Inter-Group Contact through Peace Clubs in Shaping Positive Inter-Ethnic Relations: Ethiopian Public University Students in Focus
| dc.contributor.author | Messash Kassaye | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-08-08T13:55:32Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-08-08T13:55:32Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-05 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to examine the role of Peace Club towards building positive inter ethnic relations of students in Addis Ababa, Ambo and Gondar universities. The study chose Peace Club as a CoC inter-group contact platform, which has objectives of relationship building and non-violence. Three research questions and two hypotheses were developed to address the research objective. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed research design and data was gathered through questionnaires, interview and document review. Two set of questionnaires were developed to measure the nature of students’ IER (Q-A) and the contribution of Peace Clubs for IER of students (Q-B) respectively. Accordingly, 346 students (150 Peace Club members and 196 non-club members) took part in responding to Q-A and 333 valid questionnaires were returned. For Q-B, 150 Peace Club members filled the survey and the return rate was hundred percent. Additionally, 24 students, six instructors and six management personnel were engaged in source of data in the qualitative part of the study. For document review, 14 policy documents relevant to Ethiopian higher education system were examined. Both Descriptive and Inferential statistics were applied and the major statistical tools used were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, an independent samples t-test, as well as linear and multiple regression analysis. Thematic and content analysis techniques were applied as qualitative analysis tools. The results showed, the legal frameworks of Ethiopian Higher Education System indeed leave some room for CoCPs and improve IER of students. However, the significance of CoCPs and how this can be implemented is not explicitly stated in relation to IER of students. It is further disclosed that students can be classified as having a fixed, mixed or a neutral view of ethnicity which has direct relations with the nature of IER of students that is manifested either negatively or positively. Particularly, students with mixed-ethnic background and those who choose ethnic neutrality display positive IER typified with willingness to learn from out-group fellows and non-violent attitude. However, students with fixed views of ethnicity seem to choose to resort to intra-ethnic cliques. On the other hand, the mediation analysis disclosed that, Peace Club is found to be a notable co-curricular platform to build positive IER among students in Addis Ababa, Ambo and Gondar universities. This platform is particularly relevant interms of equipping members with necessary knowledge on existence, acknowledgement and appreciation of difference as well as displaying non-violent behavior during conflictual situations with out-group fellows. The moderation analysis also revealed that, around 40.1% of variance in students’ IER is explained by inter-ethnic contact through Peace Clubs. Moreover, Peace Clubs seem to achieve more in instilling knowledge that help students to learn about out-groups and display respectful behavior towards them than imparting affective ties like empathy. However, there were gaps on regularity of contact, equality of learning opportunities among members, setting suitable settings for dialogues and rewarding positive behaviors to make clubs impactful. Finally, the need to create Inter-Ethnic and Co curricular Policies and Inter-cultural and Co-curricular wing in the Federal MoE officeis are proposed so as to systematically manage CoCPs in general and Peace Clubs in particular in a way they can contribute for positive IER of public university students in Ethiopia. Further more, areas of future research were implied. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/6256 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | |
| dc.subject | Co-curriculum | |
| dc.subject | inter-ethnic relations | |
| dc.subject | inter-group contact | |
| dc.subject | peace club | |
| dc.subject | students | |
| dc.subject | public universities | |
| dc.title | Inter-Group Contact through Peace Clubs in Shaping Positive Inter-Ethnic Relations: Ethiopian Public University Students in Focus | |
| dc.type | Thesis |