Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education

Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education
Author: Nicole L. Johnson
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2021-08-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1648025722

In Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education: Re-Engaging the Heart of Peace Studies, scholar-teachers across a variety of humanities fields explore the content, methods, and pedagogies that are unique to their respective disciplines in contributing to the study of peace and justice. In recent decades, even as peace scholarship has burgeoned, many peace studies texts—including those that purport to be interdisciplinary in nature—have emphasized social science perspectives and, in some cases, have foregone exploration of the role of the humanities altogether in comprehensive peace education. While humanities scholars continue to stake out space for peace scholarship within their fields, no volume has attempted to collect the wisdom of multiple humanities disciplines in order to make the case for their critical role in authentic peace education. Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education addresses that shortcoming in the field of peace studies by exploring the ways in which the humanities are uniquely situated to contribute particular content, knowledge, skills, and values required of comprehensive peace education, scholarship, and activism. These include the development of empathy and understanding, creative vision and imagination, personal and communal transformation toward “the good” in society (such as the pursuit of justice, nonviolence, freedom, and human thriving), and field-specific analytical lenses of their own, among other contributions. Both teachers and students of peace will find value in this interdisciplinary humanities volume. Each chapter of Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education offers a deep-dive into a particular humanities field—including philosophy, literature, language and culture studies, rhetoric, religion, history, and music—to mine the field’s unique contributions to peace and justice studies. Scholars ask: “What are we missing in peace education if we fail to include this academic discipline?” Chapters include suggestions for peace pedagogies within the humanities field as well as bibliographies and suggestions for further reading.

Peace Education

Peace Education
Author: James Page
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1607529297

Peace education is now well recognized within international legal instruments and within critical educational literature as an important aspect of education. Despite this, little attention has been given in the critical literature to the philosophical foundations for peace education and the rationale for peace education thus remains substantially an assumed one. This investigation explores some possible ethico-philosophical foundations for peace education, through an examination of five specific ethical traditions: 1) virtue ethics, whereby peace may be interpreted as a virtue, and/or virtue is interpreted as peacefulness, and peace education as education in that virtue; 2) consequentialist ethics, whereby peace education may be interpreted as education regarding the consequences of our action and inaction, both as individuals and collectivities; 3) conservative political ethics, whereby peace education may be interpreted as emphasizing the importance of the evolution of social institutions and the importance of ordered and lawful social change; 4) aesthetic ethics, whereby peace may be interpreted as something beautiful and valuable in itself, and peace education as emphasizing the importance of that beauty and value; and 5) the ethics of care, whereby care may be interpreted as a core element in peace, and peace education as encouraging trust and engagement with the other. The study addresses major contributions to each of these ethical traditions, the strengths and weaknesses of the tradition, and the ways in which the tradition provides support for peace education. It is argued in the thesis that each tradition provides only a partial basis for peace education, and that ultimately a holistic and integrative understanding is required, one that encourages a culture of peace. " ... an important addition to the emerging literature on peace education and the culture of peace" (From the Foreword by Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO).

Understanding Peace Cultures

Understanding Peace Cultures
Author: Rebecca L. Oxford
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2014-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1623965071

Understanding Peace Cultures is exceptionally practical as well as theoretically grounded. As Elise Boulding tells us, culture consists of the shared values, ideas, practices, and artifacts of a group united by a common history. Rebecca Oxford explains that peace cultures are cultures, large or small, which foster any of the dimensions of peace – inner, interpersonal, intergroup, international, intercultural, or ecological – and thus help transform the world. As in her earlier book, The Language of Peace: Communicating to Create Harmony, Oxford contends here that peace is a serious and desirable option. Excellent educators help build peace cultures. In this book, Shelley Wong and Rachel Grant reveal how highly diverse public school classrooms serve as peace cultures, using activities and themes founded on womanist and critical race theories. Yingji Wang portrays a peace culture in a university classroom. Rui Ma’s model reaches out interculturally to Abraham’s children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim youth, who share an ancient heritage. Children’s literature (Rebecca Oxford et al.) and students’ own writing (Tina Wei) spread cultures of peace. Deep traditions, such as African performance art, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and Islam, give rise to peace cultures, as shown here by John Grayzel, Sister Jewel (a colleague of Thich Nhat Hanh), Yingji Wang et al., and Dian Marissa et al. Peace cultures also emerge in completely unexpected venues, such as gangsta rap, unveiled by Charles Blake et al., and a prison where inmates learn Lois Liggett’s “spiritual semantics.” Finally, the book includes perspectives from Jerusalem (by Lawrence Berlin) and North Korea and South Korea (by Carol Griffiths) to help us envision – and hope for – new, transformative peace cultures where now there is strife.

Peace Education Evaluation

Peace Education Evaluation
Author: Celina Del Felice
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1623969751

Practice and research of peace education has grown in the recent years as shown by a steadily increasing number of publications, programs, events, and funding mechanisms. The oft-cited point of departure for the peace education community is the belief in education as a valuable tool for decreasing the use of violence in conflict and for building cultures of positive peace hallmarked by just and equitable structures. Educators and organizations implementing peace education activities and programming, however, often lack the tools and capacities for evaluation and thus pay scant regard to this step in program management. Reasons for this inattention are related to the perceived urgency to prioritize new and more action in the context of scarce financial and human resources, notwithstanding violence or conflict; the lack of skills and time to indulge in a thorough evaluative strategy; and the absence of institutional incentives and support. Evaluation is often demand-driven by donors who emphasize accounting given the current context of international development assistance and budget cuts. Program evaluation is considered an added burden to already over-tasked programmers who are unaware of the incentives and of assessment techniques. Peace education practitioners are typically faced with forcing evaluation frameworks, techniques, and norms standardized for traditional education programs and venues. Together, these conditions create an unfavorable environment in which evaluation becomes under-valued, de-prioritized, and mythologized for its laboriousness. This volume serves three inter-related objectives. First, it offers a critical reflection on theoretical and methodological issues regarding evaluation applied to peace education interventions and programming. The overarching questions of the nature of peace and the principles guiding peace education, as well as governing theories and assumptions of change, transformation, and complexity are explored. Second, the volume investigates existing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods evaluation practices of peace educators in order to identify what needs related to evaluation persist among practitioners. Promising practices are presented from peace education programming in different settings (formal and non-formal education), within various groups (e.g. children, youth, police, journalists) and among diverse cultural contexts. Finally, the volume proposes ideas of evaluation, novel techniques for experimentation, and creative adaptation of tools from related fields, in order to offer pragmatic and philosophical substance to peace educators’ “next moves” and inspire the agenda for continued exploration and innovation. The authors come from variety of fields including education, peace and conflict studies, educational evaluation, development studies, comparative education, economics, and psychology.

Handbook of Research on Promoting Peace Through Practice, Academia, and the Arts

Handbook of Research on Promoting Peace Through Practice, Academia, and the Arts
Author: Lutfy, Mohamed Walid
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2018-09-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1522530029

Academic disciplines perceive tranquility and a sense of contentment differently among themselves and therefore contribute to peace-building initiatives differently. Peace is not merely a function of education or a tool that produces amicable systems, but rather a concept that educational contributions can help societies progress to a more peaceful existence. The Handbook of Research on Promoting Peace Through Practice, Academia, and the Arts aims to provide readers with a concise overview of proactive positive peace models and practices to counter the overemphasis on merely ending wars as a solution. While approaching peace-building through multiple vantage points and academic fields such as the humanities, arts, social sciences, and theology, this valuable resource promotes peace-building as a cooperative effort. This publication is a vital reference work for humanitarian workers, leaders, educators, policymakers, academicians, undergraduate and graduate-level students, and researchers.

The Language of Peace

The Language of Peace
Author: Rebecca L. Oxford
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1623960967

The Language of Peace: Communicating to Create Harmony offers practical insights for educators, students, researchers, peace activists, and all others interested in communication for peace. This book is a perfect text for courses in peace education, communications, media, culture, and other fields. Individuals concerned about violence, war, and peace will find this volume both crucial and informative. This book sheds light on peaceful versus destructive ways we use words, body language, and the language of visual images. Noted author and educator Rebecca L. Oxford guides us to use all these forms of language more positively and effectively, thereby generating greater possibilities for peace. Peace has many dimensions: inner, interpersonal, intergroup, international, intercultural, and ecological. The language of peace helps us resolve conflicts, avoid violence, and reduce bullying, misogyny, war, terrorism, genocide, circus journalism, political deception, cultural misunderstanding, and social and ecological injustice. Peace language, along with positive intention, enables us to find harmony inside ourselves and with people around us, attain greater peace in the wider world, and halt environmental destruction. This insightful book reveals why and how.

Peace is Everyone's Business

Peace is Everyone's Business
Author: Lowell Ewert
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2021-08-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1648025986

The premise of this book is very simple. While acknowledging that much progress has been made since the end of World War II to improve life conditions for billions of people and reduce the likelihood of war, current global challenges threaten to undermine, undo, or even reverse much of the progress made. Growing political and social polarization, and the resultant increasing fear of each other, is on a trajectory that could cause unprecedented harm. The book illustrates how everyone can have an impact on peace and that many already do so in both constructive and negative ways, illustrated by many examples. The book offers an expansive view of peace, which includes promoting human rights, identifying and resolving situations of slow violence, working to promote fair and sustainable economic development, identifying and resolving injustices, and establishing institutions and practices for resolving conflicts by communicative means. The book especially focuses on the role universities can and should play in promoting peace. Universities, which have played a pivotal role in creating a more humane and just world through their research, teaching and scholarship, now face the challenge of thoughtfully examining how each discipline and vocation and the university as a whole can contribute to fostering peace. In general, universities help to prepare students actively to work for peace by cultivating their capacities at reasoning and reflecting, developing their skills in communicating and research, and fostering among them an active awareness of their responsibilities as citizens of the world. While not every discipline or vocation shares the same level of responsibility to advance peace, all have the potential to do so as they intentionally and thoughtfully look for avenues to do so.

Promoting Global Peace and Civic Engagement through Education

Promoting Global Peace and Civic Engagement through Education
Author: Pandey, Kshama
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2016-05-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1522500790

It is easy to see that the world finds itself too often in tumultuous situations with catastrophic results. An adequate education can instill holistic knowledge, empathy, and the skills necessary for promoting an international coalition of peaceful nations. Promoting Global Peace and Civic Engagement through Education outlines the pedagogical practices necessary to inspire the next generation of peace-bringers by addressing strategies to include topics from human rights and environmental sustainability, to social justice and disarmament in a comprehensive method. Providing perspectives on how to live in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religious society, this book is a critical reference source for educators, students of education, government officials, and administration who hope to make a positive change.

Peace Jobs

Peace Jobs
Author: David J. Smith
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2016-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1681233320

This book is a guide for college students exploring career options who are interested in working to promote peacebuilding and the resolution of conflict. High school students, particularly those starting to consider college and careers, can also benefit from this book. A major feature of the book is 30 stories from young professionals, most recently graduated from college, who are working in the field. These profiles provide readers with insight as to strategies they might use to advance their peacebuilding careers. The book speaks directly to the Millennial generation, recognizing that launching a career is a major focus, and that careers in the peace field have not always been easy to identify. As such, the book takes the approach that most any career can be a peacebuilding career provided one is willing to apply creativity and passion to their work. ENDORSEMENTS: The 30 profiles and other examples of career options across disciplines in Peace Jobs should be a required resource for all high school and college career offices. Packed with valuable realistic examples of how students, from a wide array of backgrounds, connected their passion with a paid career, it answers the ever present question “but what job can I get in peacebuilding”? Jennifer Batton Co-Chair, Peace Education Working Group and Chair, North America, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict Coordinator, International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education If changing the world is your calling, David Smith offers the guiding framework to channel passions and talents into meaningful employment. In Peace Jobs, millennials and others can discover ways to apply their social conscience to traditional and transformative career opportunities. Tony Jenkins, PhD Director, Peace Education Initiative, The University of Toledo Managing Director, International Institute on Peace Education Coordinator, Global Campaign for Peace Education