Children's attitudes to war and peace: When a peace agreement means war

Abstract

Previous research into children's concepts of peace, war and strategies to attain peace suggests that peace and war are developmentally constructed concepts. In order to examine the impact of the immediate sociocultural context, 343 adolescents in Northern Ireland in 2002 were questioned about their concepts of war and peace, and their strategies to attain peace. Comparison with a similar study of adolescents' attitudes carried out in 1994 showed that adolescents' understanding had stabilized since the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994 to a developmental level comparable with that of similarly aged participants from peaceful societies. Unexpectedly, however, most adolescents in 2002 denied that Northern Ireland was “at peace”. Gender and religious denominational differences were also explored.