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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

The Crime-Reducing Effect of Education: Disaggregating Education and Impact on Violent Crime (CREED)

Alternative title: Hvordan utdanning kan bidra til å redusere kriminalitet: En nærmere belysning av utdanning og innvirkningen på voldskriminalitet (CREED)

Awarded: NOK 9.5 mill.

Can governments reduce violent crime by increasing education, and if so, under what conditions? These questions are of significant policy relevance since many low- and middle-income countries experience high rates of violent crime, contrasting with the long-term decline in armed conflict and common claims that we are living in the most peaceful time in history. This project has the triple ambition of theory development, data collection, and empirical analysis. It has two key objectives: 1. To analyze how different dimensions of education most notably investment in education, school attendance, education quality, and educational inequality affect violent crime; and 2. To examine the conditions that influence political actors to promote and strengthen education policies in order improve individual security. Since the last report: 1. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch published two articles, one in Governance and another in PLOSone. 2. Barbara Zarate-Tenorio coordinated a special issue proposal on Family and Early Childhood Education Policies in Latin America. Advances and Challenges in Segmented Welfare Regimes. The proposal has been accepted in Social Policy & Administration. 3. Barbara Zarate-Tenorio published a book chapter published in Routledge on The Democratic Deficit, Political Participation and Demands for Social Inclusion in Truncated Welfare States 4. Mauricio Rivera and co-authors have written an article on the effect of drug-violent on civil culture and political participation in Mexico. The paper has been presented in several venues and it will be submitted for review in February. 5. Gudrun Østby presented a CREED paper at the Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society. 6. Mauricio Rivera gave a lecture at the Peace Research Course - UiO Summer School. The lecture was based on his research as part of the CREED project. 7. Mauricio Rivera presented a CREED PAPER in Workshop organized by the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS).

Can governments reduce violent crime by increasing education? Violent crime is one of the most severe threats to SDG #16 to promote peaceful and inclusive societies. Such crime is rife: the annual average of intentional homicides in non-war states accounted for 377,000 deaths from 2007 to 2012 (The Geneva Declaration Report (2015)). From the point of departure that education is key for societal development, we investigate whether governments can reduce violent crime by increasing education. In sharp contrast to previous research exclusively focused on school attendance, we propose a disaggregated approach and consider whether and how education investment, -attendance, -quality, and -inequality can help reduce violent crime and improve individual security. Using advanced methods of data analysis and a natural experiment, we will perform cross-country and within-case statistical analyses to assess whether education can cause a reduction in violent crime. We complement statistical analyses with qualitative case studies aimed at understanding the conditions influencing government decisions to implement education policies as a response to public insecurity. The project includes 5 researchers from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) – the host institution – and partners in Colombia (Universidad Sergio Arboleda, Colombia) and the UK (Essex University), all of whom have proven and complementary strengths in terms of thematic substance, methodological skills, and expertise on specific cases. The broader impacts of this project include scientifically grounded recommendations for policy makers and non-government actors interested in education and peace promotion, including Save the Children, UNESCO, UNICEF, and USAID. Expected outputs include 8 to 10 articles, an edited book, a dataset on compulsory education reforms, 3 workshops, 2 policy briefs, and 2 podcast episodes accessible in different languages.

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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren