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Conventional and Critical Approaches to Peace Education

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• First Online: 12 February 2022

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• Markus Schultze-Kraft 20 , 21  

Part of the book series: Memory Politics and Transitional Justice ((MPTJ))

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Peace and education are both “essentially contested concepts.” Welding them together in one single term—peace education—raises tough questions about what it is that is being proposed and done. With their normative, morally appellative and culturally universalist focus on the individual learner, conventional conceptions and practices of peace education do not easily relate to variable, heterogeneous and context-dependent notions and realities of peace and education in violence-inflected societies. They also shy away from taking account of asymmetric and unequal power relationships. Evoking the importance of building “cultures of peace” falls short of addressing these realities. Critical approaches to peace education forefront empowering individuals as well as collectives to become agents of social transformation. Education for peace is understood as social action geared towards finding solutions to manifold manifestations of direct, cultural and structural violence, injustice and inequality. Critical peace education is more attuned to the thorny issues of power and exclusion. However, it faces the challenge of showing how the empowerment and emancipation of the marginalised and oppressed through formal and informal education for peace can lead to broader institutional transformation. The chapter illustrates peace education’s challenges in relation to the case of Colombia.

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• Peace education
• Cátedra de la Paz (Peace Chair)
• Violent conflict

Since the early days of peace research in the 1960s, it has often been noted that what is labelled peace education or education on and/or for peace is a field of scholarly enquiry and educational praxis that cannot be easily classified and delimited (see, for instance, Banks 1974 ; Cremin 2016 ; Galtung 1974 ; Jaeger 2014 ; Lum 2013 ; Mushakoji 1974 ; Nicklas and Ostermann 1974 ; Salomon 2002 ; Wiberg 1974 ). Footnote 1 However could it, one must ask, given that both peace and education are terms that defy straightforward definition? Peace—as a notion, reality, ideal and utopia—carries a plurality of meanings, promises and hopes across time and space. Footnote 2 To some, it may mean the absence of varying forms of direct, structural and cultural violence , as in Johan Galtung’s negative conception of the term (Galtung 1969 , 2012 , 2017 ). Footnote 3 For those more inclined towards the Norwegian peace scholar’s positive conceptualisation, it may refer to “an optimal environment in which human potential can flourish” (Institute for Economics & Peace 2019 : 67), where “hatred, antipathy and indifference” between individuals and collectives, such as communities, states and nations, are replaced by “sympathy” and “cooperation” (Galtung 2012 : 53). More emphatically even, peace is seen as a “moral aspiration, social good, universal value and a human right (author’s translation)” (Arias 2016 : 244). It is “a linchpin of social harmony, economic equity and political justice,” which, however, is always at peril of being “ruptured by wars and other forms of violent conflict ” (Webel 2007 : 5–6). Dialectic in nature, peace “as social formation has forces and counter-forces” prompting cyclical movement from peace to peacelessness and back again. In this movement, returning to the point of peaceful equilibrium requires, however, that these cycles are “handled non-violently-constructively-creatively” (Galtung 2012 : 12). Others still, operating at the fringes of the realist paradigm in International Relations, would like to make us believe—misleadingly, to my mind—that peace is nothing but the seedbed of, and a somehow artificial interval between, never-ending violent conflict and war (Walt 2016 ).

Not as contentious as peace, education—conventionally defined as the “process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills” (Hornby 2000 : 401)—too is not free of ambiguity and controversy. Recall, for instance, the powerful post-colonial critiques put forward by pedagogues like Paulo Freire in the 1960s, who saw modern education as either an elitist instrument designed to integrate (some of) the young into the extant social and economic systems and achieve conformity or to strengthen, in much broader and inclusionary fashion, the upcoming generations’ ability to seek freedom and develop their potential to transform the world (Freire 1968 ; Harber 2004 ). Several decades later, in the early twenty-first century, education appears to be on the way to becoming more standardised as well as more widely accessible across countries and cultures. But “education is […] in crisis,” writes Hilary Cremin, “because it has failed to bridge the growing gap between the rich and the poor. […] Processes of marketisation have resulted in education being reduced to a commodity to be consumed like any other” (Cremin 2016 : 5). Significant variations in approach and levels of access to, and provision of, education remain. Pedagogical practice and quality, from primary through to tertiary and vocational education and adult learning, and the very definition of the ultimate ends of education vary, sometimes greatly, within and between countries—and not only between those in the global North and South (Cremin 2016 ; Tierney 2011 ). “In many ways,” observes Liz Jackson, “global convergence around educational policies, practices, and values can be observed. […] Yet educational borrowing and transferral remain unstraightforward in practice, as educational and cultural differences across social contexts remain, while the ultimate ends of education […] are essentially contested” (Jackson 2020 : 17).

Hence, welding together the concepts of peace and education in one single term—peace education—is bound to raise questions, as was already noted by Håkan Wiberg close to half a century ago (Wiberg 1974 ), about what it is that is being proposed and done; and how it is done and by whom and for what purpose. As a political scientist with a practical interest in peace education in countries affected by violent conflict, I am under the impression that the field continues, after decades of scholarly and applied efforts, to wrestle with defining more clearly its identity as an academic and educational discipline and ground lofty aspirations more firmly in evidence and theory. This is echoed, for instance, by outspoken authors like Ilan Gur-Ze’ev, who chastises peace education researchers and practitioners for not engaging sufficiently with “the reciprocity of its two fundamental concepts, […] peace and […] education; […] and the relation between power and violence [as well as] the fruitful tension between peace and freedom” (Gur-Ze’ev 2010 : 172). Others, such as Norbert Frieters-Reermann and Uli Jaeger, highlight peace education’s inherent value and desirability but are clear that the field—still— lacks a solid theoretical base which cannot be built without generating more hard evidence about its effectiveness and impact (Frieters-Reermann 2009 , 2010 ; Jaeger 2006 , 2014 ). For the time being, “peace education [therefore] remains […] indispensable but controversial, value-oriented but without a claim to truth (author’s translation)” (Jaeger 2006 : 16).

2.1 Conventional Approaches to Peace Education

The hallmark of conventional peace education scholarship and practice, which is characterised by a normative outlook, is its focus on shaping individual attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and values with the aim of shaping “hearts and minds” in support of peace (Salomon 2010 ). According to one seminal exponent of this school, “ peace studies tend to focus on the causes of war, and alternatives to war, whereas peace education is more generic, attempting to draw out of people their natural inclinations to live in peace. […] Peace educators […] are interested in all distinct aspects of violence from the interpersonal to the geopolitical. They see that education provides an important strategy to achieve peace, because it provides awareness about different peace strategies (emphasis added)” (Harris 2002 : 18). Focussed on changing attitudes in individuals, that is, students, but ultimately aiming at bringing about behavioural change, Ian Harris posits that peace education works on five levels: it “(1) […] explains the roots of violence; (2) […] teaches alternatives to violence; (3) […] cover[s] different forms of violence; (4) [understands] peace itself [as] a process that varies according to context; and (5) [recognises that] conflict is omnipresent” (Harris 2004 : 6).

Harris’ ( 2002 , 2004 ) approach, as well as that of others writing in a similar vein (Bar-Tal 2002 ; Harris and Morrison 2013 ; Howlett and Harris 2010 ), rests on the premise that peace education “represents an indirect solution to the problems of violence. As a strategy it depends upon millions of students being educated, who first transformed their inner hearts and minds and then must turn work to transform violence” (Harris and Morrison 2013 : 31). However, acknowledging that we do not know with certainty “how and why [and whether] peace education programmes work” (Harris and Morrison 2013 : 31), Footnote 4 this scholarship concedes that “the struggle to achieve peace takes place at both the individual and social levels” (Harris 2004 : 16). Thus “peace education theory has to account for efforts to achieve peace at both the micro and macro levels” (Harris 2004 : 16).

Yet it is precisely this question about how to link the level of the individual, on the one hand, and the social and/or political-institutional or macro-levels on the other that in conventional approaches remains unresolved (Ross 2010 ). Some scholars have attempted to address the issue by taking recourse to socialisation and reconciliation theory (Bar-Tal 2002 ; Bar-Tal et al. 2010 ; Boulding 1974 , 2002 ; Harris and Morrison 2013 ; Zwick 2006 ). These approaches are based on the premises that the “emergence and development of the human personality is dependent upon […] the social and material living conditions that exist at a certain point in time in the historical development of a society (author’s translation)” (Hurrelmann, cited in Zwick 2006 : 13); and that “reconciliation supports and solidifies peace as a new form of intergroup relations and serves as a stable foundation for cooperative and friendly acts that symbolise these relations” (Bar-Tal et al. 2010 ). Even when the mentioned conception of socialisation has been critiqued for suggesting too plainly that the social and material environment in which humans—especially children and youngsters—live and develop agency is constituted in such a clear-cut manner that individuals can and will adopt established (traditional) cultural norms and values rather unambiguously, it is nonetheless held that peace pedagogy can contribute to “socialising” learners into becoming peaceful, non-violent members of society (Zwick 2006 ; see also Boulding 1974 ).

Put simply, pro-peace attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and values can be proactively fomented in individuals if and when they are supported by, and reflected in, their broader social and material environment. Footnote 5 Vice versa , positive socialisation effects achieved through peace education are believed to strengthen and enhance the sustainability of a peaceful environment. Likewise, peace education is styled as “one of the most prominent and efficient methods for promoting reconciliation” because it helps to “construct students’ worldview […] in a way that facilitates conflict resolution and […] that prepares them to live in an era of peace […]” (Bar-Tal et al. 2010 ). However, while one can imagine such positive feedback and reconciliation processes occurring in more stable environments where levels of violent conflict, polarisation and social exclusion and inequality are low, we cannot be sure that this also applies to communities and countries affected by elevated levels of political and other forms of violence. Researchers who are more attuned to the challenges peace education faces in violent contexts and settings characterised by deep ethnic and other cleavages suggest that there is no convincing evidence that would support any such claims.

In this respect, Gavriel Salomon ( 2002 , 2010 ) is to be credited with contributing a basic three-tier typology of peace education contexts in which he distinguishes between contexts of (a) relative tranquillity, (b) latent ethno-political tensions and (c) intractable and belligerent conflicts. While peace education is frequently practised at schools and other educational establishments in countries that may be considered to be settings of “relative tranquillity,” such as in Europe and North America, it is in settings with intractable armed conflicts that “peace education faces its real test for here it is about making peace with the real enemy. […] The proposed contextualisation sharpens awareness of the need for peace education programmes to be precisely aligned to the specific conflict setting” (Jaeger 2014 : 4). According to Uli Jaeger, peace education in violent conflict settings “aims to initiate and support integrated, holistic learning processes […]. In these learning processes, the main goal is […] to promote constructive ways of dealing with the potential for conflict and violence and thus help build the peace skills of individuals and groups alike” (Jaeger 2014 : 5).

Recognising the centrality of the broader social and cultural context in which peace education takes place, the cultures of peace movement, which since the 1990s has been promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), seeks to support creating the conditions for fomenting “values, attitudes, modes of behaviour, and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations” (UN General Assembly 1998 ). Footnote 6 In this conceptualisation of peace education as educating towards building cultures of peace , UNESCO broadly defines culture as “the practices , representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage” (UNESCO 2003 ). Footnote 7 According to Christoph Wulf, “education for peace plays a central role in the development of a culture of peace ” (Wulf 2018 : 8). Vice versa , peace education can only develop its full potential when it is embedded in a culture of peace , and not a “culture of violence and war ” (Wulf 2018 : 7), since it is in the former that “social structures change, and people’s actions are oriented towards the values of peace” (Wulf 2018 : 6).

Peace education, which “can contribute to the preservation of peace, [but] […] is not able to secure it” (Wulf 2018 : 6), is thus perceived as an intervening variable that can support the building of cultures of peace. To be effective, however, authors like Wulf acknowledge that culturally oriented peace education also has to “deal with the conditions of war, violence and material need, and look for ways of helping to reduce them. […] It does not forget that war and violence are often macro-structurally caused systemic problems, the reduction of which is only partly possible with the help of education. […] Education for peace must continue to draw back on key concepts such as ‘organised peacelessness,’ ‘structural violence’ and ‘social justice’” (Wulf 2018 : 9)—and human rights and inclusive development, one should add. Yet this last point is not strongly reflected in UNESCO-promoted culture of peace discourse and programmes. The focus of such programmes, which are often based on universalising and homogenising conceptions of peace and culture, has been on shaping distinct sets of values, attitudes, beliefs and modes of behaviour of individuals without offering much by way of addressing the structural causes and drivers of organised violence and war.

2.2 Critical Approaches to Peace Education

Contentious and ambivalent as they are, peace education scholarship and praxis have always been subject to critical interrogation regarding their purpose, means and goals. At the risk of oversimplifying what has been a protracted, sometimes torturous and enduring debate within the disperse international peace research and education movement, in its earlier days the issue was one of the new fields having difficulty finding their own identity vis-à-vis the more established social science disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, economics and political science (Banks 1974 ; Wiberg 1974 ). Self-conscious criticism came mostly from within the field itself, Footnote 8 while the social science establishment simply shrugged their shoulders: who cares? With the advancement and diversification of the social sciences in general, and of peace research and education in particular, in the past couple of decades this initial phase of soul-searching has gradually given way to a more self-confident stance.

In my view, critical peace scholars and pedagogues, including those from the South, have contributed in no small manner to this development; not least because they have directed the spotlight away from the conventional—“individualistic and morally-appellative” (Zwick 2006 : 2)—focus on influencing and shaping attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and values of learners and promoting (universalising and homogenising) cultures of peace (Cremin 2016 ), to paying more attention to building “ new forms and structures of education through curricula, pedagogy, participatory learning, dialogue-based encounters, and multiple perspectives on historical narratives (emphasis added)” (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016 : 3; see also Spence and Makuwira 2005 ). In this vein, the promotion of cultures of peace through education is critiqued for striving to govern “peace through global rationalities of security. These rationalities—embodied in programmes of action, training and capacity-building schemes and information-sharing practices—are geared towards investing in people in ways that individualise them and govern their conduct in the future. Campaigns for ‘a culture of peace’ attempt to make particular individuals and groups responsible for acquiring certain kinds of values of ‘peace’ and ‘security’” (Ilcan and Phillips 2006 : 59). In this critical reading, “security is being redefined as a civil, even scientific issue, and [is] no longer seen as a matter of warheads and delivery systems. It is [thus] not surprising that the principal agent for developing a culture of peace is thought to be the individual and not so much the state” (Ilcan and Philipps 2006 : 63).

In contrast, one of the principal goals of critical peace education and scholarship, influenced as they are by Freire’s conscientisation approach, is to “empower learners as transformative change agents who critically analyse power dynamics and intersectionalities among race, class, gender, ability-disability, sexual orientation, language, religion, geography and other forms of stratification (emphasis added)” (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016 : 4). Here, it is instructive to quote Monisha Bajaj and Maria Hantzopoulos, who offer a crisp characterisation of the differences between critical and conventional peace education.

[…] While all peace educators draw from analyses of violence, critical peace educators pay attention to how unequal social relations and issues of power must inform both peace education and corresponding social action . […] Critical peace education pays close attention to local realities and local conceptions of peace , amplifying marginalised voices through community-based research, narratives, oral histories, and locally generated curricula. […] Other critical approaches […] also explore the politics and possibilities of enacting peace education in places where contested narratives, identity-based violence, and entrenched structural violence abound. […] Normative […] frameworks for understanding peace and peace education must be interrogated and challenged across local and regional contexts (emphasis added). (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016 : 4, 7)

Critical peace education, with its outlook on local emancipation and empowerment, is sometimes also framed as “pedagogies of resistance […] that encompass reciprocity, solidarity and […] horizontal decision-making structures” (Bajaj 2015 : 157). Taking issue with “modern concepts of peace that promote suffocating homogeneity, security, assimilation, false ideals and limited horizons” and are “deeply embedded within warrior ethics, fear and in/security” (Cremin 2016 : 3), the critical school perceives peace in an open manner as a desirable context-specific condition of humanity that results from “the abolition of direct or physical violence and structural and cultural violence, [and of] the entrenched inequality and social hierarchies that deprive individuals of their basic human rights” (Bajaj 2015 : 156). However, critical discourse concedes that “whether schooling or sites of education themselves can achieve this Herculean task […] is a constant tension in discussions of peace education and critical peace education” (Bajaj 2015 : 156; see also Cremin 2016 ). Furthermore, critical approaches are under pressure to show convincingly how individual empowerment and emancipation could lead to broader collective and institutional transformation—even if such approaches are more cognisant than conventional ones about “the ways in which human agency dynamically interacts with structures and forms of violence” (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016 : 4).

While these issues remain to be resolved at the theoretical, empirical and pedagogical levels, they are of little practical import for peace researchers and educators in countries ravaged by all manner of violences, injustices, inequalities and human rights abuses. In other words, in settings characterised by “intractable and belligerent conflict” (Salomon 2002 , 2010 ) and historic “organised peacelessness” (Wulf 2018 ) where access to education and schooling is limited and highly unequal, promoting peace through education is a task that in any case cannot be accomplished by working (mostly) from within formal institutional structures. Witnessing daily the immediacy of different types of direct, structural and cultural violence and how they affect individuals, families and communities, scholars and pedagogues in countries like Colombia, many of whom are women, would find it difficult not to engage in transformative and empowering peace education discourses and practices, including by leaving the confines of schools and higher education institutes and working with victims’ and other social organisations at the local level and in rural communities (Focus Group 2020 ; see also González 2016 ; Ortega 2016 ). Their contributions to the field of peace education tend to be of a critical type. However, I suggest that this is primarily the case not because they have chosen to work within a critical peace education framework but because their immediate violence-inflected socio-political context leaves them no other option. It is for this reason that I believe that both the critical and conventional schools of peace education in the North have much to learn from their peers in the South, while also ensuring that their own work is shared more broadly across the globe. Footnote 9

2.2.1 Comparative Features of Conventional and Critical Approaches to Peace Education

Based on the discussion of conventional and critical approaches to peace education presented in the previous two subsections, which explicitly serves the purpose of broader illustration and is not to be understood as exhaustive, in Table 2.1 below I summarise some key comparative features of the two schools of thought regarding their respective (a) outlook; (b) conceptions of peace, education and pedagogy; (c) underlying theory of change and (d) level of education.

2.3 Peace Education in Colombia: Context and Challenges

Not a new field of scholarly enquiry and pedagogical praxis, in recent years work on peace education at Colombian schools and higher education institutes has gained momentum. This development has been promoted by the peace process between the Santos administration and FARC, which officially unfolded in Cuba in the period 2012–2016 and resulted in the signing of a final peace accord in November 2016. While the agreement in itself contains only scant references to education, Colombian academia, the educational sector and civil society have seized upon the opportunity afforded by the peace process and several pieces of associated legislation, particularly Law 1448 (2011) on victims and Law 1732 (2014) on the Cátedra de la Paz (Peace Chair), to energise peace education. This is evidenced by a flurry of academic and civil society activities in relation to peace education that the country has witnessed in the past few years, such as a string of forums and conferences at higher and vocational education institutes, and the creation and/or further development of several university centres and specialised study programmes on peace education and peacebuilding. Footnote 11 On the part of the government, attention to peace education in schools and higher education institutes is reflected in several pieces of legislation, foremost Law 1448 of 2011 Footnote 12 and Law 1732 of 2014. Footnote 13

Seeking to institutionalise peace education as part of its broader peace effort, in 2014–2015 the Santos administration instituted the Peace Chair through Law 1732 of 2014 and Regulatory Decree 1083 of 2015. The new legislation, which was elaborated centrally and did not result from broader consultations by the national government with Colombia’s wider education sector (Grajales 2018 ), Footnote 14 stipulates that all educational entities in Colombia—from primary school through to university—must establish and operate a Cátedra de la Paz by 31 December 2015 (Gobierno de Colombia 2014 , 2015 ). The Peace Chair’s stated overarching goal is to “encourage the process of appropriation of knowledge and skills related to territory, culture, economic and social context and historical memory , with the aim of reconstructing the social fabric, promoting prosperity and ensuring the effectiveness of the principles, rights and duties enshrined in the Constitution (author’s translation)” (Gobierno de Colombia 2015 : art. 2). This is to be achieved through learning , reflection and dialogue on: (a) a culture of peace ; (b) peace education and (c) sustainable development.

In keeping with what is an extraordinarily broad underlying conception of peace education, the regulatory decree lists 12 thematic areas that are to constitute the core contents of the Peace Chair: “(a) justice and human rights; (b) the sustainable use of natural resources; (c) protection of the nation’s cultural and natural wealth; (d) peaceful conflict resolution; (e) prevention of harassment in schools; (f) diversity and plurality; (g) political participation; (h) historical memory; (i) moral dilemmas; (j) social impact projects; (k) the history of national and international peace accords; (l) life projects and risk prevention (author’s translation)” (Gobierno de Colombia 2015 : art. 4).

While schools are required to incorporate at least two of the listed thematic areas into their curricula, they can choose which ones at their own discretion. Furthermore, the legislation does not provide any guidance on whether peace education should be offered as a subject in its own right or whether any two of the 12 broad topics could simply be grafted onto already existing curricula, such as in ethics and democratic citizenship education (Grajales 2018 ). With respect to higher education, the scope of indeterminacy and flexibility is even bigger. Referring to article 69 of the country’s constitution, which stipulates the autonomy and self-determination of higher education institutes, the national government resolved to leave it up to them to decide what they deem opportune and necessary to offer students by way of peace education.

Of course, it is a truism that one cannot expect any piece of legislation—however well-crafted—to result by virtue of its own existence in positive institutional and social change. Furthermore, it should be stressed that Colombian pedagogues and students have seized in creative fashion upon the opportunity presented by the peace process and the Cátedra de la Paz to further develop existing local discourses on, and practices of, peace education (Focus Group 2020 ). Footnote 15 This sense of a new beginning is well captured in the words of Ignacio Mantilla, who between 2012 and 2018 served as the rector of the National University of Colombia:

Our post-conflict university must set an example and its role will be to build a new culture, grounded in respect and ethics; a culture of peace and progress based on […] equality and social inclusion. [This new culture] should replace political intimidation with participation, […] the pamphlet and the harangue with constructive reflection; it should liberate scientific capacity; and, definitively, it should prevent the vices of politicking from penetrating and becoming entrenched in the university (author’s translation). (Mantilla 2016 )

This notwithstanding, I believe that overall the Santos administration and lawmakers did the country a small favour with this particular legislation. Ostensibly seeking to pay heed to the SDGs and UNESCO’s cultures of peace approach, the terms in which the Cátedra de la Paz is framed come across as arbitrary and too broad for the Peace Chair to galvanise the promotion of peace through education (Focus Group 2020 ; Grajales 2018 ; Ortega 2016 ). Although thus far no systematic evaluations of current Colombian peace education are available, first indications are that the field is facing significant challenges (Acevedo and Baéz 2018 ; Focus Group 2020 ; Gómez-Suarez 2017 ; Rodríguez 2016 ; Semana 2019 ). I suggest that in part this is due to the conceptual fuzziness of Law 1732 and its failure to prioritise certain key contents, such as education on and for the recovery and preservation of historical memory, over more nebulous ones like “moral dilemmas” or the “protection of the nation’s cultural and natural wealth.”

Determined not to allow the Cátedra de la Paz to suffer the same fate as past government initiatives on peace education, which tended to obliterate the long-term structural causes of peacelessness and prioritise a focus on civic and ethical issues (Rodríguez 2016 ), Colombian peace scholars, pedagogues and students are presently engaged in providing the Peace Chair with deeper and more concrete meaning. This includes orienting the field towards critical reflection and a focus on how it could galvanise broader social action beyond the confines of the classroom (Focus Group 2020 ). Interestingly, this work-in-progress, which is more in line with critical approaches to peace education, is often associated with the recovery and preservation of historical memory among learners and survivors of the armed conflict (Corredor et al. 2018 ; Focus Group 2020 ; Girón 2016 ; Herrera and Pertuz 2016 ; Merchán 2016 ; Ortega 2016 ; Torres 2016 ). Leading on from my discussion of the (dis)contents of historical memory, which I offer in the following chapter, I present an argument about the challenges but also the relevance and usefulness of historical memory-oriented peace education in countries wrestling with, and emerging from violent conflict, in Chapter 4 .

It is worthwhile to recall here the observation of Johan Galtung, the seminal Norwegian peace and peace education scholar-practitioner, that in its beginnings peace research had a challenging time becoming established at universities in Europe and North America. When the emerging academic discipline finally moved from the margins and from what today would be called thinktanks into the higher education sector, it was strong on research but weak on education (Galtung 1974 ). While many efforts have since been made to integrate research and education on peace, and a plethora of study and learning programmes have been set up at universities and specialised training institutes, including in countries of the South, research and education on peace and violent conflict still do not communicate as much as they should with one another (Senghaas, cited in Frieters-Reermann 2009 ).

In illustration, based on a search of the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge database on “articles published in English since 2000 with ‘peace’ in their title,” Peter Coleman found more than “40 terms distinguishing different types or aspects of peace. […] Peace can differ in a variety of ways, including by level (interpersonal to international to global peace), direction (internal and external peace), durability (from fragile to enduring peace), source or conditions (peace through coercion, democratic participation, economic incentive, etc.), type (negative, positive and promotive peace) and scope (local to global peace)” (Coleman 2013 : 103).

According to Galtung, direct violence involves acts geared towards inflicting physical harm and destruction on others, while structural and cultural violence manifest in the exploitation of others and patterns of justification of both direct and structural violence, respectively (Galtung 2012 ).

The difficulty of establishing the effects and impact of peace education on students’ attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and values is a recurrent topic in the literature. If at all, thus far authors have offered mostly anecdotal evidence about such effects, while it is recognised that there is a need for more systematic and methodologically more sophisticated evaluations of peace education (Bar-Tal 2002 ; Danesh 2008 ; Frieters-Reermann 2010 ; Harris and Lewer 2005 ; Ross 2010 ).

In an early contribution to this debate, Elise Boulding suggested that the “life experience of persons committed to a belief in, and action on behalf of, non-violent social change” must include such high-aiming features as “optimal opportunities as a child for development of emotional, cognitive and intuitive capacities in home, school and community […]”; “substantial exposure to a variety of adult and peer role models in different kinds of social settings” and “experiences of rewarding social feedback in the playing out of roles and solving problems” (Boulding 1974 : 103–104).

Raised at the international level for the first time at the International Congress on Peace in the Minds of Men in Cote d’Ivoire in July 1989, the culture of peace concept was inspired by a 1986 educational initiative of Peru called “Cultura de Paz.” The Sevilla Manifesto of 1986, in which scientists from around the world stated that war and violence have no biological origin and are not to be seen as an essential part of human nature but are social inventions, also served as a catalyst for the launch of UNESCO’s Culture of Peace Programme in 1994 (Labrador 2003 ; Lum 2013 ). The culture of peace initiative reverberates to this day in the Sustainable Development Goals. Target 4.7 explicitly includes the “promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence” under the heading Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (UN General Assembly 2015).

In a similar vein, Boulding defines peace culture as a “mosaic of identities, attitudes, values, beliefs, and patterns of behaviour that lead people to live nurturantly with one another and the earth itself without the aid of structural power differentials, to deal creatively with their differences and share their resources” (Boulding 2002 : 8).

Among the issues that haunted first-generation peace researchers cum pedagogues was whether peace education should be on or for peace. In other words, should peace education focus on teaching the insights and results gained from academic peace studies (what could be called the “scientific” approach) or should it strive to educate learners so that they would become peaceful and peace-supporting citizens of the world (what could be called the “normative” and “applied” approach) (see, for instance, Nicklas and Ostermann 1974 ; Wiberg 1974 ). In a contribution to the debate published in 1974, Galtung called for “peace education [to] be taken seriously” and “peace research, peace action, and peace education […] find[ing] each other and integrate into the natural unified whole” (Galtung 1974 : 153). Interestingly, and very much in counterflow to conventional academia, his proposal for how to achieve these important goals is based on the idea that the form of peace education ought to guide the development of its contents .

The literature review conducted for this research reveals that meaningful learning and exchange between peace researchers and pedagogues in democratic and prosperous countries, on the one hand, and violence-inflected developing countries on the other remains limited. For instance, Colombian scholars and educators appear to have little access to relevant international debates and discourses, especially to those of Anglo-American and European provenance. This is reflected in the fact that only few international contributions to the field are being discussed in the Colombian literature. This book seeks to contribute to bridging some of the gaps between these distanced academic and pedagogical worlds.

Given that peace education scholars and pedagogues often do not specify to which level of education they are referring, my characterisation of this particular feature of the conventional and critical approaches to peace education is tentative.

Among such conferences and forums were the National Meeting on Peace Education (Encuentro Nacional de Educación para la Paz) in October 2015; the First International Congress on Education and Society: the role of education in peacebuilding (Primer Congreso Internacional de Educación y Sociedad: el papel de la educación en la construcción de la paz) at Universidad de La Salle in November 2016; the annual conferences of REDUNIPAZ, a university alliance on peace education dating back to the late 1990s; and a series of public debates organised by Colombia’s National Vocational Training Service (SENA in Spanish), in one of which the author of this study participated in Cali in 2017. At the level of the Andean region, the UNESCO Chair on Culture and Education for Peace at Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja in neighbouring Ecuador began establishing collaborations with higher education institutes in Colombia, such as the Centro de Investigación y Estudios en Paz, Conflictos y Desarrollo (CIPAZ) at Universidad de Pamplona (Santander department). Recently created study programmes and higher education centres that focus on peace education or include an emphasis on peacebuilding are the Centro de Estudios en Educación para la Paz at Universidad de La Sabana, the UNESCO Chair on Education and a Culture of Peace at Universidad del Rosario, and the MA in Peacebuilding at Universidad de Los Andes, among others. Entrusted with coordinating the MA in Government at Universidad Icesi in Cali in the period 2016–2018, the author of this book developed the extant curriculum to include a focus on the challenges and governance of peacebuilding in Colombia.

Law 1448, popularly known as “victims’ law,” is a key piece of legislation proposed by, and adopted during, the Santos administration. Focused on legally recognising the victims of the armed conflict, safeguarding their fundamental rights and providing guarantees for the non-repetition of human rights abuses and atrocious crimes, the law stipulates the creation of a “social pedagogy that promotes the constitutional values that form the basis for reconciliation” and the “design and implementation of pedagogical strategies that empower victims legally (author’s translation)” (Gobierno de Colombia 2011 : art. 149).

Some Colombian authors also include Law 975 of 2005, the so-called “justice and peace law,” in the list of pieces of legislation promoting peace education in contemporary Colombia (Herrera and Pertuz 2016 ; Rodríguez 2016 ). Highly controversial at the time it entered into effect as well as thereafter, Law 975 stipulates that demobilised members of illegal armed groups are entitled to training and education to facilitate their reincorporation into civilian life (Gobierno de Colombia 2005 : art. 66).

It is also noteworthy that the legislation gave educational establishments precious little time to introduce peace education into curricula. Issued on 25 May 2015, the regulatory decree stipulates that all pre-school, primary and secondary school programmes are to implement the Peace Chair before 31 December 2015, that is, a mere six months after the legislation’s issuance!

Recent contributions to the literature on peace education in Colombia include Corredor et al. ( 2018 ), Diazgranados et al. ( 2014 ), Echavarría and Cremin ( 2019 ), González ( 2016 ), Grajales ( 2018 ), Ortega ( 2016 ), Salamanca et al. ( 2016 ), Vargas et al. ( 2018 ), and Villalobos ( 2018 ).

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Schultze-Kraft, M. (2022). Conventional and Critical Approaches to Peace Education. In: Education for Sustaining Peace through Historical Memory. Memory Politics and Transitional Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93654-9_2

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Journal of Peace Education

Journal of Peace Education publishes articles which promote discussions on theories, research and practices in peace education in varied educational and cultural settings. Journal of Peace Education is transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and intercultural. It aims to link theory and research to educational practice and is committed to furthering original research on peace education, theory, curriculum and pedagogy. Journal of Peace Education understands peace education as education for the achievement of non-violent, ecologically sustainable, just and participatory societies. The Journal addresses a wide range of interests among scholars, researchers, activists, educators, policy-makers and practitioners in peace education. The editors welcome well-written articles that advance knowledge and assist the development of practice in peace education, as well as review essays and proposals for thematically based issues.

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Perspective article, building a culture of peace in everyday life with inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives.

• Facultad de Comercio, Administración y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

In this article, peace is emphasized as a vital condition for all aspects of our existence, as individuals, as a society, and in our planet. The importance of inter- and transdisciplinarity in promoting a culture of peace and peace education is presented. Some examples of initiatives aimed at cultivating a culture of peace from diverse areas of knowledge are also provided. The paper presents a current and interconnected viewpoint on peace study, as well as some ideas for combining peace with education in the everyday routine of teaching and research work, regardless of discipline.

Introduction

Peace is a global concept that is more relevant than ever in today’s society. It is not simply a concern for countries and governments; it is also a concern for individuals in their relationships with others and with the planet. According to Capistrano (2020) , peace is linked to the harmonious coexistence of individuals in their environment, which depends on principles such as social justice, sustainability, democracy and tolerance. A culture of peace can be fostered and promoted via education not only in large projects but also in everyday life. As stated by Cuéllar (2009) , ordinary life is a key object of philosophical reflection from which “a humanism up to the mark of our time” can be derived, and everyday life is “where we begin to forge ourselves as people, where we can completely fulfill ourselves, in terms of work, production and rest, in married and family life, in the experience of love, freedom and recognition of the other.”

This article highlights the importance of promoting peace education and a culture of peace through inter- and transdisciplinarity. The paper also provides examples of initiatives aimed at fostering a culture of peace from diverse areas of knowledge. Additionally, various concepts for integrating peace with education in everyday life are given, regardless of discipline.

An Imperfect and Everyday Peace

When asked “what is peace?” we tend to define it in terms of the absence of war, warlike conflicts, or discord. Known as a negative conception of peace, this perspective has persisted since ancient times. Conversely, positive peace emphasizes the promotion of values, respect, justice, equity, communication, collaboration, empathy, collaboration, and non-violence. Positive peace desires peace and wellbeing and avoids conflict at all costs. However, this concept appears perfect, utopian, or unattainable. As a result, a new approach termed “imperfect peace” has been developed ( Comins-Mingol, 2002 ). The reason it is imperfect is that we are perpetually reconstructing it; it is a dynamic, continuous, and multifaceted concept. Imperfect peace admits that peace and conflicts coexist. Acosta Oidor et al. (2021) explain that peace and violence are both present in every aspect of daily life and not only in a single field such as politics. Furthermore, they quote that peace is a road and not a state. Imperfect peace alludes to the imperfect nature of every human. The concept of imperfect peace is a productive field on which we can produce from our regular work routine.

Culture of Peace

Culture of peace refers to “lifestyles, belief patterns, values, behaviors, (…) wellbeing, equality, equitable administration of resources, security for individuals and families, (…) non-violence, and harmony” ( Cabello et al., 2016 ). Culture of peace is inclusive and complex because it incorporates knowledge, values, and communication. It also integrates physical, biological, and social aspects. Culture of peace is all-encompassing. Page (2008) defines peace education as “the process of acquiring values, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony with oneself, others, and the natural environment.” Peace education encompasses personal, social, and planetary dimensions. Thus, can we integrate peace into every facet of our lives? Is it possible to improve coexistence between people to foster a culture of peace? Personally, I believe we may achieve both goals through our daily life activities.

Rationale for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity

Should we continue to foster a culture of peace by focusing on a single discipline or collaborating on several? According to Edgar Morin’s complex thinking ( Morin, 1994 ), our contemporary reality, phenomena, and problems are complex by nature. Complexity entails more than just difficulty; it also signifies that the problems are interconnected in a framework spanning several knowledge domains. Accordingly, to address problems and better comprehend our reality, they must be regarded as interconnected and inseparable in a feedback loop, that is, from a holistic and collaborative perspective of multiple disciplines. For this reason, reductionist perspectives are no longer enough for a pertinent understanding of our reality. In this context, two key elements emerge, namely the integration of diverse specialties and collaborative work, which facilitate inter and transdisciplinary work.

According to the literature, the concept of inter- and transdisciplinarity derives from an advanced and mature level of collaboration between multiple disciplines ( Escobar, 2010 ). First, disciplinarity occurs from specialization in a single area of knowledge. Then, multidisciplinarity emerges when several fields study the same object without interacting with one another. Pluridisciplinarity is the result of uncoordinated collaboration between different areas of knowledge. Finally, inter- and transdisciplinarity are achieved when some methodologies are transferred between disciplines (the former) and when a comprehensive and holistic perspective supports collaborations between disciplines, through them, and beyond them (the latter) ( Klein, 2010 ). In transdisciplinarity, cognitive schemes intersect disciplines. As a result of this advanced level of collaboration, disciplines often face problems, difficulties, or challenges. Transdisciplinarity itself is not an exception; the different approaches to its conceptualization have led to contradictory points of view. For Rigolot (2020) , these contradictions can be surpassed, by considering transdisciplinarity both as a discipline by itself and as a way of being. As a way of being, transdisciplinarity is fully incorporated into the human life and cannot be reduced to professional activities. This vision is compatible with that of Edgar Morin, who fully integrated transdisciplinary work with his personal life experiences ( Rigolot, 2020 ).

Inter- and Transdisciplinary Peace Education

Considering the aforementioned perspectives, effective peace education should be inter- and transdisciplinary. But how can we develop peace education through these approaches? First, embracing a complex conception of reality. In other words, reality should be viewed and understood from a broad perspective to avoid self-serving simplifications that prevent us from collaborating across disciplines. Second, our education should connect key issues such as life, humanity, culture, the planet, complexity, literature, art, philosophy, sustainability, and values regardless of field of knowledge. Third, teaching-learning processes should be adaptable, allowing teachers and students to see each subject as part of a complex whole interconnected through various mediations.

Accordingly, Lappin (2009) explains that it has been well acknowledged that peacebuilding is complex; however, there is a long-standing tendency to address peacebuilding from the point of view of a single discipline. Nicolescu (2012) adds that there is a direct and inexorable link between peace and transdisciplinarity and that any fragmented way of thinking is incompatible with peace research. Hence, education and the university must evolve to welcome a new humanism and adopt transdisciplinarity in their organization and conceptions. Along the same vein, Galtung (2010) asserts that true transdisciplinarity must be present in all aspects of the human condition, as multiple restricted or skewed perspectives will not provide a clear overview or an encompassing understanding of the whole.

Cabello et al. (2016) advocate that peace should be built on “education for justice and freedom; for reconciliation and brotherhood; for critical conscience and solidarity; for integral development and democracy; for the common good and participation; for human rights, and all the values that support and enable a culture of peace.” Acevedo Suárez and Báez Pimiento (2018) explain that educating for peace is inviting to act in the school microcosm and at the macro level of social structures. They conclude that peace education is a necessity that every educational institution must assume. París Albert (2019) exposes that peace education is also a primary tool to achieve the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda; this tool consists of creativity to imagine careful alternatives to face daily situations, as well as situations of injustice, social inequalities, environmental crises, and sustainable development.

Now comes the question of how we can educate for peace in our daily teaching and research work. Some guidelines ( Zurbano Díaz de Cerio, 1999 ) include cultivating values, learning to live with others, facilitating positive experiences, educating in conflict resolution, developing critical thinking, combating violence, educating in tolerance to diversity of dialogue, and rational argumentation. Furthermore, as educators, we must remember that our example is a powerful ally in all educational processes. We can deliver beautiful and eloquent speeches, but it is our everyday example that sows the most seeds of peace in others. We are also educating for peace via our own actions. We, as teachers, may encourage active listening, empathy, depersonalization of conflicts, and respect for limitations and opinions. In this approach, we may take small steps toward strengthening our coexistence and promoting a culture of peace.

Peace education must also be established at all levels, for all ages, and for all people. However, peace education has a significant impact on youth. Peace education is crucial during childhood and youth because the seeds we sow in them when they are young will flourish henceforth and bear fruit in the future for the benefit of our society. For this reason, youth represents both present and future peace and play a key role in peace education.

Currently, several discourses, initiatives, and indicators from different disciplines describe peace education. Many of them, though, remain limited to inert speeches. Peace, on the contrary, requires action ( Jordan et al., 2021 ). We can make peace education a reality in our teaching activities through inter- and transdisciplinary approaches. Teachers can have influence in everyday life by building meaningful relationships between education and research, as well as by consistently implementing curricular and extracurricular activities that foster a culture of peace through formal and non-formal training.

Examples of Peace-Building Initiatives From Institutions, Research, Teaching and Personal Experience

Initiatives aimed at fostering a culture of peace are commonly promoted by institutions, researchers or teachers. For example, the study by Jordan et al. (2021) highlights an institutional peacebuilding initiative at the University of New Mexico School of Engineering and Health Sciences Center, where summit of the World Engineering Education Forum and Global Engineering Deans Council were hosted. The theme was “Peace Engineering” with the focal point of science and engineering-based solutions to the world’s transcendent challenges. The event responded to the urgent need for engineers to reflect, understand, measure, and anticipate the intended and unforeseen implications of their work in a global context. The results of these events comprised establishing academic programs, starting new areas of education, research, and innovation relating to climate change, water, healthcare, food security, ethics, transparency, resilience, sustainability, social equity and diversity, as well as face-to-face and virtual academic events addressing peace, and engineering concerns.

In the research context, the project by Del Río Fernández et al. (2019) attempts to promote peace via the use of plastic and visual languages. The researchers gained this interdisciplinary experience with early childhood education student teachers through photographic exhibitions and mural workshops. They focused on developing respect for the ideas and beliefs of others, improving peaceful community life, and fostering pacific conflict resolution. This project is a clear illustration of how peace can be promoted from a variety of perspectives, such as the plastic arts.

In the teaching field, Miralay (2020) found that according to teachers’ perceptions, the awareness of the culture of peace by students through arts education would promote individual and social peace. They also found that families, school administrators and governmental institutions have an essential role in promoting peace. Also, it was evident that there are deficiencies in the institutions while performing this process. On the other hand, the work of Domínguez and Ordinas (2019) describes the application of a novel methodology to promote socially equitable education in university teaching in courses involving the past and present of relations between human societies and cultures on a global scale. The aim of their work is to use ludic methods instead of traditional methods of study. Their students were encouraged to have a critical, pluralistic, cooperative outlook on the meaning of peace. This pedagogical approach has enriched the way of teaching and generating historical knowledge by using cooperative games in the classroom.

I can present my personal experience with teaching software development. In the classroom I have incorporated agile approaches which recognize that software development has a strong human dimension. Thus, people take precedence over tools ( Beck et al., 2021 ). When these approaches are used in the classroom, students not only learn to program but also to collaborate while also learning to be tolerant. The principles of Egoless Programming ( Waychal and Capretz, 2018 ) are also addressed during the practical lessons to help students understand the importance of good interpersonal relationships when collaborating. These approaches have been incredibly helpful in software development teaching because they strengthen understanding, respect, empathy, tolerance, and collaboration among students. In addition, I have found through quantitative and mixed research approaches that collaborative programming can produce software with better attributes than those of individually developed programs. For example, pair programming has produced elevated levels of acceptance and well-structured programs in our sessions.

Peace and peace research are pertinent needs in our society. As teachers, we must promote peace education and a culture of peace from various angles. However, this is not an exclusive duty of teachers, but also requires the enthusiastic collaboration of institutions, students, parents, families, and communities. In this process, it is important to reflect on the contributions to peace that we can make in our everyday practice. Then, let us promote collaboration, dialogue, respect, active listening, and inclusion, using a cultural vision and living example of our behavior, thereby creating a culture of peace based on values and love in our daily lives as teachers or researchers.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Author Contributions

RR-H: conception, research, writing, editing, revising, and final draft.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We thank everyone who contributed to my encounter with the ideas presented in this manuscript. We thank Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas for the support provided to carry out this work.

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Keywords : culture of peace, peace, peace education, higher education, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary education

Citation: Roque-Hernández RV (2022) Building a Culture of Peace in Everyday Life With Inter- and Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Front. Educ. 7:847968. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.847968

Received: 03 January 2022; Accepted: 06 June 2022; Published: 23 June 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Roque-Hernández. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Ramón Ventura Roque-Hernández, [email protected]

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Education and peace.

• Taro Komatsu Taro Komatsu Sophia University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.68
• Published online: 29 March 2017

The relationship between education and peace is an area of educational research that merits sustained attention from scholars. A recent review of literature on this relationship pointed out the lack of rigorous research studies and robust evidence showing this link. This is surprising, given its significant implications for policy makers and practitioners who wish to educate youths to build and sustain a peaceful and just society. In fact, those who are engaged in education and peace research often grapple with the gap between their intuitive belief in the power of education to transform individuals and society on one hand, and the difficulty in establishing the causal relationship between the two concepts on the other. Still, today’s incessant tide of violence around the world has been propelling researchers to investigate the intersection of education and peace in order to better understand this connection.

The change in the nature of conflict has also given a new impetus to the research on education and peace. Today’s conflicts are generally fought between cultural groups within a nation, rather than between nation-states. Less developed nations, many of them being multicultural, are particularly prone to the risk of violent conflict. A study suggesting that the percentage of extreme poverty in fragile and conflict-affected societies will increase from the current 17% to 46% by 2030 confirms the close relationships between conflict, poverty and development. Because violence caused by internal conflict is a major obstacle to achieving universal access to education and other development goals, research on education and peace has become an important agenda item in the development aid community. This has added international aid organizations to the major players in education and peace research.

To date, most research studies have attempted to determine how education contributes to, or negatively affects, peace, rather than the other way around. The notion of peace, in the meantime, is no longer merely defined as the absence of war, but has been expanded to include the absence of structural violence, a form of violence that limits the rights of certain groups of citizens. This definition of peace has enlarged the analytical scope for social science researchers engaged in peace-related studies. The research field of education and peace has expanded beyond curriculum, textbooks, and pedagogy to also include education policy, governance, administration, and school management. Research may explore, for example, the impact of equitable and inclusive education policy and governance on the development of citizenship and social cohesion in the context of multicultural societies.

Importantly, scholars engaged in education and peace research need to consider how peace-building education policy and practices can actually be realized in societies where political leaders and education professionals are unwilling to implement reforms that challenge the existing power structure. Normative arguments around education for peace will be challenged in such a context. This means that education and peace research need to draw on multiple academic disciplines, including political science, sociology, and psychology, in order to not only answer the normative questions concerning peace-building policies and practices, but also address their feasibility.

Finally, the development of education and peace research can be enhanced by rigorously designed evaluation studies. How do we measure the outcomes of peace-building policies and practices? The choice of criteria for measurement may depend on the local context, but the discussion and establishment of fair and adaptable evaluation methodology can further enhance education policy and practices favoring peace and thus enrich the research in this field.

• structural violence

Introduction

Researchers engaged in studies about education and peace are primarily interested in finding a way to reduce violence in the world. Violence harms persons physically and psychologically, often making a “normal life” forever impossible. Such tragedies frequently fall on vulnerable people, including children. This has serious consequences not only for the affected individuals, but for the society as a whole, as sustainable development will not be achieved without healthy, productive, and informed citizens in the future generations. It is telling that children in conflict-affected areas are twice as likely to die as those in other low-income nations. 1 We all want to live in a world free from violence. This shared hope drives us to pursue education policies and practices to promote peace, and to seek evidence to improve such policies and practices.

Research on education and peace is meaningful for three reasons. First, violent conflicts occur in almost every continent of the world. Reflecting this reality, “peace-building” has become a popular terminology used by academics in related fields, as well as by policy-makers and practitioners in the international aid community. It was symbolic that Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a former secretary general of the United Nations, added peace-building to the role of the UN in conflict situations. Mr. Boutros-Ghali foresaw that activism was necessary to remove the potential seeds of violence, rather than simply observing the temporary cessation of hostilities. Education is one of these activist interventions, because it can affect the values, perspectives, and attitudes of future generations who will shape tomorrow’s world. Given the prevalence of conflicts and resulting human tragedies, research to expand our understanding of the relationship between education and peace is warranted.

Second, conflict deprives many people of the very opportunity to learn, a basic human right. UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report in 2011 had a subtitle The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education to remind us of the dire situation of children in conflict areas who could not access education. The majority of these out-of-school children were girls. Today, 21.5 million primary school-aged children and another 15 million secondary school–aged children in conflict-affected nations are not attending schools, and the proportion of out-of-school children has been on the rise. 2 The length of a conflict in a low-income nation tends to be 12 years, depriving children of their entire school opportunity. 3 Indeed, the drop-out rate of primary school children in fragile contexts is close to three times higher than for children in other developing nations. 4 The United Nations recently announced Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that called on its member states to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, shifting its emphasis from access to quality. For children in conflict-affected societies, even access to basic education is still a dream unfulfilled.

Third, there is a growing concern that the current emphasis on accountability related to the acquisition of cognitive skills may marginalize research on education and peace. Policy-makers tend to seek “quick solutions” to problems in a society. Research studies that deal with long-term, complex issues, such as education and peace, may not be given a place in the priority lists of governmental funding. In general, the non-cognitive benefits of education on individual lives, in areas such as tolerance and critical thinking, are not easily assessed, while their impact on society is even more challenging to evaluate. Researchers may prefer studies that yield quick outcomes for publication in the competitive academic culture. It is then critical to continue arguing for the importance of peace and education research, giving proper recognition to such research. In 2016 , the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Vancouver established a special interest group titled “Education, Conflict, and Emergencies.” Such an initiative can provide an opportunity for both practitioners and academicians to not only debate topics pertinent to education and peace, but also to convey to concerned stakeholders and constituencies that research on education and peace is worth pursuing.

The Nature of Modern Conflict

Research on education and peace must be situated in each particular circumstance. Present-day conflicts are commonly characterized as interstate, or fought between different groups within a national boundary. Since World War II, many people have perished, either by participating in or being caught in interethnic conflicts. One study shows that 20 million died as a result of the wars between 1945 and 1993 , of which 70% were casualties in interethnic clashes. 5 Today, it is commonly understood that interethnic conflicts are not necessarily attributed to the thesis of “class of civilizations,” but may be multifaceted, such as including resource competition. 6 Still, given that the majority of today’s sovereign states are multicultural, and previously homogeneous states are becoming increasingly multicultural due to globalization, one cannot underscore the importance of addressing the challenge of “living together.”

Recognizing the need to address peaceful coexistence, the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century was convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Its 1996 report titled Learning: The Treasure Within is still relevant to today’s even more connected world; it declared “living together” as one of the four pillars of learning for the 21st century , along with learning to know, learning to do, and learning to be. The report explains that conflict is a part of human nature, and we need to learn how to manage it by using nonviolent means. To accomplish this, education should provide opportunities to “discover others,” to learn that different people may share common interests and must depend on each other for their survival. As an educational approach, schools are encouraged to provide learning activities, including sports and cultural events, whereby students of diverse backgrounds work together for common objectives. Through this cooperation, students would become more aware of their common characteristics and interests. 7

The need to address “living together” through educational means is acutely felt in societies that have undergone internal conflicts, because antagonistic groups continue to share living space. However, such educational interventions face challenges because access to quality education is often severely limited due to the resource constraints and capacity deficiencies of national authorities. In such a case, various nonstate actors may need to be involved. The notion of human security is relevant and important in this regard. Human security, as advocated by the Indian economist Amartya Sen and the former head of UNHCR Sadako Ogata in their report Human Security Now , shifted the focus of security from the state to individual human beings. 8 Human security recognizes the limits of the state when it is too weak to function properly or does not intend to protect all of its citizens. The report calls for diverse actors, from nongovernmental organizations to international donors and agencies, to work together to safeguard the essential rights of people exposed to life threats and risks, including access to opportunities to learn how to live together. Educational opportunities should also be diversified to reach out to learners who no longer attend formal schools. Non-formal education and adult literacy training, including accelerated learning programs, catch-up programs, or equivalency programs for those who missed schooling due to conflicts or disasters, can become an important venue to provide these learning opportunities.

These flexible learning opportunities are of particular importance, given that today’s inter-group conflicts cause a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The host nation of refugees typically hesitates to actively provide social services to refugees because such a policy may encourage them to stay longer in their newly found sanctuary. IDPs also face a challenge, in that the national or local authority may be reluctant to provide social services, including education, to those hostile to them. Refugees and IDPs, in turn, may refuse to accept the national curriculum, which they view as containing unfair representations of their group in subjects such as history and literature. Such a case is found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where returnees faced the problem of learning in schools controlled by an ethnic group different from their own, resulting in “two schools under one roof” where the two different ethnic groups hold separate classes within the same school premises. 9

These situations often necessitate, or create space for, the involvement of external actors to provide alternative education with the aim to facilitate reconciliation, thereby enhancing human security. In the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, for example, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) developed and implemented a Peace Education Program (PEP) in 1998 to respond to ethnic tensions that existed among refugees who had fled a conflict in Sudan. The PEP, which was implemented in both schools and the community at large, aimed to develop skills among refugee youth to communicate, cooperate, and think critically. 10 The PEP did not follow the national-specific curriculum and learning content of either the conflict nation or the host nation accepting refugees. Because of the flexible nature of the program, its materials have been used by UNESCO and other international agencies in various post-conflict contexts, including African nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, and Sudan. 11

The Relationship between Education and Peace

Researchers studying education and peace are primarily interested in discovering and understanding the relationship between these two concepts. Peace, or its absence, affects education significantly. Peace can help fulfill the achievement of basic human rights, including the right to receive basic quality education. The absence of peace, or the presence of physical, structural, and cultural violence, can affect the provision of educational services and learning outcomes. Education for All (EFA), a global campaign to safeguard children’s right to education, will not be achieved unless significant efforts are made on the part of national governments and the international aid community to provide education during and after conflicts, natural disasters, and similar situations. Further research to analyze the impact of conflict on educational services and their effective delivery in emergencies can greatly support the realization of EFA.

More typically, however, research in this field has a focus on education’s contributions to peace. More research in this direction is advocated, because such research studies would seek answers to questions regarding the values, meaning, and functions of education. A challenge emerges when we operationalize these two concepts, particularly peace.

The operationalization of education is relatively simple. Researchers would ask, for example, what and how much education contributes to more, or leads to less, peace. They would look at the type of education, for example, primary education or across different education levels, and its coverage (enrollment) rate. Or they would choose to focus on a particular subject or educational activity, and compare the performance of participants and nonparticipants, or pre- and post-participation of the same group.

The operationalization of peace is more challenging. What should we look for in order to determine if and to what extent peace is being built or strengthened? If one adopts the definition of peace as the absence of physical violence, data will be focused on showing a change in the pattern or frequency of violence in the place where the educational activity takes place. Of course, one may argue that violence could occur regardless of a particular educational intervention. Here the distinction between outputs (or outcomes ) and impacts is useful. Outputs of a particular subject or an activity can be measured by the acquisition of a particular set of knowledge, attitudes, and skills that are considered to be pro-peace, while impacts are presumed long-terms consequences of the intervention for a society at large. Impacts are difficult to assess, given the many confounding factors that can affect the consequences of interventions.

In operationalizing the concept of peace, social cohesion can be a useful idea. Social cohesion refers to the density and interplay of the horizontal trust relations between social groups and the vertical trust relations between government institutions and civilians. 12 Trust refers to reciprocal relations between two parties based on expectation and obligation, 13 which enables human beings to cooperate in economic activities and affects the general well-being of a nation. 14 A socially cohesive society is said to be less prone to internal strife and violence. One may examine the degrees of social trust across different societies or different periods within a society to determine the effectiveness of a particular educational intervention. In constructing survey items to gauge the degrees of social trust, the World Values Survey or a similar instrument can serve as a helpful reference. The World Values Survey is an international project that examines changing values and their impact on societies. It conducts face-to-face interviews with representative samples in some 100 countries and asks respondents to answer questions such as “How much do you trust people you meet for the first time?” “How much do you trust your neighbours?” and “How much do you trust people of another religion?” 15 Post-conflict nations tend to record lower scores on these questions than more stable countries.

After operationalizing peace, the next step is to determine the unit of analysis, which can be a school, community, region, or nation. When one conducts an activity in a school, the dependent variable may be the frequency of violence or the degree of trust among the students in the chosen school or its surrounding community. Such a relationship can be established by an experimental study or by a qualitative inquiry approach using a case study or interviews with program stakeholders (participants, instructors, managers, and community residents). Then, one can judge whether the school or community has become more peaceful due to the intervention.

When the unit of analysis is a broader society, such as a region or a nation, assessing the impact of an activity involves the work of inference. One may argue that the significant effects noted between participating and nonparticipating schools or from pre- to post-intervention would mean that such an activity can contribute to the building and maintenance of peace in the wider society. However, such logic can invite criticism due to the possibility of confounding new variables. The frequency of violence or the level of social trust can increase or decrease, regardless of education. For this reason, research addressing education and peace must define the scope of its claim from the onset of its inquiry. This is particularly relevant in the case of policy studies, because their results are often expected to show the impact of an intervention on the broader society.

Research on education and peace has been helped by Johan Galtung’s definition of peace as the absence of structural violence. Galtung, a prominent peace scholar, introduced the notion of structural violence as a systematic form of discrimination against individuals and groups in a society. 16 Removing the structural violence has become a focus of peace activists because it can ignite direct violence. It is important to note, however, that structural violence is not necessarily linked to large-scale military conflict. Structural violence challenges us to question whether we should be content if a society enjoys “stability” when a marginalized and disadvantaged group, such as handicapped children or girls, continues to experience discrimination. For them, peace may not be felt. Peace is not just the absence of physical violence; it has to include justice.

Today, international aid donors address structural violence by conducting conflict analysis that examines the equality and equity of access to social services, among other topics. For example, they analyze whether and to what extent certain social groups may be marginalized from educational services due to their linguistic backgrounds. Kosovo is a prime example. The Albanians, the majority population of the territory, increased their discontent toward the Serbs in authority when their President Slobodan Milošević enacted a law that prohibited the use of the Albanian language in schools. As a result, the ethnic Albanian teachers and students left the state schools and started their own schools in private homes, where it was difficult to provide quality educational services. This law created discontent among the ethnic Albanians that eventually escalated into a conflict. Understanding the equality and equity of educational access across different educational levels can also help us assess the nature of structural violence and its potentiality for physical violence. Ishiyama and Breunig, for example, found in their cross-national analysis that access to higher education is a more significant indicator than access to primary and secondary education in preventing the recurrence of violence. 17 They speculate that access to higher education creates a higher opportunity cost for youths to join military groups.

The quality of education is another area that needs to be addressed by research communities because it has an important implication for the reduction of structural violence. Quality in education encompasses two areas: the learning environment and learning content. Educational access and a better learning environment are closely linked. A number of research studies have found that many children drop out of school in developing nations due to the lack of a quality environment for learning, including the lack of qualified teachers. Where qualified teachers are available, their frequent absence has been reported, which is suspected to discourage children from attending school. 18 This phenomenon is said to be caused by the meager teacher salaries, causing teachers to find a second job, or by late receipt of their salaries or not receiving them at all. The lack of monitoring by local administrative offices or school managers further exacerbates teacher absenteeism.

Quality of education also refers to learning content, which has implications for the reduction of structural violence. For example, citizenship education that encourages students to critically examine the issues of equality, equity, and social justice can nurture citizens who are able to transform the society into a more just one. In postwar Guatemala and other parts of Latin America, democratic citizenship education based on the doctrines of human rights and participation has been introduced by regional bodies, though it has been reported that such education did not necessarily address the issues of power structure and a sense of belonging, elements regarded as critical in the region. 19 To date, comparative and robust research studies that examine the effectiveness of these citizenship education approaches are few. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Incheon Declaration, an international proclamation of educational goals for the period between 2015 and 2030 , refer to the importance of global citizenship education and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Discussion on the evidence of their effectiveness and achievement indicators has just begun.

Key Debate: Unity and Diversity

A core debate in the field of education and peace research concerns the ways in which we deal with the balance between unity and diversity. The 2015 Incheon Declaration stressed the equity of education, by recognizing and embracing the diversity of children’s needs, conditions, and cultural roots. Such values are ingrained in the concept of multicultural education. In its original concept, multicultural education is based on cultural relativism, the concept that there is no “better” or “worse” culture than others. Schools are encouraged to teach children their cultural backgrounds and cherish each and every child’s background.

However, multicultural education came to be viewed with some skepticism in the 1990s. Facing the arrival of overwhelming numbers of immigrants from non-Western civilizations and the perceived need to integrate them into their societies, the Western governments began advocating citizenship education, whose basic premise lies in the need to have a set of knowledge, skills, and values shared by their citizens. While acknowledging that each culture has value, policy-makers and scholars became concerned that social divisions based on the lack of interaction between cultural communities might create fear and mistrust between them. Policy leaders in these host nations carefully avoid using the term “assimilation” so as not to give the impression that their policies deny the cultural rights of minorities. Instead, new terminologies such as “social integration” or “citizenship” came to be used in their policy documents.

Multicultural education based on the idea of cultural relativism has also been scrutinized by human security scholars, who tend to base their claims on the principle of universalism. For example, Martha Nussbaum, an American philosopher, limits the scope of cultural values that should be tolerated. According to Nussbaum, education for girls and women is imperative to their life improvement and human security, regardless of the societies in which they live. 20 Cultural practices such as female genital mutilation should not be tolerated in view of the universal principles of human rights. While respecting individuals’ rights to determine their fate, she sets a condition under which they can do so, that is, unlimited access to information about their life choices. This means that we need to be cautious, for example, when we interpret female survey participants’ responses when they are not even aware of the limitations in their lives.

In post-conflict societies, extreme forms of multiculturalism have been seen as a threat to peace-building, rather than as an approval of cultural rights. A typical example is post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter referred to as BiH) which witnessed violent clashes during the 1992–1995 war between three “constituent” peoples distinguished by their religions. Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs (Christian Orthodox), and Croats (Christian Catholics) each claimed their right to educate their children according to their ethos. Such claims of cultural rights manifested in the “group of national subjects,” including history, religion, and language. Prior to the interethnic conflict, children from these different ethnic backgrounds went to the same schools together, learned together, and played together. Now, many of these schools have become mono-ethnic, or become “mixed schools” by adopting the previously mentioned “two schools under one roof” arrangement, where children of the two ethnic groups share a school building but learn in completely separate environments with different curricula and school leadership.

Alarmed by the polarization of BiH society, the international community has been prodding the ethnic leaders to work together on the provision of educational services to promote national integrity. In 2003 , the international community demanded that the authorities adopt the Common Framework Law to ensure that children learn a common set of knowledge, skills, and values based on democratic principles. In addition, a new Education Agency was established at the central level to coordinate and harmonize the nation’s education delivery, previously fragmented by 13 ministries of education. The Council of Europe has demanded that the national authorities adhere to the Common Framework Law and made it clear that BiH could only become a member of the European Union as “a unified nation.” However, any move toward a more unified nation has been met with strong resistance. The creation of ethnically mixed schools is seen as an attempt to assimilate one group into the other. Subjects such as history and geography are particularly contentious and may be irreconcilable, because each group stresses its own version of events.

An alternative approach to a unity-based paradigm is social cohesion, a looser form of social integration. As previously mentioned, social cohesion in a multicultural society refers to a trusting relationship between different social groups, as well as between civilians and public entities. Social cohesion is not about assimilation, but seeks to enhance trust while respecting diversity. 21 In developing inter-group trust, however, sharing a minimum set of values and principles is considered necessary. 22 Hence, liberal integrationists argue that common citizenship education is needed. When this type of citizenship education is planned, its curriculum has to be negotiated and agreed upon across diverse social groups so as to give legitimacy to its content and modes of delivery. Such a process itself can provide an opportunity for diverse stakeholders to interact and build rapport. Whether sharing common citizenship principles does indeed enhance inter-group trust is a question that needs to be addressed by empirical studies.

Social cohesion can also be strengthened by inter-group contacts. Peace education activities in post-conflict societies tend to include a component of inter-group contacts that are believed to reduce bias and facilitate mutual understanding. Such a belief is based on the well-known “contact hypothesis” advanced by Gordon Allport and Thomas Pettigrew. These scholars examined the effects of racially integrated schools in the United States on children’s attitudes toward each other and found positive impacts. Research studies around the world have shown similar results, including Sri Lanka, 23 Northern Ireland, 24 Australia 25 and Canada. 26 Such inter-group contacts are a key ingredient of inter-cultural education, which can lead to the realization of a peaceful society. While the notion of “multicultural” describes more the nature of a collection of people, “inter-cultural” emphasizes the process of interactions between different cultures. 27 Its basic premise lies in the belief that inter-group trust, or “living together,” requires interaction and cannot be forged by simply sharing the same geographical space. Its pedagogical approach emphasizes the processes of interaction, conversation, engagement, debate, and dialogue. 28

Certain conditions are needed, however, to ensure that inter-group contacts are effective in developing trusting relationships. Allport and Pettigrew identified that interacting groups need to share common goals and equal status, sustain the contacts, and enjoy support from their authorities. 29 These conditions are not easily met in the many societies where such activities are most needed. In multicultural societies around the world, different social groups often do not share the same status in political and economic spheres. An illustrative case is found in the study by Ifat Maoz, who reviewed planned encounters between Jews and Palestinian-Arabs between 1988 and 2008 . Maoz asserts that encounters meant to stress commonness between the two groups without addressing existing structural relations may have left participants feeling disappointed and frustrated. 30 In addition, national authorities may refuse to endorse inter-group activities if they see these activities as a threat to the status quo that benefits them. In some of the previously mentioned “two schools under one roof” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethno-national politics mandated that students from the different ethnic groups use different entrances so as to avoid mixing. 31 Additional research is needed to investigate the conditions that support the contact hypothesis, particularly in conflict-affected contexts. This should contribute to our understanding of when and how these inter-group activities advance social cohesion and peace.

A key ingredient of intercultural pedagogy that has the potential of building inter-group trust is the notion of multiple identities. Amartya Sen maintains that one’s freedom to “rationally” choose an identity needs to be respected. 32 People can more easily reach out to those in an antagonistic group when they share alternative identities, such as gender and generation. Exclusive national, regional, or ethnic identities, on the other hand, limits the possibilities of forming inter-group connections. What is not clear, however, is how schools can encourage students to become aware of their multiple identities, particularly during a time of inter-group conflicts. Despite their potential for human security and peace-building, few research studies exist to address educational approaches that nurture multiple identities as a way to enhance inter-group trust, or “bridging social capital.”

The lack of research regarding pedagogical approaches to the development of multiple identities is partly due to the lack of practices related to this topic. Education has traditionally been the responsibility of the state, which has a monopoly over curriculum content and even pedagogical approaches. Despite the evidence that shows national school curricula are increasingly encouraging global awareness, 33 the primary purpose of public education remains the development of a national identity to enhance national unity. The modernization paradigm that centers the nation-state as the source of identity is still dominant, so pedagogies for multiple identities are somewhat constrained by this paradigm.

Among various learning subjects, history education is particularly contentious, because it is seen to influence the balance between unity and diversity. History education has been used by the states to teach their approved version of historical events, which tend to glorify the shared experiences of their nationals. Such a learning experience is believed to give confidence and a sense of unity to the nationals. However, this approach to history education inevitably faces a problem, because the world is composed of multiple nations. Different explanations for a historical event are often noted by the use of opposing words such as “advancement” in one curriculum and “aggression” in another. This can create very different worldviews among youth. In a multicultural and conflict-affected nation, youth who have been taught different versions of history may experience awkward situations when they live in close proximity to the other social groups. Rwanda has dealt with this issue in a particular way. Because of its contentious nature, the Rwandan government suspended history education after the genocide for some 10 years. More recent history education stresses the unified national identity. 34

Alternative approaches to history education have been developed that overcome a mono-perspective approach, and deal with the issue of unity and diversity in a constructive way to facilitate reconciliation and nurture critical minds. Such attempts have been well-documented in English language reports and academic papers, particularly in Europe. Supported by regional agencies such as the Council of Europe, the European Association of History Educators (EUROCLIO), and Georg Eckert Institute, common history textbook productions have been attempted. For example, the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE) initiated a Joint History Project with 11 countries in the region to produce common textbooks. These textbooks discuss not only kings and military generals but also the daily lives of common people on all sides and their suffering as well as their cooperation. 35 The project was deemed generally successful with the participation of motivated educators from the region, despite some technical challenges including the uneven availability of historic documents. 36

History education can also be conceived based on the principle of an outcome-based curriculum. Originally promoted as a way to make school education accountable and transparent, an outcome-based approach presents the objectives and indicators of learning achievement before planning a course syllabus. An outcome-based approach to history education, for example, sets out its objective as “being able to formulate hypotheses, gather and analyze evidence, and present a conclusion,” instead of “learning and memorizing a version of a historical event.” History education that attempts to develop multiple perspectives may profit from such an outcome-based strategy. Moreover, because critical thinking and analytical skills are increasingly recognized as a legitimate way of learning, different groups or nations can agree to develop history education syllabi with these skills as learning outcomes. This can avoid the issue of different groups teaching different versions of the same historical event.

A question remains as to how these approaches may be achieved. What do the syllabus and pedagogical approaches look like in a history education course that nurtures critical thinking? What kind of teacher training is necessary when teachers themselves do not have such learning experiences? Most of all, will the state authority allow such a progressive approach to history education, particularly in a post-conflict nation where authorities are struggling to secure their legitimacy by stressing their group or national identity? An outcome-based approach to history education is still theoretical and practiced in very few parts of the world. The approach represents a shift away from an over-emphasis on the “factual” content of history to the view that history is best understood as an interpretation of evidence. Students are encouraged to evaluate evidence from a variety of sources, consider competing interpretations, and develop their own critical perspective on events of the past. 37 Supported by a third party, be they international, regional, or private organizations, joint textbook projects have been implemented in various post-conflict contexts. However, in regions such as the Middle East and Caucasus, the produced textbooks jointly prepared by parties involved in conflict have not been adopted by the authorities. Even in the case of a Franco-German history textbook, a case generally deemed successful, the textbook was used mostly in “specialist classes” such as those in Franco-German schools, as opposed to the general lycée and gymnasium. 38 An in-depth analysis of a case study where joint textbooks were officially adopted may reveal how such education can be realized and implemented in schools.

Peace Education

A central focus of peace and education research is to understand education’s contributions to peace. Peace education encompasses a broad range of pedagogical approaches that aim to nurture attitudes, knowledge, and skills that contribute to nonviolent, equitable, and sustainable peace. These approaches are adopted in various types of peace education. Ian Harris, for example, lists international education, development education, human rights education, and conflict resolution education as types of peace education. 39 These types differ in their focuses but share a common ground in that they recognize a difference of opinions as the reality of a human society. Based on this premise, they explain the roots of violence and its different forms and seek alternatives to violence.

It should be noted that there are many other types of peace education, each shaped by the historical, social, and cultural context of a society. Peace education in Japan, for example, was meant to teach the principles of its postwar constitution in which its Article 9 denounces the use of military force as a way to solve international disputes. Such education is particularly active in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two cities that suffered from the atomic bombs, and Okinawa, a southern island where a severe land battle caused many civilian casualties. Understandably, children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki learn a lot about the consequences of nuclear weapons, while their counterparts in Okinawa go inside a cave, as their grandparents did during the battle, and learn how it feels to be in the dark, unsure what will happen to them. Researchers on peace education need to recognize the diversity of its implementation and understand that its approach is often a product of each particular context.

At the same time, one can observe the emergence of popular patterns of peace education around the world. International practitioners often refer to them as “models.” Democratic citizenship education is one of these models. These models serve as a reference upon which context-specific peace education can be developed. Models can be useful where a government does not exist or is emerging but does not function sufficiently so as to develop curriculum. This was the case in Timor-Leste, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed the period of post-conflict reconstruction offers a window of opportunity, as it is often the time to review past curriculum and pedagogical approaches, and revise them according to internationally accepted norms, such as the adherence to human rights. In such a case, international models of peace education can be referenced or introduced to seize upon the momentum of social transformation. Needless to say, such a template should be developed with the close collaboration of practitioners and researchers representing varied regions of the world, in order to ensure its representation and legitimacy.

Citizenship education, or more precisely democratic citizenship education, is one of the increasingly popular models of peace education. Its primary purpose is to develop critical citizens through debate, active learning, and teamwork. As critical citizenship education inevitably deals with divisive issues where equality and equity are at stake, innovative pedagogies are necessary. For example, many of the world’s teachers are not accustomed to creating or allowing classroom dynamics where students feel comfortable debating controversial issues. However, some of these unique attempts are worth the attention of education and peace researchers. For example, Palestinian and Israeli students in a peace education program discussed the conflict in Northern Ireland, a land far from the Middle East, and were able to understand the two opposing perspectives. 40 A similar case has been reported in Rwanda, where students learn and discuss the issues of conflict and reconciliation in Europe. 41 Such a pedagogy may be effective, because the students have no direct stake or emotional involvement in the conflict; therefore, they are able to analyze conflict dynamics in a more objective way. This may then lead them to analyze and discuss domestic issues.

Nurturing critical minds has long been a major component of democratic citizenship education and is currently re-emphasized in today’s complex world. UNESCO, in its 2015 publication on global citizenship education, acknowledges increasing political, economic, social, and cultural interconnectedness and interdependency between the local, the national, and the global and asserts that education is required to be transformative in order to help learners contribute to a more inclusive, just, and peaceful world. 42 This is the role of humanity and social science education. This type of education, however, may be sidelined when education institutions prioritize science and technology education in their attempt to train youths who can work effectively in an increasingly high-tech and competitive global market. Still, nurturing critical minds and compassion for other human beings are as important as ever in the face of the dangerous extremism to which youths are increasingly exposed due to their accessibility to the Internet. Those who join extremist groups that intend to achieve their political purposes by violent means are not less-educated people; rather, they tend to be well-educated and unemployed. 43 Global and democratic citizenship education is now expected to address this crucial issue of today’s globally connected world.

Another type of peace education model very common in post-conflict societies today is inter-group activities, as previously discussed. These activities are meant to develop trust between individuals, as well as different social groups. The activities aim to nurture empathy by human-to-human contacts. Such an approach to peace education is based on what James Page calls the “ethics of care” that stresses “relationship rather than principles.” According to the ethics of care, educators strive to create an environment where children learn to cherish human relations based on trust and caring. 44

It is important to note, however, that one cannot “teach” pupils to befriend, let alone love, somebody. This may be obvious, but mediators may fail to see this in their desire to promote reconciliation and rapprochement between antagonistic groups. A group often holds collective historical memories that form a shared identity and can develop the mentality of “us as righteous versus them as enemy.” This mentality cannot be changed by inter-group activities in a few days or even weeks. 45 This is not to say that inter-group activities are not worthwhile, but that peace education is a long process, given that it aims to change people’s perceptions and attitudes toward others formerly labeled as enemies.

The ethics of care applies not only to the relationships between students, but also between students and school personnel. Proponents of this approach argue that, while it is important that students learn about human rights, they also learn about the value of peace most effectively through a nurturing and supportive learning environment. If classroom teachers frequently use physical and verbal violence, pupils would find it difficult to believe in the message of nonviolent conflict resolution. If a school is managed in an authoritarian way, the message of inclusivity, fairness, and participation may not permeate through to the children, even when textbooks stress the importance of such values.

A learning environment also includes the perceptions and attitudes of the educators. Psychology theory suggests that humans’ actions are affected by their beliefs. How do school teachers perceive the value of peace education? Do they really believe in it? In Palestine, the school teachers were not satisfied with the curriculum authorized by the Israeli government. Palestinian educators complained that the curriculum they had to teach was unrelated to the students’ reality and aspirations. These Palestinian teachers would find it difficult to answer the students’ questions about international understanding, respect for the law, love for peace, and human dignity. 46 Despite the technological progress affecting educational practices today, many nations still rely on a mass workforce of humans to teach young people. A better understanding of these educators’ beliefs would reveal how peace education is actually practiced, which may be very different from that prescribed by policy or curriculum documents.

Evidence, Feasibility, and Legitimacy

As with all types of research, studies on education and peace are expected to produce evidence that supports a theory, explains phenomena, or shows the effectiveness of policies and practices. Evidence-based education policies and practices have increasingly been advocated in developed nations and the aid donor community. Since peace-building was recognized as an important agenda within development aid during the 1990s, practitioners of education for peace-building have been under pressure to show that their programs are evidence-based and produce measurable outcomes.

Today, the most powerful way to make a causal inference, showing that a particular intervention leads to a particular outcome, is to conduct an experimental study. Individuals are assigned to two groups, one that receives an educational intervention and the other that does not. Then the performance of the two groups is compared. The random selection method reduces bias and excludes factors other than the intervention that can influence the outcome. This is an effective method to establish a causal relationship. The data produced by an experimental study, or randomized controlled trial (RCT), is widely regarded as “scientific hard evidence.”

Though RCTs are quite effective, caution needs to be heeded as to the interpretation and use of the evidence they produce. RCTs only show that one particular input leads to one particular output. There are several alternative routes, possibly more efficient and effective ones, to achieve the same goal. Moreover, RCTs do not “explain” why a particular input leads to a particular output. Classroom interactions, be they between students and teachers or between students themselves, are highly complex, and can be greatly affected by the values, norms, and assumptions shared by the people in a society. In some cases, a particular pedagogical model, tested to be effective by an experimental study, may cause marginalization. For example, students in a treatment group that utilized many collaborative activities may show a higher score on average than the other group, but students of a particular cultural background may not have actively participated in the group work because their cultural norms did not encourage them to do so. Then, the role of researchers is not limited to demonstrating the effectiveness of an intervention, but also involves investigating when and how marginalization may occur, which might raise an equity question that public policies need to address.

Even when evidence is produced and presented, this does not necessarily translate into policy and practice, if technical and political feasibility are weak. Teachers may not be capable of using a pedagogical method because of classroom conditions, their lack of skills, or their professional beliefs and norms. In addition, the feasibility of implementing peace education in an overcrowded curriculum can be examined. Debate exists around the question of whether peace education should be an independent subject or a cross-curricular subject. UNESCO once promoted a cross-curricular approach in its manual for the teaching of tolerance. 47 This approach can avoid adding a new subject to an overcrowded school curriculum, a typical feature of modern schools. Considering the importance of peace, all subjects should perhaps include components of peace education. The educational board in Okinawa, Japan, adopted an integrated approach in its teaching guide for peace education. In a biology class, for example, teachers are encouraged to teach the mutually dependent relationship between different human organs and apply the symbiotic relationship to the teaching of human interactions and associations. 48

Caution must be taken, however, about such an integral approach. Teachers around the world tend to be preoccupied with covering tasks assigned to each lesson. Unless the textbooks of each subject clearly include peace education elements, many teachers may not deliver peace education in their classes. Moreover, it becomes difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of peace education if it is dispersed across different subjects. Researchers need to examine the practicality and comparative effectiveness of integrated versus independent approaches in a given context.

The political feasibility of peace education is also an important area that needs more attention from the research community. Peace education is inherently critical of the existing power structure; 49 therefore, it may be seen as a subversive activity 50 or even labeled as “unpatriotic.” 51 One would then ask whether it is reasonable to expect a government to introduce democratic citizenship education when its leadership does not respect democratic values. In the aftermath of interethnic conflict, a government dominated by a particular ethnic group may be hesitant to introduce education to teach tolerance toward other groups with whom they fought fiercely during the conflict. The results of an experimental study are not sufficient to promote the development of evidence-based education policies and practices. More studies are needed to address the question of how evidence-based education policy and practices may be successfully implemented in a challenging environment.

Ultimately, peace education will not be implemented if it does not enjoy legitimacy among its stakeholders. Normative “standards” or “models” of peace education developed without consultation with a wide range of constituencies would not be supported by practitioners working in diverse historical, social, and cultural contexts. This also applies to the legitimacy of research on education and peace. Given the inevitable uncertainty of the causal relationship between education and peace, the question of whether research evidence will be reviewed seriously by practitioners is largely dependent on its trustworthiness. This trustworthiness is affected by the research processes. Research that deals with such a sensitive topic as peace must involve various stakeholders in its design, planning, and implementation. This discussion is also relevant to the evaluation of education policies and practices aiming to promote peace.

The evaluation aspect of peace-building education policies and practices is a critical area that deserves further discussion and inquiries. The design of evaluation itself, by using a logical framework, for example, often provides an opportunity for all stakeholders to discuss and agree upon the objectives of a program and the indicators to monitor and judge the extent of the program’s achievement. Also, research studies can analyze program results and draw lessons from the implementation of a program, which can help future interventions be more efficient and effective. Evaluation is particularly important for peace education initiatives because its achievement tends to be non-cognitive; thus, it is difficult to measure in a quantitative and clear-cut manner. As a result, stakeholders may interpret the results of interventions differently. This does not mean, however, that peace education cannot and should not be evaluated. On the contrary, the development of evaluation tools can be advantageous to the development of peace-building education policies and practices.

Global citizenship education and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as well as active learning and “education for the 21st century ” all stress critical thinking and intercultural competencies. Societies that have undergone violent conflict typically need the type of education that helps learners acquire critical minds, problem-solving skills, and tolerance. But other societies, in fact every society in this globalizing world, also need such education. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) alone cannot yield significant insights into how these educational activities are being conducted and what they have achieved. Education and peace research is now challenged to be flexible, innovative, and moral, while maintaining academic rigor. This field is called upon to develop evaluation methods that can examine the effectiveness of these new types of education.

Education has often been considered an effective tool to promote peace because it shapes the next generation’s minds, attitudes, and skills. New skills are needed to resolve our inevitable differences in a nonviolent way. In the past, however, education has predominantly been viewed as a way to develop human capital to enhance economic growth or to promote national unity. Research on education and peace has been somewhat sidelined in the face of these national priorities. Nevertheless, in this time of globalization that challenges the nation-state paradigm, research on education and peace is more important than ever, and can significantly contribute to the discussion of human security, or protecting human lives and livelihoods. For this, we first need to work on the operationalization of the two concepts, education and peace, in view of the nature of modern conflict, and conduct rigorously designed research studies to examine the relationship between them. Peace, for example, can be operationalized as the accumulation of inter-group trust in a community, rather than interstate diplomatic relations. Given that most violent conflicts today occur between different social groups within a nation or community, social cohesion can be a useful concept, providing an analytical lens for research on education and peace.

Research on education and peace is not just about pedagogy but also about policies, governance, and administration that are fair to all. Peace education cannot succeed if a society or school does not respect the principles of fairness and equity. Researchers need to continue questioning the effectiveness of education policies and practices, not just from the viewpoint of increasing individual students’ academic achievements, but also from the perspective of reducing marginalization and enhancing inclusiveness. From this viewpoint, it is important that research on education and peace needs to critically examine issues from multiple perspectives so as to ensure the issue of equity is not overlooked.

Lastly, research on education and peace can be enriched and utilized further for the development of policies and practices if it addresses the questions of feasibility and legitimacy. The feasibility of peace education needs more attention, because it often faces resistance in politically volatile contexts. Scholars can examine when peace education is perceived as legitimate and likely to be supported by all stakeholders during its implementation. Such endeavors, together with the development of effective evaluation tools and practices, can significantly enhance both policies and practices concerning education for peace.

Further Reading

• Bajaj, M. , & Hantzopoulos, M. (Eds.). (2016). Peace education: International perspectives . London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Bekerman, Z. , & McGlynn, C. (2007). Addressing ethnic conflict through peace education: International perspectives . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bush, K. , & Saltarelli, D. (2000). The two faces of education in ethnic conflict . Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
• McGlynn, C. (2009). Peace education in conflict and post-conflict societies . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

1. The World Bank , World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011).

2. UNESCO , Global Education Monitoring Report 2016 (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2016).

3. UNESCO , EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011 (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2011).

4. World Bank , World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011).

5. David Welsh , “Domestic Politics and Ethnic Conflict,” Survival 35.1 (1993): 63–80.

6. Raymond Taras and Rajat Ganguly , Understanding Ethnic Conflict (London: Routledge, 2015).

7. International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century , and Jacques Delors , Learning, the Treasure Within: Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century: [Summary] (Paris: UNESCO, 1996).

8. Sadako Ogata , and Amartya Sen , Human Security Now . Commission on Human Security, Final Report (New York: United Nations, 2003).

9. Adela Kreso , “The War and Post-War Impact on the Educational System of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” International Review of Education (2008): 353–374.

10. Pamela Baxter , “UNHCR Peace Education Programme: Skills for Life,” Forced Migration Review 11 (2011): 28–30.

11. Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) , Peace Education .

12. Adapted from the definitions offered by Joseph Chan , Ho-Pong To , and Elaine Chan , “Reconsidering Social Cohesion: Developing a Definition and Analytical Framework for Empirical Research,” Social Indicators Research 75.2 (2006): 273–302, and Alan Smith and T. Vaux , Education and Conflict (London: Department for International Development, 2003).

13. James S. Coleman , “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” American Journal of Sociology (1988): S95–S120.

14. Francis Fukuyama , Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995).

15. World Values Survey .

16. Johan Galtung , “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6.3 (1969): 167–191.

17. John Ishiyama and Marijke Breuning , “Educational Access and Peace Duration in Post-Conflict Countries,” International Interactions 38.1 (January 2012): 58–78.

18. For example, Emmanuel Jimenez and Yasuyuki Sawada , “Do Community-Managed Schools Work? An Evaluation of El Salvador’s EDUCO Program,” World Bank Economic Review (1999): 415–441.

19. Beth C. Rubin , “We Come to Form Ourselves Bit by Bit: Educating for Citizenship in Post-Conflict Guatemala,” American Educational Research Journal (2016): 1–34.

20. Martha C. Nussbaum , Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).

21. Taro Komatsu , “Does Decentralisation Enhance a School’s Role of Promoting Social Cohesion? Bosnian School Leaders’ Perceptions of School Governance,” International Review of Education 60.1 (2014): 7–31.

22. Stephen P. Heyneman , “Defining the Influence of Education on Social Cohesion,” International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice 3.4 (2002): 73–97.

23. Sri Lanka Ministry of Education , National Policy and a Comprehensive Framework of Actions on Education for Social Cohesion and Peace (Colombo: Government of Sri Lanka, 2008).

24. Bernadette C. Hayes and Ian McAllister “Education as a Mechanism for Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland,” Oxford Review of Education 35.4 (2009): 437–450; and Claire McGlynn , “Education for Peace in Integrated Schools: A Priority for Northern Ireland?” Child Care in Practice 10.2 (2004): 85–94.

25. Hurriyet Babacan , “Education and Social Cohesion,” in Social Cohesion in Australia , ed. J. Jupp , J. Nieuwenhuysen , and E. Dawson (Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 142–157.

26. Ulrike Niens and Marie ‐Hélène Chastenay , “Educating for Peace? Citizenship Education in Quebec and Northern Ireland,” Comparative Education Review 52.4 (2008): 519–540.

27. Ian Hill , “Multicultural and International Education: Never the Twain Shall Meet?” International Review of Education 53.3 (2007): 245–264.

28. Jagdish Gundara , “Complex Societies, Common Schools and Curriculum: Separate Is Not Equal,” International Review of Education 54.3–4 (2008): 337–352.

29. Gordon W. Allport , The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954); and Thomas F. Pettigrew , “Intergroup Contact Theory,” Annual Review of Psychology 49.1 (1998): 65–85.

30. Ifat Maoz . “Does Contact Work in Protracted Asymmetrical Conflict? Appraising 20 Years of Reconciliation-Aimed Encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians,” Journal of Peace Research 48.1 (2011): 115–125.

31. Adela Kreso , “The War and Post-War Impact on the Educational System of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” International Review of Education (2008): 353–374.

32. Amartya Sen , Reason before Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

33. Patricia Bromley , John W. Meyer , and Francisco O. Ramirez , “The Worldwide Spread of Environmental Discourse in Social Studies, History, and Civics Textbooks, 1970–2008,” Comparative Education Review 55.4 (2011): 517–545.

34. S. W. Freedman , H. M Weinstein , K. Murphy , and T. Longman , “Teaching History after Identity‐Based Conflicts: The Rwanda Experience.” Comparative Education Review 52.4 (2008): 663–690.

35. CDRSEE , Joint History Project .

36. Lubov Fajfer , “Reconnecting History: The Joint History Project in the Balkans,” in History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation: Reconsidering Joint Textbook Projects , ed. Karina V. Korostelina and Simone Lässig (New York: Routledge, 2013).

37. Alan Smith and Tony Vaux , Education. Conflict and International Development (London: UK Department for International Development, 2003).

38. Karina V. Korostelina and Simone Lässig , eds. History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation: Reconsidering Joint Textbook Projects (New York: Routledge, 2013).

39. Ian M. Harris , “Peace Education Theory,” Journal of Peace Education 1.1 (2004): 5–20.

40. Tormala and Petty, 2002 cited in Gavriel Salomon , “Does Peace Education Make a Difference in the Context of an Intractable Conflict?” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 10.3 (2004): 257–274.

41. Freedman, Weinstein, Murphy, and Longman, “Teaching History.”

42. UNESCO , Global Citizenship Education: Topics and Learning Objectives (Paris: UNESCO Publications, 2015).

43. The World Bank , Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016).

44. James S. Page , “Peace Education: Exploring Some Philosophical Foundations,” International Review of Education 50.1 (2004): 3–15.

45. Gavriel Salomon , “Does Peace Education Make a Difference in the Context of an Intractable Conflict?” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 10.3 (2004): 257–274.

46. Agustı́n Velloso de Santisteban , “Palestinian Education: A National Curriculum against All Odds,” International Journal of Educational Development 22.2 (2002): 145–154.

47. B. A. Reardon , Tolerance: The Threshold of Peace. A Teaching/Learning Guide for Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1994).

48. Okinawa Prefectural Education Board, Teaching Guide to Peace Education (Heiwakyoikushido no tebiki) (Okinawa, Japan: Okinawa Prefectural Education Board, 1993).

49. Monisha Bajaj , “Critical Peace Education,” Encyclopedia of Peace Education (2008): 135–146.

50. Salomon, “Does Peace Education Make a Difference.”

51. Lynn Davies , Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos (New York: Routledge, 2003).

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What is peace education exactly and why do we need it?

When I started my peace education journey, I barely knew what this syntagma meant. I was very versed and knowledgeable about the education part and the nuances of teaching, but the peace part, and especially the combination of peace and education was quite new to me. So, I was learning while working and immersing myself into peacebuilding in my postwar, still very conflicted country of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

In the process I discovered something called facilitation and being a facilitator, being someone who eases the process of learning and who facilitates learning space, instead of “instilling the knowledge into the heads of my participants”. I grew up and I was educated in a very traditional teacher-oriented system, where the teachers are the sole authority who possess all the knowledge. Of course there were some quite bright, but rare examples of the teachers and professors who were actually facilitators, who were leading us through the process of learning and working “out of the box”.

Over time peace education became my passion, and I even enrolled in another MA (Interreligious Studies and Peacebuilding) to enhance my knowledge on the peace and interfaith part of this equation. Now that I have more than 7 years of experience in my head, heart and hands I cannot but notice that peace education is still a very contested notion. Many things are being put under this umbrella term, people who work in the field are not always taken seriously as they should be, peace in general is taken for granted and all the efforts of countless people who work in the field are not emphasized and appreciated enough.

This article aims to bring a bit more clarity to this term, through a small desk research on the existing bibliography on peace education. Also, as someone who has been working for 7 years in the peace education sector, I want us to be clear that we know what we are talking about when we say that we are peace educators, since this discipline deserves more attention and much more credibility than it has been given to it. Let us begin with how and when peace education efforts started and later on we will focus on a description of peace education and contents of it, which will help us to understand branches of this type of education.

The term peace education can be traced back to the 17th century and Czech educator (pedagogue) named Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), but the term and movement of peace education got its prominence and flourished with famous Italian educator Maria Montessori at the beginning of the 20th century. It is worth mentioning that way before the two of them, forms of peace education existed within different communities. According to Harris (2008) peace education has been practiced informally by generations of humans who wanted to resolve conflicts in ways that do not use deadly force. Indigenous peoples have conflict resolution traditions that have been passed down through millennia that help promote peace within their communities. Also, we should not forget to mention religious teachings that promote peace and uphold the peace education efforts for thousands of years. Religious and spiritual figures such as Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Moses, Lao Tse or Baha’u’llah are often considered peace educators. Even though we should be aware that many religious teachings have been instrumentalized for the opposite as well, for wars and violence.

While reading different articles on peace education, I found the way that Kester (2010) describes peace education to be very clear and encompassing. He stresses that “in practice, peace education is problem-posing education that attempts to build in every person the universal values and behaviors on which a culture of peace is predicated, including the development of non-violent conflict resolution skills and a commitment to working together to realize a shared and preferred future”. He also adds that “peace education includes the cultivation of peacebuilding skills (e.g., dialogue, mediation, artistic endeavors). Peace educators, then, teach the values of respect, understanding, and nonviolence, present skills for analyzing international conflict, educate for alternative security systems, and use a pedagogy that is democratic and participatory. Thus, peace education as a practice and philosophy refers to matching complementary elements between education and society, where the social purposes (i.e., why teach), content (i.e., what to teach), and pedagogy (i.e., how to teach) of the educative process are conducive to fostering peace” (Kester, 2010: 2).

To help us better understand peace education (PE) it is useful to mention 5 principles of this education. According to Harris (2004) these 5 principles are the following:

• PE explains the roots of violence
• PE teaches alternatives to violence
• PE adjusts to cover different forms of violence
• Peace itself is a process that varies according to context
• Conflict is omnipresent

Now that we know what peace education is about, we could ask ourselves about the content and branches. Different authors propose diverse approaches to this question, but here I would like to emphasize the one from Ian Harris (2004) and Navarro-Castro and Nario-Galace (2010). Harris divides peace education into 5 categories: international education, development education, environmental education, human rights education, and conflict resolution education. On the other side Navarro-Castro and Nario-Galace propose a 10-fold model that besides the above mentioned 5 categories includes: disarmament education, global education, multicultural education, interfaith education, and gender-fair/non-sexist education.

To make peace education closer to us, I also would like to mention two models of peace education: Learning to Abolish War Model (Reardon and Cabezudo 2002)and Flower-Petal Model of Peace Education (Toh 2004).

As already noted, we need to be aware that it’s not just what we teach, but how we teach as well, i.e., how we facilitate the process of learning. It’s hard to imagine peace education programs and values, implemented through traditional authoritarian models of education that most of us grew up with. How can we practice nonviolent methods of resolving conflicts, when we impose on learners our own way of thinking, when we ask them to learn things through rote learning, instead using meaningful or active learning through which they can develop critical thinking skills.

Ian Harris (1988) , one of the leading authors in the field of peace education, stresses a holistic approach to peace education that could apply to community education, elementary and secondary schools, as well as college classrooms. According to him, peaceful pedagogy must be integral to any attempt to teach about peace and key ingredients of such pedagogy are cooperative learning, democratic community, moral sensitivity, and critical thinking. Duckworth (2008) emphasizes that for peace education to be effective, the methods teachers and administrators use must be consistent with the values purportedly being taught to students. They must be modeled as well. The implicit curriculum must harmonize with the explicit curriculum.

In the words of Kester (2010) “an education for peace program, thus, pedagogically emphasizes values (tolerance, respect, equality, empathy, compassion), capacities (cultural proficiency, sensitivity), skills (nonviolent communication, active listening, competence in a foreign language, gender-inclusive language), and knowledge (of history and cultures, peace movements) for peace. The pedagogy includes cooperative learning activities, gender perspectives, creative reflection and journaling, theatre games, role-plays, empathy-building activities, and alternative futures exercises” (Kester, 2010: 5).

One very important thing we need to mention and know about peace education, is that this education depends on the context. Peace educators around the world practice different approaches and different types of peace education depending on what is a burning issue in their communities. For example, somewhere conflict resolution education is more needed than global education or environmental education, due to ongoing religious, ethnic, or national hostilities. This doesn’t mean that other types of peace education are not important or needed, but one type is more urgent than the other. And of course, the content facilitated, relies heavily on the context.

Now that we know all this about peace education, we can ask a question where to teach peace education and in which manner. Should it be in formal or non-formal contexts, should it be taught as a single subject, or should it be holistic and transdisciplinary? I think a very good answer could be found in the Declaration and Integrated Framework of Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy (1995) which suggests that education for peace must be trans-disciplinary and included in all learning spaces. It should not be limited to a single classroom or subject. The institution or space in which education for peace operates should be in harmony with the goals and lessons of peace education and peace education should be integrated into all learning spaces.

And last but not the least, comes the question, why do we need peace education?

Like many other things, I believe that education can be used for both: as a space for nurturing and developing cultures of peace or cultures of war. This solely depends on us, i.e., if we want to see our youth militarized, afraid of the other ethnic and religious groups, afraid of their neighbors, ready to obey and listen to calls for violence in order to protect their land, culture, religion etc. (for the gains of the elites who profit from the war) or if we want our youth to think critically, know their neighbors, be culturally sensitive, ready to speak to and understand those who belong to other groups, who are often portrayed as enemies. It also depends on us if we will employ education as a way to protect our environment or if we will teach our children to exploit the planet and its resources for their own gain (including waging wars that could destroy our habitat).  The future is blurry and unknown, but it is up to all of us to shape it and give our best to actually leave a planet where our children and grandchildren can live (in peace).

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Welcome to the United Nations

Breaking gender barriers through education

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Roseline Adewuyi  is a fervent advocate for gender equality in Nigeria, driven by a passion for dismantling entrenched gender stereotypes. She spoke to Africa Renewal’s  Kingsley Ighobor on the need to empower girls through education. This is in line with the African Union’s theme for 2024: Educating and skilling Africa for the 21 st   Century.

Roseline Adewuyi believes that fighting gender inequality requires raising awareness and empowering young women and girls through education.

“My goal is to help break those barriers that limit our potential,” she told  African Renewal  in an interview. “I am talking about issues related to land rights, access to education, economic empowerment, leadership, and trust me, gender discrimination.”

Gender discrimination, she explains, is heightened during times of severe economic constraints such as now, when the tendency is often to invest in boys over girls. “That’s when parents often choose to send their sons to school or provide them start-up funding for business ventures, while daughters are expected to focus on house chores and wait for marriage. It’s absolutely absurd.” she insists. 

Roseline has her work cut out for her. “We are constantly finding ways to help women and girls break free from these constraints.” 

She founded the Ending Gender Stereotypes in Schools (ENGENDERS) project, which is dedicated to unlearning gender stereotypes in educational institutions.

“We reach the students, boys and girls in high schools and universities, and we do community engagement, speaking to parents and other influential community inhabitants,” she explains.

Already, she claims to have reached tens of communities and over 6,000 young girls through seminars and webinars, while her  blog , featuring over 300 articles on gender equity, has garnered a wide audience.

Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in French Literature with a focus on women, gender, and sexuality studies at Purdue University in Indiana, US, Roseline now aims to merge academic rigour with passionate advocacy.

“It’s an interesting intersection,” she says, adding that “The body of knowledge that we pass on to future generations is full of gender stereotypes. Our books need to be gender conscious.

“In most African literature, characters often depict women or girls as housemaids and men as pilots or engineers. It reinforces stereotypes; we need to root it out,” she stresses.

Roseline's journey into gender advocacy began in her childhood, fueled by a belief in the transformative power of education. She recognized the systemic challenges faced by African women and girls, including limited access to education and entrenched cultural biases.

“When I served as a prefect in secondary school, the belief among boys and even some girls was that I did not merit the position, that leadership was reserved for the boys. That experience sparked my curiosity as to why girls weren’t perceived as equally competent as boys.”

In 2019, she worked as a translator and interpreter for the African Union (AU), having been selected as one of 120 young people from various African countries to participate in the AU Youth Volunteer Corps. 

Her exposure to continental leaders' efforts to address gender-related challenges reinforced her conviction that gender equality is essential for achieving sustainable peace and security.

“At the AU, I also realized the connection between gender and peace and security. When there is a crisis, it is women who suffer the most. Therefore, women must be at the centre of efforts to achieve peace in our societies,” she adds.

Her international exposure includes being a participant in the Young African Leaders Initiative in 2016 (YALI – Regional Leadership Center West Africa), as well as being a Dalai Lama fellow in 2018. She says these experiences exposed her to gender best practices and strengthened her resolve to advocate for change in her home country.

Although some advances have been made in gender equality in Nigeria, Roseline highlights that the remaining hurdles include challenges in female land ownership, financial inclusion, and access to education.

“For example, we have laws [in Nigeria] that provide for women’s rights to land, but many communities still prevent them from owning a piece of land. We also have situations in which widows are not allowed to inherit the properties of their husbands. 

She says: “So, we have a lot more work to do. We need effective community engagement in raising awareness among women about their rights.

“Importantly, we need to provide women with access to education to equip them with the knowledge and skills to assert their rights effectively.”

In her ongoing advocacy work, she acknowledges facing cyberbullying, which she attributes to resistance from elements of a patriarchal society reluctant to embrace progress.

Roseline's final message to young African women and girls is for them to drive positive change, stand up for their rights, and challenge gender norms.

Also in this issue

Guiding the Future: UN launches new panel on critical energy transition minerals

We must do more to prevent genocide

Football saved me from genocide; now I promote peace with it

Transforming Artisanal Mining Can Be Beneficial for People and the Planet

30 years on, South Africa still dismantling racism and apartheid’s legacy

Kwibuka30: Learning from the past, safeguarding the future against genocide

Many African nations are making progress in the rule of law

Streamlining Egypt’s food value chain through technology

Lessons post the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: we must speak out against discrimination and prejudice

We shouldn’t have to beg or negotiate for women rights

Creating credible carbon market in Africa

REMEMBER.UNITE.RENEW.

Claver Irakoze: Bridging Generations Through the Memory of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

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Advancing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Empowering change: Safeguarding women in Sierra Leone

Intra-African trade provides an opportunity for inclusive economic growth

Racheal’s resolve: Championing disability rights in Uganda

“It’s Just Lines”: A Qualitative Analysis of Emergent Structures and Experiences within STEAM Education Initiatives for Secondary-Level Students

Doctoral student John O’Meara recently published this article in the LASER (Linking Art and Science through Education and Research) Journal

Posted in: Publications , Students and Alumni

The article is a qualitative analysis of the experiences and discourse of high school students who participated in an art and science initiative that sought mathematics and physics education reform through an immersive and innovative approach to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) experiences. This work focused on the concluding task of a one-day workshop wherein students were led on a campus walk to observe the local campus architecture, and then recreated one of the observed structures within the Desmos graphing utility. Student approaches and narratives revealed a willingness to explore the complexity of the modeling task that might not otherwise be encouraged in their traditional learning environments. The analytical framework of the three worlds of mathematics proved to be a particularly useful tool in making sense of the complexity of student engagement. Implications for the future of STEAM education and interdisciplinary curricula were explored, with emphasis on the roles of creativity and a non-traditional learning environment.

Congratulations, John!

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Physical Fitness Linked to Better Mental Health in Young People

A new study bolsters existing research suggesting that exercise can protect against anxiety, depression and attention challenges.

By Matt Richtel

Physical fitness among children and adolescents may protect against developing depressive symptoms, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a study published on Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

The study also found that better performance in cardiovascular activities, strength and muscular endurance were each associated with greater protection against such mental health conditions. The researchers deemed this linkage “dose-dependent,” suggesting that a child or adolescent who is more fit may be accordingly less likely to experience the onset of a mental health disorder.

These findings come amid a surge of mental health diagnoses among children and adolescents, in the United States and abroad, that have prompted efforts to understand and curb the problem.

The new study, conducted by researchers in Taiwan, compared data from two large data sets: the Taiwan National Student Fitness Tests, which measures student fitness performance in schools, and the National Insurance Research Databases, which records medical claims, diagnoses prescriptions and other medical information. The researchers did not have access to the students’ names but were able to use the anonymized data to compare the students’ physical fitness and mental health results.

The risk of mental health disorder was weighted against three metrics for physical fitness: cardio fitness, as measured by a student’s time in an 800-meter run; muscle endurance, indicated by the number of situps performed; and muscle power, measured by the standing broad jump.

Improved performance in each activity was linked with a lower risk of mental health disorder. For instance, a 30-second decrease in 800-meter time was associated, in girls, with a lower risk of anxiety, depression and A.D.H.D. In boys, it was associated with lower anxiety and risk of the disorder.

An increase of five situps per minute was associated with lower anxiety and risk of the disorder in boys, and with decreased risk of depression and anxiety in girls.

“These findings suggest the potential of cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness as protective factors in mitigating the onset of mental health disorders among children and adolescents,” the researchers wrote in the journal article.

Physical and mental health were already assumed to be linked , they added, but previous research had relied largely on questionnaires and self-reports, whereas the new study drew from independent assessments and objective standards.

The Big Picture

The surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, has called mental health “the defining public health crisis of our time,” and he has made adolescent mental health central to his mission. In 2021 he issued a rare public advisory on the topic. Statistics at the time revealed alarming trends: From 2001 to 2019, the suicide rate for Americans ages 10 to 19 rose 40 percent, and emergency visits related to self-harm rose 88 percent.

Some policymakers and researchers have blamed the sharp increase on the heavy use of social media, but research has been limited and the findings sometimes contradictory. Other experts theorize that heavy screen use has affected adolescent mental health by displacing sleep, exercise and in-person activity, all of which are considered vital to healthy development. The new study appeared to support the link between physical fitness and mental health.

“The finding underscores the need for further research into targeted physical fitness programs,” its authors concluded. Such programs, they added, “hold significant potential as primary preventative interventions against mental disorders in children and adolescents.”

Matt Richtel is a health and science reporter for The Times, based in Boulder, Colo. More about Matt Richtel

Understanding A.D.H.D.

The challenges faced by those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be daunting. but people who are diagnosed with it can still thrive..

Millions of children in the United States have received a diagnosis of A.D.H.D . Here is how their families can support them .

The condition is also being recognized more in adults . These are some of the behaviors  that might be associated with adult A.D.H.D.

Since a nationwide Adderall shortage started, some people with A.D.H.D. have said their medication no longer helps with their symptoms. But there could be other factors at play .

Everyone has bouts of distraction and forgetfulness. Here is when psychiatrists diagnose it as something clinical .

The disorder can put a strain on relationships. But there are ways to cope .

Though meditation can be beneficial to those with A.D.H.D., sitting still and focusing on breathing can be hard for them. These tips can help .

Blinken, Saudi Crown Prince Discuss Achieving Peace, Security in Gaza, US Says

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a Joint Ministerial Meeting of the GCC-U.S. Strategic Partnership to discuss the humanitarian crises faced in Gaza, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool

RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday in Riyadh, where they discussed the urgent need to reduce tensions in the region, the U.S. Department of State said in a statement.

Blinken also underscored the need for sustaining an increase in humanitarian assistance to Gaza, reaching an immediate ceasefire that secures the release of hostages and preventing the possible further spread of the conflict, the State Department said.

Blinken is in Saudi Arabia as part of a broader trip to the Middle East aimed at discussing with Arab partners post-war Gaza and to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps U.S. President Joe Biden demanded this month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

War in Israel and Gaza

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Mark Porter)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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