identity in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina

Arnela Čolić

This dissertation investigates how education systems in post-conflict societies mediate tensions between ethnic recognition and national integration, focusing on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as a case study. Following war in the 1990s, internationally brokered power-sharing agreements institutionalized ethnic quotas in state structures and generated high levels of decentralization in governance, including education. The result was an education policy model in which ethnic groups have distinct curricula, governance structures, and in some cases, physically divided schools. While recognition of groups has been theorized and empirically shown to support peace, it may also constrain intergroup contact and hinder democratic state-building by generating competing ideologies and allegiances. Through an exploratory sequential mixed-methods case study, my research addresses two questions: (1) What explains the emergence and development of BiH's post-war education system? and (2) What patterns emerge across how school directors view and engage with the governance of diversity in schools? The first part draws on archival documents and policy interviews to trace the development of the education system between 1996 and 2008. The second combines surveys and interviews with school directors, which together provide data to understand if and how attitudes about the governance of diversity in schooling vary across demographic backgrounds and geographic locations. This project contributes to comparative politics, sociology, and education studies by theorizing education as a central institution responsible for nation-state building in post-conflict contexts. Findings from BiH enrich debates on multiculturalism, decentralization, and democracy in divided societies, with implications for understanding the long-term legacies of conflict settlement.

About Arnela Čolić

Arnela Čolić is a Ph.D. Candidate in International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. A refugee of the Bosnian war, raised between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States, she brings a distinct perspective on conflict and post-conflict issues in the Balkans to her research on how education systems in divided societies either support or undermine the possibility of coexistence. Her research sits at the intersection of education, political science, and sociology, and asks how political peace processes shape opportunities for multicultural education in countries emerging from ethnic or civil conflict. Her work has been published in Social Sciences and the Edward Elgar Handbook on Comparative Education. Arnela's path to this scholarship has been shaped by years of work in peace, conflict, and education. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kosovo, she taught in primary schools and witnessed firsthand how education operates in the shadow of unresolved conflict. That experience deepened her commitment to understanding these systems from the inside. A native speaker of Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian, she has since conducted dissertation fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina, supported by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, and worked as an Education Policy Officer at the Global Partnership for Education. Looking ahead, she aims to develop a global dataset cataloguing education system structures and characteristics across countries and over time, a resource she hopes will drive new lines of inquiry for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers working toward more peaceful and equitable societies.