Revisiting peace education: Bridging theory and practice – International and comparative perspectives – Introduction

The world is rife with conflicts between different ethnic and national groups and different cultures. We are witnessing bloody conflicts in Syria, and other parts of the Middle East, between Pakistan and India in Kashmir, between North and South Korea, in Africa and in Asia. These conflicts stem from demands by the involved parties for self-determination, statehood, security, territory, or various resources – material, cultural and identity-based. They derive from questions of morality and justice, as well as cultural or religious conflicts of interest. As Bar-Tal and Halperin (2011) contend, it is clear that psychological foundations exacerbate a conflict’s gravity and persistence, and therefore conflicts cannot be resolved through peaceful means. All partners in a conflict develop a psychological-social repertoire of beliefs, attitudes, and emotions that supports its group’s demands, determines the image of the rival group, and explains the nature and persistence of the conflict. By using that repertoire, those involved fan the flames of the conflict and make sure that they do not die down. Most conflicts are stubborn and unsolvable, and focus on one party’s unwillingness to give up, resulting in a zero-sum game that inevitably leads to a dead end (Gross, 2015). Conflicts are nurtured by the collective memory of the peoples involved, sharpening their awareness to tangible threats and dangers that could impact on partners in the conflict; they perpetuate the conflict and make it impossible to unravel it towards achieving a solution, or a different way of managing the conflict. The direct result of these conflicts is surging violence, wars that apply creative ways of mass killings, oppression, and instilling fear. Advanced technology – intended to be a source of resilience and societal development – has become a weapon in the armory of evil forces, polluting the world and making it unlivable. In many countries, people feel ontological insecurity, and it sometimes seems that the advanced world is moving towards a point of no return.

In recent years, global terrorism has increased with the main driver being shown to be directly related to Islamic extremism, as reported in the 2014 Global Terrorism Index. In 2013, deaths from terrorist activity rose by 61% to 18,000 with the report blaming this increase on the emergence of revivalist Islam, closely associated with the Islamic State (IS) and other Islamist movements such as Boko Haram, al-Shabaah, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. These movements operate across the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent in countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. As well, a phenomenon known as “lone wolf attacks” has emerged, occurring across the globe, from France, Germany and the United Kingdom to the United States and Australia. The only ray of light in these bleak and intolerable circumstances is an education system that various nations can develop to confront this complex reality, make possible more bearable lives, and most of all to grant the world some hope. Though their attempts may seem like a drop in the ocean, they in fact create a ripple effect that gives the world real conceptual and practical tools with which it is possible to engage with reality, and cope with it in a more creative and nuanced way.

This special issue entitled “Revisiting peace education: Bridging theory and practice” attempts to present the most recent literature in the sphere of educating for peace. Its main purpose is to revisit contemporary peace education research and practice and to investigate to what extent scholars have managed to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It will investigate whether education can play a significant role in imparting the values of tolerance, human rights, multiculturalism and peace education to the next generation. With the changing nature of conflict, from inter- to intra-state, and the shifting geopolitical balance of power (see Gross and Davies, 2015: 3), we need to reconceptualize where education is positioned. This special issue reexamines the state of art of peace education and develops a more realistic understanding drawn from empirical and reflective accounts in a variety of countries and political contexts, as well as providing innovative methodological approaches to the study of peace education worldwide. Focusing on the theoretical exploration and practical implications, this issue examines peace education paradigms, theories and practices. It concentrates on the impact of globalization, cosmopolitanism and internationalization on peace education; the spread of ISIS and its effects on community perceptions in many countries; and on the ideas of peace building, the culture of peace and peace education initiatives. It explores the potential advantages and challenges of religion and religiosity in peace education. Can interreligious dialogue serve as a basis for peace building? How can peace education policy be scrutinized anew and reevaluated?

A basic assumption underlying this theme is the perception that a culture of peace is a vital entity. This invites a discussion on how we define peace education: what are its constituents, and what definitions of peace education inform the research and practice? Some of the questions this raises include: How do we conceptualize, study and document peace education in diverse national contexts, across varying ages and located in different educational settings? How does peace education interact in the contexts of formal and informal education (Gross and Gamal, 2014)? How do unequal social relations and issues of power correlate with peace education and social action (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos, 2016: 4)? What implications follow from our particular conceptions of peace education for the field of education? Methodologies of “measuring” peace education need constant critical review, as do the theoretical frameworks that underpin quantitative and qualitative research (see also Gross and Davies, 2015: 3). Initiatives in peace education, peace building, conflict resolution and social cohesion are rooted in history, but also linked to visions of the future. Studying education’s role in peace and conflict is often justified by the need to help secure the future against further violations of human rights, whether based on ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. These questions will be examined through a wide variety of perspectives, including the sociological, historical, philosophical, psychological, cultural, religious, political, anthropological, gender and linguistic perspectives.

A new genre dealing with the correlation between education and security has developed in recent educational professional literature and educational research (see Gearon, 2015). Its goal is also that educating for peace will become an integral part of that genre, and the educational endeavors it proposes will constitute a lodestone that can bring about a new educational repertoire. Applying a fresh repertoire may enable the construction of new psychological infrastructures that can help create a world that is safer, better, and more just. Academic writing in the field provides a source of inspiration for shaping awareness that will bring about the designing of de facto policy in various educational fields.

This special issue presents fascinating critical testimonies from Lebanon, Israel, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Uganda, Canada, Mexico and Kenya. The article by Zeena Zakharia entitled “Getting to ‘no’: Locating critical peace education within resistance and anti-oppression pedagogy at a Shi’a Muslim School in Lebanon” critically engages observations from a school that was aligned with a resistance movement in Lebanon during a post-war period of sustained political violence (2006–2007). Focusing on the pedagogical practices at one community-centered and community-led Shi’a Islamic urban school, the paper draws on extensive ethnographic data to illustrate how teachers and students, together, negotiated resistance and peace learning through a critical and participatory process at a school whose curricular content, structure, and pedagogy explicitly addressed both direct and structural forms of violence. Drawing on rich illustrative classroom data, she examines the production and enactment of peace knowledge as resistance to the status quo. This knowledge production does not exclude the performance of militarism and heroic resistance as forms of praxis, creating dissonance for understanding peace education as a field of scholarship and practice. She posits that this dissonance is critical in forging possibilities for transformative change. The article brings together postcolonial theory in conversation with critical peace education to consider how larger structural, material, and political realities serve to mediate learning processes and value biases in peace research.

The article by Zehavit Gross entitled “Studying how to build peace and deal with stereotypes and discrimination in a period of terror and despair: A case study from Israel” explores how Palestinian Arab and Jewish university students in Israel, attending a course on conflict resolution, deal with their stereotypical views of the Other and their prejudices, as well as their complex emotions of fear, hate, anxiety, and love during a period of tension and violence. On the one hand, they have a natural desire for professional partnership and friendship with their fellow students. On the other hand, they are attending this class in a Jewish university, in the heart of the Middle East, where acts of terrorism occur almost daily. This violence changes the power structure and the dynamics of their mutual relationships. Through an analysis of a specific case study the article aims to shed light on how bridging theory and practice can generate a better understanding of complex situations, enabling reflection and developing signposts to improve coping mechanisms within peace education frameworks in times of terror.

The article by Ayaz Naseem, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz and Sophie Doyle entitled “Social media as space for peace education: Conceptual contours and evidence from the Muslim world” presents a conceptual framework to examine the potential of social media as an educational space for peace education. In particular, the authors examine the characteristics and dynamics of social media that set it apart from other traditional media and educational spaces. Specifically, they 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, they 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.

Moving away from the Middle East, the article by Kathy Bickmore, Yomna Awad and Angelica Radjenovic entitled “Voices of Canadian and Mexican youth surrounded by violence: Learning experiences for peacebuilding citizenship” focuses on the question of how young people living in high-violence contexts express a sense of democratic agency and hope, and/or frustration and hopelessness, for handling various kinds of social and political conflict problems. The authors argue that management of conflict is a core challenge and purpose of democracy, severely impeded by the isolation and distrust caused by violence. Publicly-funded schools can be (but often are not) part of the solution to such challenges (Bickmore, 2014; Davies, 2011). This paper is drawn from a larger ongoing project probing the (mis)fit between young people’s lived citizenship and conflict experiences, and their school-based opportunities to develop democratic peace building capacities, in non-affluent local contexts surrounded by violence, in international comparative perspective. The authors report on focus group conversations with several small groups of students, aged 10 to 15, in two Canadian and four Mexican schools in marginalized urban areas. They found that diverse participating young people tended to have a stronger sense of agency and hope in relation to some kinds of conflicts (such as environmental pollution) compared to others (such as unemployment and insecure work or drug-gang violence). In general, they did not feel that their lived citizenship knowledge was valued or built upon in school.

The article by Katie Zanoni entitled “Kenyan girls as agents of peace: Enhancing the capacity of future women peacebuilders” argues that the role of women in peacebuilding efforts has been recognized through various international instruments that have advanced the ability of women to access the peace table. In order for women to act as leaders, they must possess the capacity to disrupt structural, cultural, and direct forms of violence, engage in peacemaking activities, and employ prevention strategies for sustainable peace to be secured. This article draws on qualitative research on a leadership program called Women of Integrity, Strength, and Hope (WISH) offered at the Daraja Academy, an all-girl boarding school in Kenya. The case study is situated within the larger global context of the women’s peace movement galvanized by the United Nations to highlight the potential role women may offer as peacebuilders. The WISH program engages Kenyan girls through critical peace education pedagogy to enhance capabilities required for future female architects of sustainable peace in Kenya and in the world.

The article by Ross Duncan and Lopes Cardozo Mieke entitled “Reclaiming reconciliation through community education for the Muslims and Tamils of post-war Jaffna, Sri Lanka” explores the possibilities and challenges for ethno-religious reconciliation through secondary school education in post-war Sri Lanka, with a specific focus on the Muslim and Tamil communities in the northern city of Jaffna. In doing so, the authors position their article within the increasing field of “education, conflict and emergencies” of which there has been a developing body of literature discussing this contentious relationship. The paper draws from an interdisciplinary and critical theoretical framework that aims to analyze the role of education for peacebuilding, through a multi-scalar application of four interconnected dimensions of social justice: redistribution, recognition, representation and reconciliation. The authors apply this framework to interpret primary data collected through an ethnographic study of two under-studied communities that have been disproportionately affected by the 1983 to 2009 civil war and displacement: the Northern Sri Lankan Muslims and Northern Sri Lankan Tamils. They find that structural inequalities in society are replicated in formal secondary school education and are perceived to be perpetuating ethno-religious conflict between Muslim and Tamil; second, through a multi-scalar analysis, formal peace education is perceived by respondents not to be meeting the needs of communities; and third, they observe how in response to failings of state peace education, an “unofficial” Tamil-Muslim community education incorporating a social justice-based approach has emerged. This has facilitated a process of cross-community reconciliation between Muslim and Tamil through individual (teachers, students) and community (Muslim-Tamil community-based organizations) agency. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for peace education policy and future research.

The article by Barbara Dennis and her colleagues entitled “Children’s conceptions of peace in two Ugandan primary schools: Insights for peace curriculum” deals with an effort to not only address concerns of peace education in a country that has been challenged with a violent history, but to also approach those concerns as insiders. Colleagues at Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda, conducted a focus group study of primary school children. The purpose of the study was to understand Ugandan children’s conceptions of peace and thereby inform peace education practices and curriculum. Uganda’s history of imperialism, mismanagement, and inequality can inform an understanding of ongoing problems in peace and peace building. While efforts to weigh and consider how these and other challenges can be addressed in peace education curricula in schools can be considerable, even daunting, they are not insurmountable. The development of peace conceptualizations that are context-specific would appear to be crucial to praxis whereby reflection about and the ability to work through the roots and continuing dynamics of war and conflict can produce meaningful applications for change and empowerment. The authors used focus group methodology in two Ugandan primary schools and were able to articulate students’ general conceptualizations of peace and ideas about peacebuilding. Thus, while their interviews with Ugandan youngsters conformed developmentally to studies conducted elsewhere in the world (for example, negative peace being talked about more specifically than positive peace), the focus on access to basic material needs has not been so clearly articulated by elementary age youngsters in other qualitative studies. Moreover, the children’s peace building ideas included senses of themselves as agents. Across the findings, insights for peace education include (1) linking peace education with local conceptions of peace, (2) locating ways in which children think of themselves as agents of peace – linking peace education substance and pedagogy with children’s sense of urgency and agency, (3) engaging children in thinking about and providing services oriented towards meeting basic needs in society, (4) developing content that focuses on peaceful practices, and (5) fostering sharing, communication, and role cohesion while also encouraging a critical reflection on their limits.

The article by Zvi Bekerman and Michalinos Zembylas entitled “Engaging with religious epistemologies in the classroom: Implications for peace and civic education” analyzes the value of religious epistemologies in educational efforts. These considerations have important implications for peace and civic education, particularly in relation to two issues: a religious-centered approach to education, which often negates secular values, and a secular approach to education, which ignores the role of religion and culture. The authors mainly focus on the latter approach, as practiced at various levels in the Western world, and argue that religious epistemologies are part and parcel of the development of students’ civic identities. They conclude that religious epistemologies should not form an optional element, but instead a structural and necessary element of all peace and civic education. They argue that what has been called “dynamic secularism” can actually accommodate the growth of students’ civic identities, without sidestepping their religious and cultural affiliations.

The thread interlinking all the articles in this special issue is the attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, an endeavor allied with the systematic use of critical pedagogy and efforts to make learning more meaningful by using analytical tools that refuse to condone the present reality. Those articles aspire to seek new forms of pedagogy that can be used to render education for peace more creative and effective. This issue’s articles are drawn from diverse cultural, religious, and political contexts, evidencing that although geographical regions differ, human suffering and the disastrous consequences of conflicts are similar. The desire to resolve conflicts is universal and genuine, as is willingness to pay a price for a resolution, the readiness to make concessions and take responsibility, from a perspective of concern for the condition of humanity. Across the world, educators and researchers know that, although they are often victims of governments and political manipulations, it is their role to go against the current and to become agents of change in their region by proposing courageous and creative educational solutions (Gross, 2012). All the articles reveal that the way to deal with the real dangers and challenges faced by education systems located in conflict zones is by developing new methods for conflict management. This includes coping in smart and nuanced ways with disagreement, respecting freedom of thought and action that can enable short- and long-term breakthroughs, both conceptual and practical, in the field of education for peace. In turn, pedagogical conceptions will contribute to shaping new educational policies and consciousness, as well as fresh research trajectories.