Peace education is the process of acquiring values, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony with oneself, others, and the natural environment.
There are numerous United Nations declarations and resolutions on the importance of peace. Ban Ki Moon, U.N. Secretary General, dedicated the International Day of Peace 2013 to peace education in an effort to focus minds and financing on the preeminence of peace education as the means to bring about a culture of peace. Koichiro Matsuura, the immediate past Director-General of UNESCO, has written that peace education is of "fundamental importance to the mission of UNESCO and the United Nations". Peace education as a right is increasingly emphasized by peace researchers such as Betty Reardon and Douglas Roche. There has also been a recent meshing of peace education and human rights education.
Definition
Ian Harris and John Synott have described peace education as a series of "teaching encounters" that draw from people: Their desire for peace. Nonviolent alternatives for managing conflict. 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 consequence 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".
Often the theory or philosophy of peace education has been assumed, but not articulated. Johan Galtung suggested in 1975 that no theory for peace education existed and there was clearly an urgent need for such theory. 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. James Page has suggested that a rationale for peace education might be found in virtue ethics, consequentialist ethics, conservative political ethics, aesthetic ethics, and care ethics. Robert L. Holmes claims that a moral presumption against violence exists among civilized nations. On the basis of this presumptive prohibition, he outlines several philosophical values, including pacifism, relevant to the nonviolent resolution of international conflicts.
Since the early 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.
Forms
Conflict resolution training
Peace education programs centered on conflict resolution typically focus on the social-behavioural symptoms of conflict; they train individuals to resolve inter-personal disputes through negotiation and (peer) mediation. The main elements of these programs include: learning to manage anger, "fighting fair"; improving communication through skills such as listening, turn-taking, identifying needs, and separating facts from emotions. Participants are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions and to brainstorm together on compromises.
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). Various styles or approaches in conflict resolution training (ADR, Verbal Aikido, NVC) 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".