(2018). Shining Light into Dark Shadows of Violence and Learned Helplessness: Peace Education in South Korean Schools. Journal of Peace Education, v15 n1 p24-47. The paper illustrates how a culture of violence is perpetuated and reproduced in South Korea through schooling and argues that peace education could help transform a culture of violence to a culture of peace. Critical ethnographic methods and a framework of peace education were applied to a sample of secondary schools in South Korea to argue that a disturbing culture of violence and learned helplessness were present; this comprises themes of direct and indirect violence through iljin (a group of students who are considered key perpetrators of school violence); a colonized false ideology and resistance to social justice. More positively, findings are also used to generate possibilities for pedagogical change based on peace education–an approach that proves useful both as an analytical frame for examining peace-violence relations in education and society and as an essential pedagogy for progressing towards peace in South Korean schools…. [Direct]
(2023). Militant Research for Peace Education. The Case of Grupa Granica on the Polish-Belarusian Border. Journal of Peace Education, v20 n3 p339-360. Peace education prepares people to deal peacefully with conflicts of various scales. The authors want to enrich this education by paying attention to situations when international tension increases, and it is still possible to defuse it. Social movements sometimes highlight the hidden conflicts in society. They provoke the authorities to act and sometimes even force them to reveal their intentions. In this article, the authors look at the use of 'intervention' so-called militant research in the face of growing international conflicts and utilise the example of the humanitarian crisis for exiled people on the Polish-Belarusian border that has taken place since the summer of 2021. The possibility of using militant research is considered an inspiration to restore and preserve peace on the basis of the activism of 'Grupa Granica' [Border Group] in Poland. The case selection is based on the criteria adopted from the literature on militant research…. [Direct]
(2024). Building Social Capital through Encounter-Based Peace Education: How Pakistani Youth Sustain Motivation for Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, v54 n4 p698-716. Encounter-based peace education programmes promote social cohesion and motivate youth to become peacebuilders. However, participants struggle to sustain these transformations in conflict contexts. This article draws from interviews and focus groups with alumni from four programmes that brought Pakistani youth to the US and other sources to examine these participants' long-term transformations. It argues that the programmes' emphasis on service-oriented activities led to participants' motivation to improve their communities because of the social capital built through these programmes. Connecting with strangers across conflict differences also resulted in participants' increased openness towards opposing groups. Consequently, alumni implemented projects to benefit their communities in Pakistan but were often unable to explicitly promote social cohesion because of sociopolitical constraints. Despite these challenges, the programmes emphasising community action in the US and in Pakistan… [Direct]
(2023). An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Lived Experiences of Graduate-Level Peace Educators: Voices for Sustained Peace. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University. Peace education is arguably one of the underappreciated areas of study within the social sciences. Many lifelong, dedicated peace education professionals often feel undervalued by the military-industrial complex apparatus. Influential individuals and corporations that thrive in chaotic and conflicting environments every so often underestimate the relevance of peace educators. Educators find among academic and professional students an intensified urgency to learn the skills necessary to address real-world conflict; however, these courageous individuals are seemingly battling powerful forces with wealth and power. Although such happenings can be demoralizing, it is slowly galvanizing dedicated peace educators to evolve by altering their skill sets, remaining resilient, and growing from the ongoing challenges. In this dissertation, I sought to investigate the lived experiences of peace educators and explore, through their voices, the challenges they face as global conflicts spiral out… [Direct]
(2019). Engaging with Teachers' Difficult Knowledge, Seeking Moral Repair: The Entanglement of Moral and Peace Education. Journal of Peace Education, v16 n2 p155-174. The paper explores how might teacher educators engage with teachers' difficult knowledge and negotiate competing moral truths, when this effort obviously fails to provide adequate 'answers' or 'solutions'. Although the paper is theoretical, this question's point of departure is an incident from a series of teacher workshops in Cyprus. The question is explored from the vantage of two thinkers, Deborah Britzman and Margaret Walker, who, in different ways, theorize the moral challenges of engaging with difficult knowledge in ways that disrupt stereotypical categories of victims and perpetrators. It is argued that drawing on Britzman and Walker offers a pedagogical theory in peace and moral education that is less about offering definitive answers and settling the questions of moral wrongdoing and more about 'staying with the trouble', that is, staying with difficulty for regenerating thinking around issues of morality and peace education. The paper concludes by suggesting under what… [Direct]
(2019). The Dancing Body in Peace Education. Journal of Peace Education, v16 n3 p296-315. This article discusses the potentials of the dancing body in peace education seen from a transrational perspective. The author explores how the multifaceted and creative body as worked with in the conscious dance and movement practice Open Floor can be tapped into and drawn upon to engage the multiple potentials of humans as "contact boundaries at work." She reflects in this regard upon her own experiences as an Open Floor teacher. The article first discusses how the experience of dancing in Open Floor unfolds a creative process that is 1) both "intra"relational and "inter"relational, and 2) always in "transformation." Further, the article discusses how the dancing body is engaged as "holistic," "relational" and "dynamic" through the Open Floor teaching tool 4 √ó 4, and how this dancing body supports a creative engagement with intra-inter dynamics in peace education…. [Direct]
(2018). War, Peace, and Peace Education: Experiences and Perspectives of Pre-Service Teachers. International Journal of Progressive Education, v14 n1 p148-164. The purpose of this study was to reveal the perceptions of preservice teachers with war experience regarding war, peace and peace education. In the study, the phenomenological design was applied. The participants of the study were individuals who experienced wars or conflicts for several reasons in their countries and who received teacher training in Turkey. In this respect, the causes of war were reported to include economic and political benefits and religious and ethnical discrimination. In addition, the participants mentioned the social, psychological and economic reflections of war. Also, peace was associated with the participants' experiences and explained with such concepts as living together, freedom, confidence and happiness. In relation to peace education, the main focus was on respect to differences, and on prevention of discrimination. The preservice teachers also emphasized giving importance to children's psychology in peace education, women's rights as well as to… [PDF]
(2023). The Multiple Faces of 'Conscientisation': Exploring Links between Structural Inequalities, Education and Violence. Globalisation, Societies and Education, v21 n1 p114-134. Education can instil conscientisation and stimulate action against injustice. The Batwa ('pygmy') people in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been severely marginalised. In 2012-2013, violent conflict broke out in Tanganyika, pitting Batwa against dominant groups. Our qualitative interviews evoked a causal relationship between conscientisation — via non-formal human rights education — and violence. Our article dispels this idea. Yet, it demonstrates that conscientisation can circulate beyond the confines of educational activities, and be appropriated by a range of actors, including those calling for violence. We thereby advance a critical discussion of the implications of transformative peace education in conflict-affected contexts…. [Direct]
(2023). Re-Imagining Education as a Pathway to Peace in Africa. Childhood Education, v99 n3 p32-39. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize the immensely important role that mental health and peace education play in learning and educational outcomes. Too much time and resources are wasted on peacebuilding processes that do not last and so many lives have been lost in conflicts that could have been prevented if education was used to foster positive mindsets with children. Since its founding in 2018, the Afrogiveness Movement (coined from "Africa" and "forgiveness") has striven to stem the tide of conflicts in Africa by optimizing Cameroon's education systems such that it produces peace agents and not war mongers. Afrogiveness has improved learning and educational outcomes for 2,000 mentally traumatized students from conflict-affected communities, who otherwise may have fallen prey to the dragnets of violent extremism and juvenile delinquency. It is the authors hope that, by reading this article, education stakeholders across Africa will become… [Direct]
(2023). Sharing and Listening to Stories for Peacebuilding in Post-Genocide Rwanda. Research in Drama Education, v28 n1 p160-171. This article explores how sharing and listening to stories linked children and young people, educators, artists, civil society workers, and policymakers as part of a continuum of transitional justice processes in the aftermath of conflict Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) initiative. We argue that sharing stories within a peace education context can potentially help to address everyday conflicts and personal and social wounds, often due to the residue of past conflicts. MAP facilitates a community of listening and/or a community of listeners through arts-based approaches that engages the individual to listen to oneself, the community to listen to the other, and the society to listen to inform everyday peacebuilding…. [Direct]
(2021). Managing Tertiary Education for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria. International Journal of Higher Education, v10 n3 p295-303. Peace is a necessary condition for the sustainable development of any nation. It is described as the absence of physical and structural violence, and the presence of justice. Peace education involves human rights and conflict resolution education. This justifies the prominence of peace and conflict resolution education in the educational agenda of nations. Based on this, the paper examines the management of tertiary education for peace and conflict resolution in Nigeria. The population of the study comprised lecturers from the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences from the Universities of Benin, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Uyo, totaling 2312. A sample of 231 lecturers was drawn for the study using the Cluster Sampling Technique. One research question and one null hypothesis were considered in this study. Data collection was done using a structured instrument tagged, "Managing Tertiary Education for Peace and Conflict Resolution" (MTEPCR) Questionnaire. The Instrument was… [PDF]
(2020). Pilgrimage as a Mode of Inquiry: The Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial as Entangled Place of Education. Journal of Peace Education, v17 n3 p283-307. In this essay, we explore an embodied walking engagement with the grounds of the Oklahoma City bombing memorial site that commemorates a bombing that killed 168 people in 1995. We consider our engagement as an existential pilgrimage with implications for peace education curriculum and pedagogy. Returning with intention again and again to a place that marks profound violence and loss–as well as peace and hope–invites attention, contemplation, and learning. Through entangled sensory engagement in place, in walking, being, and gathering with others, we bear witness to echoes of loss in the wake of the unthinkable. We first describe conceptual anchors of our inquiry, which we call 'pilgrimage as inquiry', as a form of walking methodology integral to place-based investigations. We describe insights resulting from our engagement at the memorial. Finally, we conclude with lessons for peace education that stretches beyond the memorial site itself…. [Direct]
(2017). Building a Culture of Peace through Global Citizenship Education: An Enriched Approach to Peace Education. Childhood Education, v93 n6 p533-537. Thought leaders in peace education, Swee-Hin Toh was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 2000, and Virginia Cawagas served as a Professor at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Both actively support the work of the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) under the auspices of UNESCO in Seoul, Korea…. [Direct]
(2022). Behind Screens: Challenges and Opportunities of Participatory Online Peace Education in Finland. Journal of Peace Education, v19 n3 p330-350. This article discusses the challenges and opportunities of participatory online teaching and learning in higher education. It analyses an online peace education course taught during the COVID-19 pandemic in three Finnish universities between 2020-2021. The course explored fundamental mediation skills and practices of positive peace through participatory methods and applied drama. We show how the online setting affected students and teachers, by focusing on the challenges and opportunities for participatory pedagogy in an online environment. The course feedback from students (N = 23) was studied by content analysis and conjoined with the ethnographic observations of the authors. Our findings suggest that mediation skills and practices of positive peace can be effectively taught and analysed online. However, maintaining active presence and emotional sharing present both challenges and opportunities for participatory online education. The findings will be of interest to researchers in… [Direct]
(2020). Peace and Conflict in Israeli State-Approved Textbooks: 2000-2018. Journal of Curriculum Studies, v52 n4 p533-550. The current article describes the peace and conflict educational approaches found in the Jewish-Israeli curricula between the years 2000-2017. Using thematic analysis, it extracts the dominant themes and messages towards Muslim, Arab and Palestinian 'others'. The study follows 123 textbooks recommended by the Israeli Ministry of Education for grades 7 through 12 of the Jewish state and state-religious sectors for the 2000-2019 academic years. The academic subjects or disciplines represented in the study include history, geography, civics, (Jewish) religious studies and Hebrew language and literature studies. Study findings indicate that current Israeli textbooks to not contain any overt racism or incitement against Palestinians. However, ethnocentric perceptions and victim mentality are two themes that still dominate curricular discourse and are counterproductive to peace education goals. Additionally, the paucity of Palestinian narratives is another potential hurdle to achieving… [Direct]