Goulah, Jason; Urbain, Olivier (2013). Daisaku Ikeda's Philosophy of Peace, Education Proposals, and Soka Education: Convergences and Divergences in Peace Education. Journal of Peace Education, v10 n3 p303-322. In this article, the authors introduce and explicate Daisaku Ikeda's contributions to peace education. Ikeda is a Buddhist leader, peacebuilder, school founder, and prolific author whose six decades of contributions to peace education have had a global impact in practice but have remained unexamined in the extant, particularly Anglophone, literature. Using excerpts and bilingual discourse analysis of the Ikeda corpus, the authors focus on five aspects to trace the past, present, and future of Ikeda's contributions to peace education: first, they trace the biographical roots of Ikeda's contributions to his early educational experiences and encounter with Josei Toda (1900-1958). Second, they outline the Nichiren Buddhist philosophy informing Ikeda's approach to peace education. Third, they explicate in the context of peace and peace education Ikeda's concept of value-creating, or Soka education ("soka kyoiku") relative to value-creating pedagogy ("soka kyoikugaku")… [Direct]

Khateri, Shahriar; Lewis, Elizabeth (2015). From Clouds of Chemical Warfare to Blue Skies of Peace: The Tehran Peace Museum, Iran. Journal of Peace Education, v12 n3 p263-276. Despite the limited number of peace museums around the world, there exists an essential role for existing peace museums to promote a culture of peace and peace education. The purpose of this article was to introduce the origins, rationale, scope and work of the Tehran Peace Museum in Iran. The concept of the museum is to facilitate peace education and develop peaceful environments drawn from the personal experiences of war survivors. The museum encompasses exhibitions about the horrors of chemical and nuclear warfare and is balanced with awareness programmes, bridge-building dialogues, connections with other peace museums and a comprehensive peace education programme catering for younger and older members of society. It offers the space and opportunity for a community of learning within the museum and welcomes fresh ideas and initiatives from visitors and volunteers. The Tehran Peace Museum is unique in its body of volunteers, men and women who have been directly affected by chemical… [Direct]

Arshad-Ayaz, Adeela; Doyle, Sophie; Naseem, M. Ayaz (2017). Social Media as Space for Peace Education: Conceptual Contours and Evidence from the Muslim World. Research in Comparative and International Education, v12 n1 p95-109 Mar. In this research, we present a conceptual framework to examine the potential of social media as an educational space for peace education. In particular, we examine the characteristics and dynamics of social media that set it apart from other traditional media and educational spaces. Specifically, we conceptualize features of social media such as: social media as "knowledge commons"; imagined communities of purpose; public and private voice; civic engagement; and the experts' gaze. Finally, we provide empirical and discursive evidence from social media in the Muslim world with specific examples from the Pakistani blogosphere in support of the conceptual framework drawn earlier…. [Direct]

Levi, Thursica Kovinthan (2019). Incremental Transformations: Education for Resiliency in Post-War Sri Lanka. Education Sciences, v9 Article 11. There is growing evidence to support the relationship between levels of gender inequality in a society and its potential for conflict. Positive attitudes to gender equality in and through education strengthen social cohesion; consequently, there is a need for gender-transformative education for peacebuilding. Drawing on the 4Rs (representation, redistribution, recognition, and reconciliation) framework in conjunction with the idea of incremental transformation with a focus on resilience, this study examines how eleven ethnic minority high school girls from Sri Lanka understand the transformative role of education in their lives as it relates to peace and gender equality. Education was a source of hope for the participants of this study and thus contributed to their resilience. However, rather than fostering and capitalizing on this resilience to build social cohesion and peace, education and the school systems are silencing them. This silencing is evident in the acceptance and… [PDF]

Bhat, Keerti R. (2020). Let Us Stick Together. Montessori Life: A Publication of the American Montessori Society, v32 n3 p34-37 Fall. The author has established a tradition of putting together a "stick bundle" that symbolizes the community in her Montessori Early Childhood classroom. In the first month of the school year, each member of the classroom finds a stick from the outdoor playground area and brings it back into the classroom. This article presents how the class creates a stick bundle, which is a concrete demonstration that shows the children that there is strength in unity and encourages partnership. The author also discusses how to creatively integrate Peace education into various curriculum areas. She decided to introduce different peacemakers from various continents to study. For Asia, Mahatma Gandhi was the obvious choice due to his nonviolent methods of gaining freedom for India after almost 200 years of British rule. This article also briefly presents how learning about Gandhi is integrated into the curriculum…. [Direct]

Brata, Nugroho Trisnu; Riyani, Mufti; Shintasiwi, Fitri Amalia; Suyahmo; Wasino (2021). Making Peace with the Past: Peace Education in Post-Conflict Aceh Societies through the Application of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, v12 n2 p330-376. This paper has two objectives, namely, to map the problems of history learning to promote peace in post-conflict societies and offer applicable solutions. The research questions are (1) How do schools in post-conflict areas experience pedagogical conflict, especially when confronting "difficult history" events that arise in classroom discussions? (2) How does the impacts caused? and (3) What solutions can be offered? This research paper is a qualitative research design with a phenomenological approach. The primary informants in this post-conflict generational research are teachers and students in East Aceh. Involved 55 participants from schools scattered in locations with predefined characteristics. The gender ratio was 69.6% females and 30.4% males. The youngest volunteer was 12 and the oldest was 52 of age. The main techniques used in the data collection was observation, which aims to observe the learning process in the classroom and various other potentials outside the… [PDF]

Kester, Kevin (2017). The United Nations, Peace, and Higher Education: Pedagogic Interventions in Neoliberal Times. Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, v39 n3 p235-264. Peace and conflict studies (PACS) education in recent decades has become a popular approach to social justice learning in higher education institutions (Harris, Fisk, and Rank 1998; Smith 2007; Carstarphen et al. 2010; Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016) and has been provided legitimacy through a number of different United Nations (UN) declarations (UNESCO 1974, 1995; UN 2000, 2015). To explore and map the field of PACS, this article examines the intersections of higher education peace studies and UN-inspired peace and human rights education. The author designed an ethnographic case study to explore lecturers' understandings and enactments of peace teaching (Stake 1995; Denzin 1997; Yin 2003). The study involved participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 25 higher education peace scholars and 108 postgraduate students. The article first details the outcomes of the integrative and multilingual literature review, then outlines the university context and analytic tenets of… [Direct]

Bailey, Daniel R.; Lee, Andrea Rakushin; Yoo, Hak Soo (2020). Creating Short-Term Classes on Unification in South Korean Universities. Asian Journal of University Education, v16 n1 p1-12 Apr. Young adults will be the next generation of leaders, and it is critical for them to be cognizant of major issues that impact society. Unification is a significant issue in South Korea, especially in light of the recent summits between South and North Korea. This study is rooted in principles of peace education to promote peaceful discourse related to unification issues. Unification education plays an important role in K-12 education in South Korea; however, it is not prioritized at the university level. This case study, which included open-ended surveys, interviews, and focus groups, explored South Korean university students' (n=33) views of creating short-term classes on unification and the types of topics that they think should be taught in these classes. Primary results indicate that most participants expressed interest in taking short-term classes on unification issues. The paper also includes practical implications that can be considered when developing short-term classes on… [PDF]

Hajisoteriou, Christina (2023). CSOs Working for Peace through Education in Conflict-Affected Areas: The Case of Cyprus. British Educational Research Journal, v49 n6 p1234-1253. This article discusses the results of a qualitative study examining the ways civil society organisations (CSOs) may better support grass-roots initiatives for everyday peacebuilding via education in conflict-affected societies, where official state processes have failed. Our research is set in the Cyprus context, where the conflict between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities that has led to the division of the island seems rather 'intractable' and 'frozen'. From the process of the analysis, three thematic categories emerged: (a) cultivating citizen empowerment and civil initiatives; (b) enhancing children's and youth's voices; and (c) launching partnerships with state and societal actors. We discuss our findings under the framework of intercultural education and change. It is argued that for peacebuilding to flourish, CSOs should use education to cultivate social and sympathetic imagination by enabling people from both communities to imagine other, more socially just,… [Direct]

Herrero Rico, Sof√≠a (2018). Education for Nonkilling Creativity: A Reconstructive-Empowering Approach. Journal of Peace Education, v15 n3 p309-324. Paige (2002) affirmed that a 'nonkilling society implies a disciplinary shift to nonkilling creativity'. Creativity is indispensable in the search for peaceful alternatives for the positive transformation of conflicts, inherent in human relationships. Creativity can help individuals to think and act peacefully, to find different alternatives to obstacles and problems, to face daily life challenges, and to be happier people. This article presents the Reconstructive-Empowering (REM) approach of peace education as a concrete proposal for implementing a nonkilling paradigm shift in education that facilitates the formation of a critical, active, creative, and peaceful nonkilling citizenship, capable of promoting social transformations toward a killing-free world…. [Direct]

Arawjo, Ian; Mogos, Ariam (2021). Intercultural Computing Education: Toward Justice across Difference. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, v21 n4 Article 30 Dec. Even in the turn toward justice-oriented pedagogy, computing education tends to overlook the quality of intergroup relationships, which risks entrenching division. In this article, we establish an intercultural approach to computing education, informed by intercultural and peace education, prejudice reduction, and the sociology of racism and ethnicity. We outline three major concerns of intercultural computing: shifting from content toward relationships, from cultural responsiveness to cultural reflexivity, and from identity to identification. For the last, we complicate discourses of race and identity widespread in U.S. education. Drawing from studies of youth programming classes in East Africa and U.S. contexts, we then reflect on our attempts to address the first shift of fostering relationships across difference. We highlight three promising design tactics: intergroup pairing, interdependent programming, and making relational goals explicit. Overall, we find that computing can… [Direct]

Antonellis, Irene; Brion-Meisels, Steven; Ch√°vez, Minerva; Daza, Berta C.; Diazgranados, Silvia; Noonan, James; Saldarriaga, Lina (2014). Transformative Peace Education with Teachers: Lessons from "Juegos De Paz" in Rural Colombia. Journal of Peace Education, v11 n2 p150-161. Effective peace education helps to create a transformation in the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and relationships of its students. Drawing on their experiences training teachers as part of "Juegos de Paz," an education for peace program that received support from the Colombian National Program for Citizenship Competencies, the authors explore transformative peace education and identify four key lessons for practitioners. Data from focus groups, interviews, and personal reflections are used to illustrate these principles and lessons. Additionally, it is suggested that there may be some transferability of these principles across contexts, since the program studied was originally developed in North America for use in urban elementary schools and was successfully adapted for use in rural Colombia…. [Direct]

Higgins, Sean (2018). School Mining Clubs in Kono, Sierra Leone: The Practices and Imaginaries of a Pedagogy of Protest against Social Injustice in a Conflict-Affected Context. Globalisation, Societies and Education, v16 n4 p478-493. This paper takes as a case study the pedagogical practices emergent from the educational interventions of a civil society organisation in the conflict affected region of Kono, Sierra Leone. Using a cultural political economy approach, it highlights the possibilities of pedagogy being leveraged to protest against perceived and experienced social injustices. In so doing it contributes to understanding of a context-specific model of teacher agency, rooted in the local and global challenges faced by pupils and their communities. It thereby illuminates an alternative to the generic and decontextualized framings of pedagogy frequently offered in human rights and peace education curricula…. [Direct]

Lauritzen, Solvor Mj√∏berg (2016). Educational Change Following Conflict: Challenges Related to the Implementation of a Peace Education Programme in Kenya. Journal of Educational Change, v17 n3 p319-336 Aug. Following the post-election violence in Kenya an attempt to bring about educational change through a peace education programme was launched by the MoE, UNICEF and UNHCR. The programme, which was aimed at building peace at the grassroots level, targeted the areas most affected by the post-election violence. Teaching plans were designed for all levels in primary school, and teachers and head teachers at schools in the Rift Valley were trained in the materials. Whereas the MoE assumed that the schools, having recently experienced the post-election violence, would have an innate motivation to implement the programme, this paper argues that the reality on the ground was more complicated. The formation and the implementation of the programme will be analysed from the perspective of policy makers and school populations. The paper argues that there are challenges related to additive and reactive peace education policies. Further, the paper argues that perceived relevance, school location,… [Direct]

Boudreau, Will (2017). A Qualitative Study of College-Based Peace Education Programs. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Hartford. The purpose of this exploratory research study was to examine the perceptions of seven northeast United States, college-based, Peace Education program directors regarding their respective programs' characteristics and the challenges they face. This qualitative study was designed to fill a gap in the literature by examining the perceptions of university peace studies directors in order to better understand the organizations they operate, as well as aspects of their leadership that help them navigate the complexities of higher education. With Bolman and Deal's (2013) four frame model as a conceptual framework, the study used interviewing in a semi-structured format for data collection. Additional data was collected using the results of the Bolman and Deal's (1991) Leadership Orientations Survey completed by the program directors, as well as reviews of program websites.The findings indicated that program directors demonstrate strong communication skills, take great care to foster… [Direct]

Satha-Anand, Chaiwat (2018). Teacher Glenn: How a Political Scientist Educated a Peace Researcher. Journal of Peace Education, v15 n3 p255-266. This paper argues that the nonkilling political scientist Glenn D. Paige could be seen as an extraordinary peace educator. It will be organized through three words — reading, writing and talisman. It begins with a brief discussion of the method used in understanding political scientist Glenn D. Paige's life as a teacher. Then, the author's 'reading' and 'writing' experiences, from taking courses with him, and writing a PhD dissertation under him, will be examined. The way in which political science education could perhaps be considered a form of peace education will be discussed. The concluding section on 'talisman' advances Paige's central idea of politics in terms of making decisions, especially to choose alternatives which could mitigate the killing effects and enhance nonkilling possibilities…. [Direct]

Monobe, Gumiko; Ruan, Jiening (2020). Analysis of Popular Educational Manga on World War II for Students in Japan. Journal of Peace Education, v17 n3 p241-262. This paper critically examines how three educational manga texts render the history of World War II for upper elementary, middle, and high school students in Japan. Informed by critical theory, the authors analyzed both linguistic (words) and nonlinguistic texts (illustrations) related to two major World War II events in juxtaposition, namely, the Nanjing Massacre and U.S. attacks on Japan in each book due to their historical significance. We focused on whose perspective(s) and voice(s) are represented or silenced, which events were emphasized or minimized, and which information was dismissed or even possibly altered. The results suggest the constructed nature of the historical manga because each presents a different version of the two historical events. The creators of each manga employed several techniques including the use of different elements of texts and illustrations to convey their perspectives and point of view to their readers. This research calls for sound pedagogical… [Direct]

Sun, Lina (2017). Critical Encounters in a Middle School English Language Arts Classroom: Using Graphic Novels to Teach Critical Thinking & Reading for Peace Education. Multicultural Education, v25 n1 p22-28 Fall. Graphic novels, which tell real and fictional stories using a combination of words and images, are often sophisticated, and involve intriguing topics. There has been an increasing interest in teaching with graphic novels to promote literacy as one alternative to traditional literacy pedagogy (e.g., Gorman, 2003; Schwarz, 2002). A pedagogy of multiliteracies using graphic novels can enhance reading engagement and achievement, reinforcing students' senses of their identities as readers who are learners and thinkers (Guthrie, 2004). However, there is scant mention in pedagogical literature of how such multimodal texts can be used for fostering students' critical thinking and reading skills for peace education. This article provides a case study of why and how middle school English Language Arts (ELA) teachers can teach critical reading and thinking in ways which promote education for peace and social justice. The author particularly focuses on the use of graphic novels to teach aspects… [PDF]

Flinders, David J.; Gursel-Bilgin, Gulistan (2021). Teachers Talk about War and Peace. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, v23 n1-2 p37-56. This article reports an interview study focused on teacher beliefs about war, peace, and education. We use a conceptual framework that calls attention to the social and psychological factors that contribute to the meanings of war and peace. Data are presented in three composite cases to convey the range of beliefs and perspectives expressed by our participants. We also discuss themes drawn from across the cases, including the relationships of war and peace to understandings of patriotism, military service, gender, and religion. Finally, we discuss the study's implications through examples of war and peace as potential curriculum content…. [Direct]

Darweish, Marwan; Mohammed, Maamoon Abdulsamad (2018). History Education in Schools in Iraqi Kurdistan: Representing Values of Peace and Violence. Journal of Peace Education, v15 n1 p48-75. The Kurdistan Regional Government has implemented a wide range of reforms in Iraqi Kurdistan's education system since its establishment in 2003. This qualitative study utilises critical discourse analysis to investigate the content of History Education (HE) textbooks (grades five to eight) and to assess how far peace education values and principles have been integrated into the curriculum. The ME's top-down approach has faced significant resistance from teachers and it fails to consider the importance of hidden and null curricula. It focuses on the history of Iraq, Kurdistan, and Islam, glorifies war, excludes different narratives or interpretations, and fails to foster critical debate or enquiry. The curriculum appears to encourage violence and foster divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the null curriculum is regulated to maintain the dominance of the group in power…. [Direct]

Andzenge, Andrea Kashimana; Dutta, Urmitapa; Walkling, Kayla (2016). The Everyday Peace Project: An Innovative Approach to Peace Pedagogy. Journal of Peace Education, v13 n1 p79-104. A critical task for peace pedagogy is to challenge views of peace as primarily responses to declared war. Crisis-based politics tend to focus on exceptional situations and fail to capture the entire spectrum of violence. Premised on the idea that peace cannot be understood in isolation of larger structural problems, this paper proposes the concept of "everyday peace" as a framework for peace education. Drawing from a pedagogical initiative, we examine how students engage with the concept of everyday peace and present our findings in three related domains: (1) definition of everyday peace, (2) application of everyday peace principles and (3) role of collaboration in everyday peace approaches. Our analysis underscored two important themes in participants' definitions of everyday peace: (1) peace as a value-based praxis and (2) individual-level and systemic components of everyday peace. Applying these principles to a violent event in the local community, participant responses… [Direct]

Costa, Rejane P.; Ivenicki, Ana (2016). Multiculturalism and Peace Studies for Education Provision in Time of Diverse Democracies. Bulgarian Comparative Education Society, Paper presented at the Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (14th, Sofia, Bulgaria, Jun 14-17, 2016). The aim of the study is to examine how multiculturalism and peace studies have been viewed in Brazilian and North American literature as gleaned both from Brazilian research studies and articles presented at Peace Education Special Interest Group (SIG) in American Education Research Association (AERA), within the scope of 2010-2014, which concludes that multiculturalism and peace studies may offer groundbreaking venues to promote education provision to every one, civilian and military students together with reforms in higher education. [For the complete Volume 14, Number 1 proceedings, see ED568088.]… [PDF]

Hoeks, Celine C. M. Q.; Lopes Cardozo, Mieke T. A. (2015). Losing Ground: A Critical Analysis of Teachers' Agency for Peacebuilding Education in Sri Lanka. Journal of Peace Education, v12 n1 p56-73. This paper aims to explore the "agency" of teachers for peacebuilding education in Sri Lanka through a critical multiscalar analysis of the interplay between "context"–education policies and governance–and "agent"–teachers as strategic political actors. It draws on two studies conducted in Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2011 to give insight into a changing context from conflict to post-conflict. While peace education and social cohesion were high on the political agendas before the official ending of the conflict, the need for a continuous and integral peace education approach seems to be losing political ground in present-day Sri Lanka. The paper seeks to contribute to the broader debate on the complex role of education and teachers in conflict and post-conflict situations…. [Direct]

Dunlop, Emily; King, Elisabeth (2021). Education at the Intersection of Conflict and Peace: The Inclusion and Framing of Education Provisions in African Peace Agreements from 1975-2017. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, v51 n3 p375-395. International actors have called for greater inclusion of education provisions in peace agreements given the important symbolic and practical roles peace agreements play post-conflict. Yet, the inclusion, framing, and roles of education in peace agreements remain understudied. This paper investigates the trends in education's inclusion in African peace agreements from 1975-2017. We provide a descriptive quantitative analysis of education trends over time, test several hypotheses that may explain these trends, and apply these findings to a qualitative case study in Burundi to illustrate key factors in implementation. We find that education is present in 46% of agreements, that the presence of international actors and disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration provisions increases the likelihood of inclusion, and that educational structure and content clauses are equally likely to be included. These findings have implications for international education practise and forward a… [Direct]

Diana Rodr√≠guez-G√≥mez; Miguel F. Moreno (2024). The Politics and Pitfalls of Academic Enthusiasm in Peace Building: Examining Researchers' Role in a Rural Education Development Project in Colombia. Globalisation, Societies and Education, v22 n3 p489-504. This article is an effort to unveil how colonialism gets inscribed in research education initiatives during peace-building. To this end, we look behind the scenes of an education development project that sought to support a rural school in consolidating high-quality education during Colombia's recent peace process. We examine how, in our roles as principal investigator and research assistant, our enthusiasm inadvertently contributed to perpetuating the colonial rule of the state in an area traditionally controlled by revolutionary groups. To do so, we follow the project from its design and negotiation to the delivery of results. By depicting how enthusiasm may shape a researcher's reasoning, we aim to complicate our understanding of the research process and the enthusiasm that underpins peace efforts…. [Direct]

Clarke-Habibi, Sara (2018). Teachers' Perspectives on Educating for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Journal of Peace Education, v15 n2 p144-168. What does it mean to educate for peace after witnessing one's community being devastated by war? And what impact, if any, does educating for peace have amidst the complexity of post-war reconstruction? To explore these questions, a phenomenological study was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2012 with eight ethnically diverse educators who participated in a programme of Education for Peace (EFP) which began a decade earlier in the cities of Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka and Zenica. Through semi-structured interviews, the study (1) explores meanings and experiences associated by participants with their role as post-conflict peace educators, (2) examines the extent and limits of their sense of peacebuilding agency and (3) elicits evaluations of the longer term impacts of educating for peace in the Bosnian context. The study finds that meanings associated with educating for peace are nuanced by educators' personal histories of conflict, professional identities and the country's… [Direct]

Charalambous, Constadina; Charalambous, Panayiota; Zembylas, Michalinos (2013). Doing "Leftist Propaganda" or Working towards Peace? Moving Greek-Cypriot Peace Education Struggles beyond Local Political Complexities. Journal of Peace Education, v10 n1 p67-87. This paper investigates the interference of local politics with a peace education initiative in Greek-Cypriot education and the consequent impact on teachers' perceptions and responses. Focusing on a recent educational attempt to promote "peaceful coexistence", the authors explain how this attempt was seen by many teachers as being a part of a local leftist agenda and was therefore often rejected. When though the same initiative was positioned–through a series of teacher training seminars organised by the authors–within the global field of "peace education", and was grounded in humanistic ideals, the teachers appeared much more comfortable to engage with it. Taking the local political complexities into consideration, the authors argue that despite the existing thorough critiques of the humanistic discourse of peace education, a seemingly "neutral" humanistic discourse of peace education can be legitimised on the basis of two arguments: first, a… [Direct]

Brantmeier, Edward J. (2013). Toward a Critical Peace Education for Sustainability. Journal of Peace Education, v10 n3 p242-258. This article proposes the need for peace education as a field to embrace critical power analysis of place in efforts toward social and environmental sustainability. Rather than status quo reproduction, a critical peace education for sustainability should both elucidate and transform the power dynamics inherent in structural violence and cultural violence. The inherent rights of people, plants, and ecosystems to live with dignity and to prosper are proposed. Practically speaking, the article offers perspectives from a critical pedagogy of place and an earth connections curriculum unit as vehicles for transformative education…. [Direct]

Goren, Heela; Maxwell, Claire; Yemini, Miri (2019). Israeli Teachers Make Sense of Global Citizenship Education In a Divided Society–Religion, Marginalisation and Economic Globalisation. Comparative Education, v55 n2 p243-263. Global citizenship education (GCE) has recently been promoted by national education systems and supranational organisations as a means for facilitating social cohesion and peace education. We examined the perceptions of GCE held by teachers from the three main education sectors in Israel: secular-Jewish, religious-Jewish, and Palestinian Arab, and found stark differences in the way teachers from each sector interpreted the term. For marginalised groups (Palestinian Arab), GCE is seen as offering a way of securing a sense of belonging to a global society. For already well-resourced social groups (Jewish secular), GCE is viewed as a way of promoting global futures. Meanwhile, for the Jewish religious minority in Israel, GCE is seen as a threat to national identity and religious values. Our findings cast doubt on the unifying potential of GCE, and we conclude by calling upon scholars and policymakers to examine unique obstacles facing GCE in their various contexts…. [Direct]

Shepler, Susan; Williams, James H. (2017). Understanding Sierra Leonean and Liberian Teachers' Views on Discussing Past Wars in Their Classrooms. Comparative Education, v53 n3 p418-441. Various curricular and textbook initiatives exist to aid in the national processes of coming to terms with past violence, often serving the political goals of the victors, sometimes supported by international transitional justice institutions. Sierra Leone and Liberia each experienced a devastating civil war during the 1990s and into the 2000s, and each is struggling to rebuild shattered education systems. In addition, each country has experienced a set of post-conflict transitional justice initiatives: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in each, and a Special Court for Sierra Leone. Although their respective ministries of education have attempted to address peace education through UNICEF-sponsored curriculum revision processes, those efforts have not yet reached the majority of serving teachers, so a discussion of teachers' actual practices is vital. This article uses interviews with teachers in rural and urban Sierra Leone and Liberia to discuss whether and how teachers talk… [Direct]