Peace education is

Peace education is the process of acquiring the
values , the knowledge and developing the
attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony
with oneself, with others, and with the natural
environment.
There are numerous United Nations declarations
on the importance of peace Information Age
Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59311-889-1 . Chapter
details ; and Page, James S. (2008) 'Chapter 9:
The United Nations and Peace Education'. In:
Monisha Bajaj (ed.) Encyclopedia of Peace
Education. (75-83). Charlotte: Information Age
Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59311-898-3 . Further
information </ref> Ban Ki Moon , U.N. Secretary
General, has dedicated the International Day of
Peace 2013 to peace education in an effort to
refocus minds and financing on the preeminence
of peace education as the means to bring about
a culture of peace. [1][2] Koichiro Matsuura , the
immediate past Director-General of UNESCO, has
written of peace education as being of
"fundamental importance to the mission of
UNESCO and the United Nations". [3] Peace
education as a right is something which is now
increasingly emphasized by peace researchers
such as Betty Reardon [4] and Douglas Roche . [5]
There has also been a recent meshing of peace
education and human rights education. [6]
Definition
Ian Harris and John Synott have described peace
education as a series of "teaching encounters"
that draw from people: [7]
their desire for peace,
nonviolent alternatives for managing conflict,
and
skills for critical analysis of structural
arrangements that produce and legitimize
injustice and inequality.
James Page suggests peace education be
thought of as "encouraging a commitment to
peace as a settled disposition and enhancing the
confidence of the individual as an individual
agent of peace; as informing the student on the
consequences of war and social injustice; as
informing the student on the value of peaceful
and just social structures and working to uphold
or develop such social structures; as encouraging
the student to love the world and to imagine a
peaceful future; and as caring for the student and
encouraging the student to care for others". [8]
Often the theory or philosophy of peace
education has been assumed and not articulated.
Johan Galtung suggested in 1975 that no theory
for peace education existed and that there was
clearly an urgent need for such theory . [9] More
recently there have been attempts to establish
such a theory. Joachim James Calleja has
suggested that a philosophical basis for peace
education might be located in the Kantian notion
of duty . [10] James Page has suggested that a
rationale for peace education might be located in
virtue ethics, consequentialist ethics,
conservative political ethics, aesthetic ethics and
the ethics of care. [11] Robert L. Holmes
articulates the view that a moral presumption
against violence already exists amongst civilized
nations. On the basis of this presumptive
prohibition, he outlines several philosophical
values which are relevant to the nonviolent
resolution of conflicts between nations on the
international level including pacifism . [12] [13]
Since the early decades of the 20th century,
"peace education" programs around the world
have represented a spectrum of focal themes,
including anti-nuclearism , international
understanding, environmental responsibility,
communication skills, nonviolence , conflict
resolution techniques, democracy, human rights
awareness, tolerance of diversity, coexistence
and gender equality , among others. [14]
Some [ who? ] have also addressed spiritual
dimensions of inner harmony, or synthesized a
number of the foregoing issues into programs on
world citizenship. While academic discourse on
the subject has increasingly recognized the need
for a broader, more holistic approach to peace
education, a review of field-based projects
reveals that three variations of peace education
are most common: conflict resolution training,
democracy education, and human rights
education. New approaches are emerging and
calling into question some of theoretical
foundations of the models just mentioned. The
most significant of these new approaches
focuses on peace education as a process of
worldview transformation. [ citation needed ]
Forms
Conflict resolution training
Peace education programs centered on conflict
resolution typically focus on the social-
behavioural symptoms of conflict, training
individuals to resolve inter-personal disputes
through techniques of negotiation and (peer)
mediation. Learning to manage anger, "fight fair"
and improve communication through skills such
as listening, turn-taking, identifying needs, and
separating facts from emotions, constitute the
main elements of these programs. Participants
are also encouraged to take responsibility for
their actions and to brainstorm together on
compromises [15]
In general, approaches of this type aim to "alter
beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours...from negative
to positive attitudes toward conflict as a basis
for preventing violence" (Van Slyck, Stern and
Elbedour, 1999, emphasis added). [16] There are
various styles or approaches in conflict
resolution training (ADR , Verbal Aikido, NVC) that
can give the practitioner the means to accept the
conflictual situation and orient it towards a
peaceful resolution. As one peer mediation
coordinator put it: "Conflict is very natural and
normal, but you can't go through your entire life
beating everybody up—you have to learn different
ways to resolve conflict". [17]
Democracy education
Peace education programs centered on
democracy education typically focus on the
political processes associated with conflict, and
postulate that with an increase in democratic
participation the likelihood of societies resolving
conflict through violence and war decreases. At
the same time, "a democratic society needs the
commitment of citizens who accept the
inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity
for tolerance" (U.S. Department of State, The
Culture of Democracy, emphasis added). [18]
Thus programs of this kind attempt to foster a
conflict-positive orientation in the community by
training students to view conflict as a platform
for creativity and growth. [ citation needed]
Approaches of this type train participants in the
skills of critical thinking, debate and coalition-
building, and promote the values of freedom of
speech, individuality, tolerance of diversity ,
compromise and conscientious objection . Their
aim is to produce "responsible citizens" who will
hold their governments accountable to the
standards of peace, primarily through adversarial
processes. Activities are structured to have
students "assume the role of the citizen that
chooses, makes decisions, takes positions,
argues positions and respects the opinions of
others": [19] skills that a multi-party democracy
are based upon. Based on the assumption that
democracy decreases the likelihood of violence
and war, it is assumed that these are the same
skills necessary for creating a culture of peace.
Human rights education
Peace education programs centered on raising
awareness of human rights typically focus at the
level of policies that humanity ought to adopt in
order to move closer to a peaceful global
community. The aim is to engender a
commitment among participants to a vision of
structural peace in which all individual members
of the human race can exercise their personal
freedoms and be legally protected from violence,
oppression and indignity. [ citation needed ]
Approaches of this type familiarize participants
with the international covenants and declarations
of the United Nations system; train students to
recognize violations of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights; and promote tolerance,
solidarity, autonomy and self-affirmation at the
individual and collective levels. [20]
Human rights education "faces continual
elaboration, a significant theory-practice gap and
frequent challenge as to its validity". [21] In one
practitioner's view:
To prevent these outcomes, many such
programs are now being combined with aspects
of conflict resolution and democracy education
schools of thought, along with training in
nonviolent action. [23]
Worldview transformation
Some approaches to peace education start from
insights gleaned from psychology which
recognize the developmental nature of human
psychosocial dispositions. Essentially, while
conflict-promoting attitudes and behaviours are
characteristic of earlier phases of human
development, unity-promoting attitudes and
behaviours emerge in later phases of healthy
development. H.B. Danesh (2002a, 2002b, 2004,
2005, 2007, 2008a, 2008b) [24] proposes an
"Integrative Theory of Peace" in which peace is
understood as a psychosocial, political, moral
and spiritual reality. Peace education, he says,
must focus on the healthy development and
maturation of human consciousness through
assisting people to examine and transform their
worldviews. Worldviews are defined as the
subconscious lens (acquired through cultural,
family, historical, religious and societal
influences) through which people perceive four
key issues: 1) the nature of reality, 2) human
nature, 3) the purpose of existence, 4) the
principles governing appropriate human
relationships. Surveying a mass of material,
Danesh argues that the majority of people and
societies in the world hold conflict-based
worldviews, which express themselves in
conflicted intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup,
and international relationships. He subdivides
conflict-based worldviews into two main
categories which he correlates to phases of
human development: the Survival-Based
Worldview and the Identity-Based Worldview. It
is through the acquisition of a more integrative,
Unity-Based Worldview that human capacity to
mitigate conflict, create unity in the context of
diversity, and establish sustainable cultures of
peace, is increased—be it in the home, at
school, at work, or in the international
community.
Critical peace education
Modern forms of peace education relate to new
scholarly explorations and applications of
techniques used in peace education
internationally, in plural communities and with
individuals. Critical Peace Education (Bajaj 2008,
2015; Bajaj & Hantzopoulos 2016; Trifonas &
Wright 2013) is an emancipatory pursuit that
seeks to link education to the goals and foci of
social justice disrupting inequality through critical
pedagogy (Freire 2003). Critical peace education
addresses the critique that peace education is
imperial and impository mimicking the
'interventionism' of Western peacebuilding by
foregrounding local practices and narratives into
peace education (Salomon 2004; MacGinty &
Richmond 2007; Golding 2017). The project of
critical peace education includes conceiving of
education as a space of transformation where
students and teachers become change agents
that recognise past and present experiences of
inequity and bias and where schools become
strategic sites for fostering emancipatory
change. [25][26][27][28][29][30][31]
Yogic peace education
Where Critical Peace Education is emancipatory,
seeking to foster full humanity in society for
everyone, yogic peace education (Standish &
Joyce 2017) [32] is concerned with transforming
personal (as opposed to interpersonal, structural
or societal/cultural) violence. In yogic peace
education, techniques from yogic science are
utilized to alter the physical, mental and spiritual
instrument of humanity (the self) to address
violence that comes from within. Contemporary
peace education (similar to all peace education)
relate to specific forms of violence (and their
transformation) and similar to teaching human
rights and conflict resolution in schools critical
peace education and yogic peace education are
complementary curricula that seek to foster
positive peace and decrease violence in society.
Criticism
Toh Swee-Hin (1997) observes that each of the
various streams of peace education "inevitably
have their own dynamics and 'autonomy' in
terms of theory and practice". "Salomon (2002)
has described how the challenges, goals, and
methods of peace education differ substantially
between areas characterized by intractable
conflict, interethnic tension, or relative
tranquility". [33]
Salomon (2002) raises the problem and its
consequences:
According to Clarke-Habibi (2005), "A general or
integrated theory of peace is needed: one that
can holistically account for the intrapersonal,
inter-personal, inter-group and international
dynamics of peace, as well as its main
principles and pre-requisites. An essential
component of this integrated theory must also
be the recognition that a culture of peace can
only result from an authentic process of
transformation, both individual and
collective." [34]
News about Peace
Education
Up-to-date news about peace education
initiatives is provided by the Global Campaign
for Peace Education on their website [35] .
Another source is the Culture of Peace News
Network , which is dedicated to education for a
culture of peace[36] . See especially the CPNN
section Where is Peace Education Taking Place?
[37]
See also
Play media
Children's Peace Pavilion
CISV International
Culture of Peace News Network
El-Hibri Peace Education Prize
Institute for Economics and Peace Building
Blocks of Peace program
International Year for the Culture of Peace
Peace
Peace and conflict studies
Peace psychology
School Day of Non-violence and Peace
Teaching for social justice
UNESCO Prize for Peace Education
University for Peace
References
1. ^ Peace Day 2013 Countdown
2. ^ Other examples include:
Constitution of UNESCO , adopted 16
November 1945.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights ,
Section 26.
Recommendation Concerning Education for
International Understanding, Co-operation
and Peace, and Education Relating to
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
Section 18.
Convention on the Rights of the Child,
Article 29.1(d).
Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action – World Conference on Human
Rights , Part 2, Paragraphs 78–82, which
identify peace education as part of human
rights education, and which identifies this
education as vital for world peace
Declaration of Principles on Tolerance,
Articles 1 and 4.
Declaration and Programme of Action on a
Culture of Peace, Articles 1/4 and B/9.
A World Fit for Children, Articles 5 and 20
United Study on Disarmament and Non-
proliferation Education, Article 20.
3. ^ Matsuura, Koichiro. (2008) 'Foreword'. In:
J.S.Page Peace Education: Exploring Ethical and
Philosophical Foundations. Charlotte: Information
Age Publishing. p.xix.
4. ^ Reardon, Betty. (1997). 'Human Rights as
Education for Peace'. In: G.J. Andrepoulos and
R.P. Claude (eds.) Human Rights Education for
the Twenty-First Century. (255-261).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
5. ^ Roche, Douglas. (1993). The Human Right
to Peace . Toronto: Novalis.
6. ^ United Nations General Assembly. (1993)
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
(World Conference on Human Rights). New York:
United Nations. (A/CONF. 157/23 on June 25,
1993). Part 2, Paragraphs 78-82.
7. ^ Harris, Ian and Synott, John. (2002) 'Peace
Education for a New Century' Social Alternatives
21(1):3-6
8. ^ Page, James S. (2008) Peace Education:
Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations .
Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. p. 189.
ISBN 978-1-59311-889-1 . Chapter details
9. ^ Galtung, Johan (1975) Essays in Peace
Research, Volume 1 . Copenhagen: Eljers. pp.
334-339.
10. ^ Calleja, Joachim James (1991) 'A Kantian
Epistemology of Education and Peace: An
Examination of Concepts and Values'. Unpublishd
PhD Thesis. Bradford University.
11. ^ Page, James S. (2008) Peace Education:
Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations .
Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
ISBN 978-1-59311-889-1 . Chapter details
12. ^ Pacifism: A Philosophy of Nonviolence
Robert L. Holmes. Book blurb on
books.google.com
13. ^ The Ethics of Nonviolence: Essay by
Robert L. Holmes - Book blurb on
google.books.com
14. ^ See Groff, L., and Smoker, P. (1996).
Creating global-local cultures of peace. Peace
and Conflict Studies Journal, 3, (June); Harris,
I.M. (1999). Types of peace education. In A.
Raviv, L. Oppenheimer, and D. Bar-Tal (Eds.),
How Children Understand War and Peace (pp.
299-317). San Francisco: Jossey- Bass
Publishers; Johnson, M.L. (1998). Trends in
peace education. ERIC Digest. ED417123; Swee-
Hin Toh. 1997. “Education for Peace: Towards a
Millennium of Well-Being”. Paper for the Working
Document of the International Conference on
Culture of Peace and Governance (Maputo,
Mozambique, 1–4 September 1997)
15. ^ See Deutsch, M. (1993). Educating for a
peaceful world. American Psychologist, 48,
510-517; Hakvoort, I. and Oppenheimer, L.
(1993). Children and adolescents' conceptions of
peace, war, and strategies to attain peace: A
Dutch case study. Journal of Peace Research, 30,
65-77; Harris, I.M. (1999). Types of peace
education. In A. Raviv, L. Oppenheimer, and D.
Bar-Tal (Eds.), How Children Understand War
and Peace (pp. 299-317). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
16. ^ Van Slyck, M.R., Stern, M., and Elbedour,
S. (1999). Adolescents' beliefs about their
conflict behaviour. In A. Raviv, L. Oppenheimer,
and D. Bar-Tal (Eds.), How Children Understand
War and Peace (pp. 208-230). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
17. ^ Jeffries, R. Examining barriers to effective
peace education reform. Contemporary
Education, 71, 19-22.
18. ^ U.S. Department of State Bureau of
International Information Programs. (n.d.). The
culture of democracy. Retrieved January 13,
2003, from http://usinfo.state.gov/products/
pubs/whatsdem/whatdm6.htm
19. ^ Quoted from CIVITAS BiH, a program of
democracy and human rights education in
primary, secondary and tertiary schools of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. http://www.civitas.ba/
nastavni_planovi/index.php
20. ^ Brabeck, K. (2001). Justification for and
implementation of peace education. Peace and
Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 7, 85-87.
21. ^ Swee-Hin Toh. 1997. "Education for
Peace: Towards a Millennium of Well-Being".
Paper for the Working Document of the
International Conference on Culture of Peace and
Governance (Maputo, Mozambique, 1–4
September 1997)
22. ^ Parlevliet, M. (n.d.). Quoted in Pitts, D.
(2002). Human rights education in diverse,
developing nations: A case in point – South
Africa. Issues of Democracy, 7 (March).
Retrieved January 12, 2003, from http://
usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0302/ijde/
pitts1.htm
23. ^ Kevin Kester. 2008. Developing peace
education programs: Beyond ethnocentrism and
violence. Peace Prints, 1(1), 37-64.
24. ^ Danesh, H. B. (2006). Towards an
integrative theory of peace education. Journal of
Peace Education, 3(1), 55–78.
Danesh, H. B. (2007). Education for peace: The
pedagogy of civilization. In Z. Beckerman & C.
McGlynn (Eds.), Addressing ethnic conflict
through peace education: International
perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Danesh, H. B. (2008a). Creating a culture of
healing in schools and communities: An
integrative approach to prevention and
amelioration of violence-induced conditions,
Journal of Community Psychology.
Danesh, H. B. (2008b). The education for peace
integrated curriculum: Concepts, contents, effi
cacy. Journal of Peace Education.
Danesh, H. B., & Clarke-Habibi, S. (2007).
Education for peace curriculum manual: A
conceptual and practical guide. EFP-International
Press.
Danesh, H. B., & Danesh, R. P. (2002a). A
consultative conflict resolution model: Beyond
alternative dispute resolution. International
Journal of Peace Studies, 7(2), 17–33.
Danesh, H. B., & Danesh, R. P. (2002b). Has
conflict resolution grown up? Toward a new
model of decision making and conflict
resolution. International Journal of Peace Studies,
7(1), 59–76.
Danesh, H. B., & Danesh, R. P. (2004). Conflict-
free conflict resolution (CFCR): Process and
methodology. Peace and Conflict Studies, 11(2),
55–84.
25. ^ Salomon, G. (2004). "Comment: what is
peace education?" Journal of Peace Education,
1:1, 123-127.
26. ^ Mac Ginty, R. & Richmond, O. (2007).
"Myth or Reality: Opposing Views on the Liberal
Peace and Post-War Reconstruction,", Global
Society 21: 491-7
27. ^ Golding, D. (2017). "Border
Cosmopolitanism in Critical Peace Education,",
Journal of Peace Education 14(2): 155-75
28. ^ Bajaj, M. (2008). Encyclopedia of Peace
Education. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing
29. ^ Bajaj, M. (2015). 'Pedagogies of
Resistance' and critical peace education praxis.
Journal of Peace Education 12(2): 154-166.
30. ^ Bajaj, M. & Hantzopooulos, M. (Eds)
(2016). Introduction: Theory, Research, and
Praxis of Peace Education in Peace Education:
International Perspectives. New York:
Bloomsbury (1-16).
31. ^ Trifonas, P. P. & Wright, B. (2013).
"Introduction," in Critical Peace Education:
Difficult Dialogues. New York: Springer, (xiii-xx).
32. ^ Standish, K. & Joyce, J (2017).
(Forthcoming) Yogic Peace Education: Theory
and Practice. Jefferson: McFarland and
Company.
33. ^ Salomon, G. (2002). "The Nature of Peace
Education: Not All Programs Are Created Equal"
in G. Salomon and B. Nevo (eds.) Peace
education: The concept, principles and practices
in the world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Quoted in Nelson, Linden L. (2000). "Peace
Education from a Psychological Perspective:
Contributions of the Peace and Education
Working Group of the American Psychological
Association Div. 48."
34. ^ Clarke-Habibi, Sara. (2005) "Transforming
Worldviews: The Case of Education for Peace in
Bosnia and Herzegovina". Journal of
Transformative Education, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp.
33-56.
35. ^ http://www.peace-ed-campaign.org/
category/categories/news/ Global Campaign
for Peace Education: News & Highlights
36. ^ http://culture-of-peace.info/vita/2011/
journal_peace_education.html Education for a
Culture of Peace: The Culture of Peace News
Network as a Case Study
37. ^ http://cpnn-world.org/new/?p=6439
Where is Peace Education Taking Place?
Further reading
"Peace Education, Principles", Berghof
Glossary on Conflict Transformation (PDF),
Berlin: Berghof Foundation, 2012
"Peace Education, Methods", Berghof Glossary
on Conflict Transformation (PDF), Berlin:
Berghof Foundation, 2012
Uli Jäger (2014), "Peace Education and
Conflict Transformation", Berghof Handbook
for Conflict Transformation, Online Version
(PDF), Berlin: Berghof Foundation
External links
Canadian Centres for Teaching Peace
Center for Peace and Justice Education,
Villanova University
Culture of Peace Programme Canada
Global Campaign for Peace Education
Peace Education Center Columbia University
Wilmington College Peace Resource Center
US Association for the University for Peace
UN Peace Education Website
Culture of Peace Online Journal
On Earth Peace
Peace Education Foundation
Peace Education System Pakistan
Fundación Educación para la Paz
The Strange War - Stories for Use in Peace
Education in 22 Languages
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Peace education