Journal of Peace Education

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Peace education: an International Baccalaureate

perspective

Lodewijk van Oord

To cite this article: Lodewijk van Oord (2008) Peace education: an International Baccalaureate
perspective, Journal of Peace Education, 5:1, 49-62, DOI: 10.1080/17400200701859379

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Journal of Peace Education
Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2008, 49–62

Peace education: an International Baccalaureate perspective

Lodewijk van Oord*

United World College of the Atlantic, Llantwit Major, Wales

Taylor and Francis
CJPE_A_286101.sgm

The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma programme, an internationally recognised

Journal
10.1080/17400200701859379
1740-0201
Original
Taylor
5102008
Lodewijkvan
vanoord@atlanticcollege.org
00000March
&ofArticle
Francis
Peace
(print)/1740-021X
Oord
2008
Education (online)

pre-university curriculum, is currently offered by approximately 1500 schools in 120

countries. This article will analyse various dimensions of peace education in the IB Diploma
programme, with particular reference to its peace and conflict studies course. This course
has been a success in qualitative terms but has not managed to draw in large numbers of
students. Ian Harris’ typology of peace education will be used to demonstrate how elements
of peace education have found their way into the Diploma programme in other ways as
well. It is argued that the IB Diploma programme’s commitment to peace education is
mostly achieved through international education, but that the four other types of peace
education (human rights education, development education, environmental education and
conflict resolution education) are also available. By way of conclusion this article suggests
how the peace education embedded in the Diploma programme can be made more explicit
and more widely available for a larger number of IB Diploma students.
Keywords: International Baccalaureate; international education; peace and conflict studies

Introduction
The International Baccalaureate (IB) was developed in the late 1960s with the practical purpose
of providing a growing number of international schools with a pre-university curriculum recogn-
ised by universities around the world. This desire was first put forward by teachers in the
International School of Geneva, an institution set up in 1920 to educate the children of international
staff working for the League of Nations. In the second half of the twentieth century, when under
the influence of globalisation more and more schools for internationally mobile children were set
up, other international schools expressed a similar interest. This practical need, to cut a long story
short, led to the development of the IB Diploma programme (Peterson 1987; Hayden 2006). From
the onset, those involved in its development also believed that the programme should foster inter-
national and intercultural understanding. This idealistic vision was mostly embodied by Kurt Hahn,
a German-born Jewish educator who moved to Britain in 1933. Hahn built his educational practice
on William James’ powerful idea that education ought to be the moral equivalent of war. In Britain,
Hahn became the driving force behind the Outward Bound movement and Atlantic College, the
first of the now 12 United World Colleges around the world. He believed that international second-
ary schools would be able to develop students’ understanding of other peoples and nations and
that this would in the future be able to prevent the outbreak of war (Flavin 1996). To this end he
brought students from many different countries together so that they could learn in one classroom
and engage in challenging community service. As will become evident, this thought later ended
up at the core of the Diploma programme (Cambridge and Thompson 2004; Van Oord 2007).

*Email: vanoord@atlanticcollege.org

ISSN 1740-0201 print/ISSN 1740-021X online

© 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17400200701859379
http://www.informaworld.com
50 L. van Oord

The first IB Diploma trial examination took place in 1967, and the first diplomas were
awarded four years later. Although small adjustments have been made in the course of these 45
years, the structure of the programme has remained largely the same. The curriculum consists of
six subject groups (mother tongue language, second language, humanities, experimental sciences,
mathematics or computer science and the arts) and three compulsory core elements: an epistemol-
ogy course called ‘theory of knowledge’, a 4000-word extended essay and the creativity, action,
service (CAS) requirement. Students choose one subject from each group, three at higher level
(HL) and three at standard level (SL). Higher-level subjects require 240 hours of teaching; stan-
dard-level subjects 150 hours (IBO 2002). Although numerous subjects can be offered (for
instance over 80 different languages), most authorised schools only offer a selection, depending
on student enrolment and available funding. Students are not required to take an arts subject;
instead they are allowed to choose one other subject from the first five groups, such as a second
foreign language or an additional science. In addition to the mainstream subjects developed by
the IB, schools with a particular interest in certain areas are allowed to develop courses of their
own. These special school-based syllabuses (which are only allowed at standard level) are
developed by individual schools and approved and moderated by the IB. Some 20 different
school-based syllabuses have been authorised by the IB, including human rights, political thought,
and peace and conflict studies (Hill 2004).
Today, the IB Diploma programme is offered in approximately 1500 schools in 120 different
countries. In May and November 2007, approximately 40,000 candidates sat the IB Diploma
examinations. Although the IB Diploma programme is an international curriculum, around 40%
of schools offering the programme are in the USA (IBO 2006a). The proliferation of the IB started
in the 1980s, when more and more American schools were attracted by its rigorous academic
curriculum (Fox 1985). Initially developed for international schools in the private sector, the IB
stresses that it does not merely offer a rigorous education for the expatriate elite. At present, over
half the schools offering an IB programme are state-funded. According to the IB website, 30% of
schools offering the IB in the US receive government assistance because of their socioeconomic
status. It is therefore said that the IB has developed ‘from a programme for international schools,
to an international programme for schools’ (Hagoort 1994, 11).
As the number of schools offering the Diploma programme grew, the IB also started to
develop educational programmes for the primary and middle school. The IB middle years
programme was first offered in 1994 and the primary years programme in 1997. Since then, the
organisation has been able to offer students an IB experience from the start of primary school up
to secondary school graduation.
In its mission statement on its website, the IB expresses a desire to develop ‘inquiring,
knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world
through intercultural understanding and respect’. The movement aims to achieve this by offering
‘challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment’. In a strategic plan
published in the year 2000, the IB movement stresses that such an ‘international understanding’
includes:

An understanding of the meaning and importance of culture (starting with one’s own but leading to
that of others), a study of issues of global concern (such as health, the environment, human rights and
conflict resolution) and an exploration of the different dimensions of the human condition. (IBO
2000a, 7)

This brief overview of the IB’s educational objectives demonstrates that the movement has
made a firm commitment to peace education. The IB appears to define peace education as an
education that teaches students how to establish and develop understanding for people who think
and behave differently from themselves. This is close to Gavriel Salomon’s approach (he claims
 Journal of Peace Education 51

that ‘the ultimate goal of peace education is to lead to the legitimization of the other side’s point
of view’). As he continues: ‘This does not need to entail agreement with the other side, just seeing
it as legitimate and thus valid’ (Salomon 2004, 123). Roger Peel (IB director general, 1983–1998)
wrote in similar vein that, ideally, students should after their IB experience ‘know themselves
better than when they started, while acknowledging that others can be right in being different’
(Peel 1997). Although the IB claims that its educational programmes are derived from educa-
tional practices around the world, the educational philosophy of the programme is fundamentally
contextual: it continues to be part of the liberal, humanist educational tradition (Sobulis 2005;
Van Oord 2007).
This article sets out to analyse the different elements of peace education within the IB
Diploma programme. Peace education is not a monolithic entity, and it is possible to elucidate
various theories and practices within the field. In the first issue of the first volume of the Journal
of Peace Education, Ian Harris (2004) analyses the different ways in which peace education has
developed at the start of the twenty-first century. He identifies five different approaches; namely,
international education, human rights education, development education, environmental educa-
tion and conflict resolution education. These different approaches, Harris concludes, are not
mutually exclusive but can complement each other in one curriculum or even in one lesson.
In the 1970s, the IB developed a special peace education course called ‘peace and conflict
studies’. This article presents the results of a recent survey among students who study this subject.
Although these results show that the course is a success in terms of student impact, peace and
conflict studies has not managed to attract large numbers of IB students. It is worth analysing the
reasons for this quantitative failure. However, peace education in the IB is not limited to the peace
and conflict studies course alone, and this article will also describe and analyse how different
types of peace education have found their way into the Diploma programme. By way of conclu-
sion I will offer a number of suggestions for how the peace education embedded in the Diploma
programme can be made more widely available to a larger number of IB students.

Peace and conflict studies

The history of IB peace studies, as peace and conflict studies was initially called, goes back to the
early 1970s when the British Lord Mountbatten, president of the United World Colleges and on
the board of the Stockholm Institute of Peace Research, urged the development of a pre-university
peace education programme. His plea was supported by Alec Peterson, director of the department
of education at Oxford University and founding director general of the IB. The development of
the course was embraced by the IB community with critical enthusiasm. Alec Peterson was
especially keen on getting the course going, and kept the pressure on. ‘I think the ambitious plans
for Peace Studies are now more or less in limbo,’ he wrote in a letter to Atlantic College in 1976.
‘I therefore propose to put your draft to the next meeting of the Executive Committee and get it
formally approved’ (Peterson 1976).
Fierce attacks on the peace studies course and on peace education in Britain in general were
launched in 1984, when two intellectuals, Baroness Caroline Cox and philosopher Roger Scruton,
published a pamphlet called Peace studies: A critical survey. They analysed different peace
education initiatives with emphasis on the courses offered at Atlantic College and Bradford
University. Their conclusions on the peace studies programmes were harsh, dismissing them as
‘fashionable nonsense’ that offered an incoherent set of assumptions full of political bias towards
unilateral disarmament (Cox and Scruton 1984, 41). Andrew Stuart, then principal of Atlantic
College, responded by writing that:
When Baroness Cox and Roger Scruton wrote their pamphlet on Peace Studies (…) we expressed the
hope that they would come and visit us, attend some Peace Studies classes, and talk to students and
52 L. van Oord

staff. It seemed to me dangerous to write highly charged political pamphlets on the subject without
such direct experience. (Stuart 1985)
With the closing of the Cold War era the criticism of the peace studies course was silenced as
well, at least in Europe. Yet even today some critics in the US mention the peace and conflict
studies course as one of the major reasons why they despise the IB so much (e.g. Archibald 2004).
In 2006, several American school districts tried to ban the IB, dismissing it as an un-American
and Marxist educational programme. Again, peace and conflict studies was mentioned as one of
the main objections (Walters 2006). What, then, makes this course so un-American and Marxist,
or, in other words, so very dangerous?
IB peace and conflict studies is value-based insofar as it encourages peace rather than
violence, but the intention is not to ‘pacify’ students or to persuade them to ignore or avoid
conflict. Indeed, peace and conflict studies values conflict as a means of achieving positive
change towards greater justice. It tries to offer students the conceptual framework and skills to
realise that every person is potentially able to create positive change in his or her community (IBO
2005).
The course is largely discussion-based in the way that it values student discussion over lectur-
ing by the teacher, and values learning through experience over the studying of vast amounts of
content. Peace and conflict studies teachers are therefore encouraged to create learning environ-
ments where students feel free to speak their minds and engage in critical and constructive debate.
Students can bring conflicts from their own experiences into the discussion, and learn how to
analyse them using peace theory. This will enable students to learn from peers who might have
different or even contradictory perceptions of peace and conflict. This sociocultural approach to
learning views the student and his or her world as one unit of analysis, due to its constant
interaction (Hakvoort 2002).
By using different instructional formats, peace and conflict studies is intended to be a real
learning experience that will encourage students to think and reflect on their own and others’
attitudes and behaviour. A prescribed teaching approach is unusual for an IB course, as the IB
maintains that it should be possible to deliver their courses in a variety of teaching methods,
depending on local and cultural educational traditions. However, the designers of the peace and
conflict studies course felt strongly that an affective and participatory approach to teaching is
essential in order to offer students the transformative experience needed for effective peace
education. ‘The success of peace education is more dependent on the views, motivations and
abilities of teachers than traditional subjects are,’ writes Bar-Tal (2002, 33) and this thought is
endorsed by the IB subject guide.
The introductory topic discusses major concepts in the field of peace research: what do we
mean when using concepts such as peace, conflict, violence and aggression? Here students are
introduced to concepts such as positive and negative peace and physical, structural and cultural
violence. The course then continues by addressing conflict at various levels: the personal, the
social and the global. The study of social conflict includes prejudice and discrimination and
social-psychological themes such as obedience and conformity. The study of conflict around the
globe includes development and globalisation and the study of an ongoing major armed conflict.
A final topic discusses change and conflict transformation. This topic includes an in-depth study
on the aims and methods of violent and non-violent protest movements (Gandhi, Martin Luther
King but also terrorism and armed resistance), third-party intervention such as that carried out by
the United Nations, and post-conflict issues including reconstruction and reconciliation.
As part of the assessment, students write an investigative report with recommendations on
either prejudice and discrimination or an ongoing armed conflict. When opting for the first topic,
students are to choose a specific group in a society of their choice that suffers from prejudice and
discrimination. They are asked to analyse the levels and nature of the violence suffered and
 Journal of Peace Education 53

recommend ways of changing it. When opting for the armed conflict, students choose an ongoing
major armed conflict and analyse its history, nature, outside influences and (partly) tried solu-
tions. Here too they recommend which steps need to be taken in order to transform the conflict
into more positive relationships. After the writing process, students hold a ‘press conference’ in
which they present their major findings and recommendations to their peers, who are to respond
as critical journalists or politicians.
This brief description illustrates that the course is deeply rooted in the work of Johan Galtung,
who pioneered peace research in the 1960s. For Galtung, the purpose of peace research and educa-
tion was to ‘put Man together again (…) in order to arrive at something more truthful to the miracle
that is Man’ (Galtung 1975, 262). The conceptual outline of the course and key definitions are
taken from Galtung’s notion of peace as the opposite of violence. The course also embraces
Galtung’s idea that peace research should focus on both the establishment of negative peace (the
absence of war) and positive peace (the existence of social justice) (Galtung 1969, 1996). This
approach to peace education is not free from critique. Gur-Ze’ev argues in a provocative paper
that the Galtunian modernist framework is unsuitable for our postmodern times and that this type
of peace education is itself a manifestation of the violences it seeks to diminish. Alternatively, he
argues for a counter-education which does not follow a universalistic essentialist agenda but faces
the changing postmodern condition (Gur-Ze’ev 2001). However appealing he sounds, it remains
unclear to me how this postmodern philosophy of peace education translates into the classroom.

The success and failure of peace and conflict studies

From a qualitative perspective peace and conflict studies is an incredible success. A recent survey
conducted among students studying the course shows them in a search for superlatives to describe
the value of the course. Students were asked to reflect on why they had chosen the course and
whether they would have made the same choice with the knowledge they had of the subject one
year later. A male student from the UK writes:
The experience it has been is valuable beyond quantifiable terms, as it is applicable in so many
aspects of my life, and has probably taught me more than I’m currently aware of.
A female student, also from the UK, describes peace and conflict studies as the most valuable
course she has, the only subject ‘really educating me in ways of life, which affects my thinking
and actions’. When asked to explain more specifically why she appreciates the course so much,
a female student from Nigeria writes:
Peace and Conflict satisfies, in a variety of ways, the desire to learn more about other cultures world-
wide and come to understand the background of global conflicts. I also enjoy the style of discussion,
flexibility and constant individual input as opposed to lecturing throughout the lesson.
International students from conflict areas often mention their inability to understand the conflict
back home as a reason to choose peace and conflict studies. Some comments are personal and
touching, even painful, such as this response by a student from Southern Africa:
[Peace and Conflict Studies] gave me a framework to analyse and understand my life and the world
around me. I am very much involved and attached to the subject because my whole life can be described
by the three words Peace and Conflict: living in a third world country with racial conflict and coming
from a violent home—it is a REAL subject, unlike math or physics which is just application. It has
helped me grow as a person, helped me face myself and stop being a victim of outside effects.
This comment is echoed by a male student from Colombia when he writes:
Everyday people die and we are in charge to do something. We can’t change the world, but we can
start to change some wrong ideas in order to create a peaceful community. Also, in my country the
violence is the worst thing and I want to study some theory to [be able to] do something in my country.
54 L. van Oord

Similar reasons to choose the subject are given by students from Northern Ireland, Palestine,
Serbia–Montenegro and India. On the other hand, students from countries without an armed
conflict often mention student diversity in class as a reason to choose the subject. A male student
from Japan, for instance, writes how he values the possibility of learning from students from
countries that are in war or conflict. Other students give different reasons, often more related to
the methodology of the course. Many seem to value the discussion-based nature of the subject,
providing them with opportunities to discuss issues of great concern to them. A female student
from India comments on the value of an interactive class which allows her to hear other people’s
opinions. A male student from Iran particularly appreciates the many practical activities, which
help him to learn better than through lectures. A female student from the US summarises much
of the aforementioned when she writes:
In some ways, what I have learnt grossly complicates conflicts rather than simplifies or categorizes
it. Each day, however, gives the course renewed relevance. Conflicts erupt perpetually, and through
Peace and Conflict Studies, I have a context in which to understand them.
‘A context in which to understand’ is not a bad slogan for peace education. Student comments
like these make it difficult to see the subject as a failure. From the perspective of the impact educa-
tion can have on a young person’s life, peace and conflict studies is a huge success; in terms of
quality, perhaps even the biggest success since the IB Diploma programme was launched in 1968.
During the development of the syllabus in the late 1970s, those involved showed great ideal-
ism in their eagerness to create a course that would be adopted by many and perhaps all IB
schools. Robert Blackburn, at the time Deputy Director General of the IB, even expressed the
hope that peace studies, once formally adopted by the IB, could also be offered to schools outside
the IB network (Duczek 1981). Reflecting on this ideal, something seems to have gone terribly
wrong. In May 2006, only 57 out of 31,249 IB Diploma students wrote the peace and conflict
studies examination: a meagre 0.18% of all Diploma candidates (IBO 2006a).1 Although more
schools are starting to adopt peace and conflict studies, the overall percentage of candidates
studying the course remains dramatically low.
Many scholars maintain, however, that the understanding of peace and conflict is an essential
element of an international education (Hill 2002), and regret that the peace and conflict studies
syllabus was never adopted by the IB more widely (Gellar 2002). The troublesome history of
peace and conflict studies remains difficult to grasp, since this course perhaps more than any other
IB subject takes on the challenge of the movement’s mission statement to promote an understand-
ing of global affairs and help create a world of greater justice and a dynamic of peace. Unfortu-
nately, active support from the IB in promoting the course remained absent. Especially in the mid
1980s, when peace education programmes became controversial in the western world, the IB
became anxious to place great emphasis on its peace and conflict studies course. The IB was in
the process of gaining recognition by many governments and universities around the world.
Promoting an explosive course could jeopardise this development. This lack of support might be
one of the reasons why, from a perspective of numbers, peace and conflict studies turned out to
be a failure. Atlantic College stood alone when it was criticised, and at times found it difficult to
attract skilled and motivated teachers to teach the course. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
apartheid regime in South Africa the sense of urgency for peace education within the IB move-
ment seemed lost. In 1995, there were only two students left. A new teacher arrived and started
to revise the course. The heavy focus on nuclear deterrence and Cold War issues made way for
questions of ethnicity and societal conflict. The various wars in the Balkans and the conflicts in
Northern Ireland and the Middle East served as case studies. A decade later peace and conflict
studies was back on its feet. Especially since 11 September 2001 and the global events following
it the course appears to be more and more relevant to young students who want to develop an
understanding of what is going on in the world and in their own societies.
 Journal of Peace Education 55

Although it should be concluded that peace and conflict studies has not turned out to be a
success in terms of student numbers, many IB student will encounter elements of peace education
in different, more implicit ways. All five types of peace education identified by Harris (2004) can
be found in one way or another in the Diploma programme, as I hope to demonstrate.

The IB as international education

In order to offer an international dimension throughout the academic subjects, the IB tries to
implement as much content from various parts of the world as possible. As part of the first
language courses, all students must, for instance, also study literary works from other regions and
languages. This is achieved through the ‘world literature’ component, which aims to provide an
international perspective in the study of literature. World literature can, according to the IB, ‘play
a strong role in promoting a “world spirit” through the unique opportunities it offers for the appre-
ciation of the various ways in which cultures influence and the shape the experiences of life
common to all humanity’ (IBO 1999, 4).
In history, by far the most popular humanities subject, students are presented with a broad
range of topics beyond the traditional national or regional history. Although schools can choose
from five different regions (such as ‘Europe’ and ‘the Americas’) all students are also required to
study prescribed subjects (e.g. ‘the USSR under Stalin, 1924–1941’) and twentieth-century world
history topics. These topics include ‘The rise and rule of single party states’ and ‘The state and
its relationship with religion and with minorities’. These topics take a comparative approach:
students are, for instance, asked to compare the rise of a single party ruler in two states in different
parts of the world or are asked to use various historical examples from different regions in their
analyses (IBO 2001a).
The experimental sciences have incorporated the IB’s mission statement in their subject aims
as well, for instance by stating that the courses should ‘raise awareness of the moral, ethical,
social, economic and environmental implication of using science and technology’ (IBO 2001b,
6). The standard-level environmental systems course has been most successful in the pursuit of
these goals, as will be demonstrated in some detail later.
The aims of all mathematical courses are to enable students to, among other things, ‘appreciate
the multicultural and historical perspectives of all [mathematical] sciences’. Teachers are encour-
aged to ‘exploit this aim’, the syllabus continues, by encouraging students to discuss ‘differences
in notation’, ‘the cultural context of mathematical discoveries’ and ‘how the attitudes of different
societies towards specific areas of mathematics are demonstrated’ (IBO 2004, 6).
The art courses all include the study of art from various parts of the world. Visual art students,
for instance, will have to demonstrate ‘some awareness of the cultural, historical and social
dimensions of themes in more than one cultural context’ (IBO 2000b, 5) in their personal research
workbooks. As part of the examination, a student will discuss his or her research workbook with
an external examiner, who might ask questions such as: ‘How do you feel this part of the world
has influenced your research? Which other cultures have you researched?’ (IBO 2000b, 17). This
brief overview illustrates that the syllabus designers have tried to include content from various
parts of the world as much as possible in the Diploma subjects. At the content level, the Diploma
programme truly embodies an internationally minded education.

The IB as human rights education

The school-based syllabus ‘human rights’ has been taught almost exclusively at the Red Cross
Nordic United World College in Norway, although a few other IB schools have in recent years
started teaching the course as well. It focuses on the theory and practice of human rights in the
56 L. van Oord

international arena. After a theoretical topic dealing with the history of human rights and its
philosophical underpinnings, the syllabus continues with a treatment of the major human rights
treaties such as the UN charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It also discusses the functioning of the main protectors of
established human rights such as the various UN bodies and the relationship between human
rights and international law. Finally, students are triggered to relate the theory and international
practice of human rights on a topic of their choice in a part of the world of their own choice. As
part of the internally assessed coursework, students write an essay and develop an accessible
website on a human rights issue. They can also decide to organise a classroom debate on a topical
human rights issue (IBO 2001c). This progressive assessment is typical for human rights educa-
tion, which often advocates ‘innovative, active, and interdisciplinary approaches to learning’
(Marshall 2007, 45).
Harris argues that ‘human rights education can be broadly construed in ways that honor the
basic dignity of all people’ as it tries to develop ‘multicultural understanding aimed at reducing
stereotypes and hostilities between groups’ (Harris 2004, 11). The IB human rights course clearly
supports this:
By approaching issues from a multicultural perspective, Human Rights deepens the awareness of
shared humanity and social responsibility, while upholding the idea of the uniqueness of each culture.
However a systematic study of human rights cannot limit itself to political and social issues, for the
idea of human rights also has historical, cultural, ethical and religious dimensions. Understanding
these dimensions is essential to evaluating the arguments put forward in the name of human rights
today. (IBO 2001c, 5)
In order to achieve this, the syllabus also deals with issues of cultural relativism and the critique
on human rights as a western construct, and the development of human rights conceptions in
Africa, South Asia and in the Islamic world.
It can be argued that elements of human rights education feature in the history syllabus as
well. The earlier mentioned topic, ‘The state and its relationship with religion and with minori-
ties’, for instance, deals with issues of discrimination, self-determination and the pursuit of equal
rights for religious, ethnic and political minority groups. Groups for detailed study include,
among others, Aboriginals in Australia, Kurds in Europe and the Middle East, Native and African
Americans (IBO 2001a). Honouring the histories and struggles of minority groups is obviously a
form of human rights education.

The IB as development education

The IB Diploma economics course is very different from most secondary school economics
courses as it focuses very specifically on developmental economics. The subject guide opens with
a values statement called ‘internationalism in the economics course’:
Teachers of the course must aim to promote an awareness in their students of how the impact of
economics can both improve cooperation and understanding between countries and, unfortunately,
cause extensive damage. If all participants in the global economy are to achieve a better quality of
life for their populations, there must be economic cooperation between all countries. This does not
mean that developed countries must control the destinies of less-developed countries. Instead, it
means sharing concepts across cultures, against a background of economic awareness. (IBO 2003, 5)
The fostering of this awareness is supported by three out of the five syllabus sections that cover
macroeconomics, international economics and developmental economics. The section on devel-
opmental economics aims to ‘provide students with the opportunity to understand the problems
faced by developing countries, and to develop an awareness of possible solutions to these
problems’ (IBO 2003, 21). It discusses factors that contribute to development (e.g. education,
 Journal of Peace Education 57

healthcare, and stability), barriers to growth and development, and an evaluation of different
development strategies.
The development education wing of peace education is associated with radical educators such
as Paulo Freire. He advocated an education which would help people to ‘read’ their oppressed
situation and take positive action in order to improve their position, a process he called ‘consci-
entization’ (Freire 1972). Although less radical and ambitious than Freire put it, the aims of the
economics course seemingly echo some of this empowering thought.

The IB as environmental education

Environmental education developed as a distinct niche of peace education in the 1980s, when
pollution and environmental damage were beginning to draw educators’ attention. The depletion
of rainforests, rapid species extinction and the effects of global warning especially have made
environmental education pertinent. The goal of environmental education is to ensure that a
student can become aware of the planet’s ecological problems and develop a commitment to bring
about positive change.
The IB environmental systems course, available at standard level only, is specifically aimed
at making students appreciate ‘the nature and values of internationalism, since the resolution of
the major environmental issues rests heavily upon international relationships and agreements’
(IBO 2001d, 35). The syllabus is flexible, allowing schools in different parts of the world to use
their own natural environment for field study. Students should study at least one ecosystem in
depth (either terrestrial, freshwater or marine environments), and should also be taught about
environmental issues at the global level (Armstrong and Rutherford 1999). The main argument
of the subject is that the environment is a fragile system, which should be studied in a holistic
way, embracing elements from traditional subjects such as economics, geography, anthropology
and the life sciences. This approach is similar to Harris’ conclusion about environmental educa-
tion that it should lead to holistic thinking ‘about how natural and human systems interrelate’
(2004, 14).
The IB is currently revising the environmental systems course, and soon it will be renamed
‘ecosystems and societies’. The new course will focus more on the interaction between nature and
human beings, and include elements of human demography and sustainability. By doing this, the
IB appears to join in the ‘marriage between sustainability and development’ that some detect in
recent environmental education initiatives (Winter 2007, 349).

The IB as conflict resolution education

Academic content can develop understanding and create awareness, in other words: it can make
students know. Yet most cognitive psychologists would agree that the acquisition of knowledge
does not always lead to a change in behaviour. Based on this understanding, Kurt Hahn developed
his educational model of active community service as part of the school programme. Students, he
believed, should not only learn academic knowledge through a formal curriculum, they also need
to learn how to take the initiative. In Hahn’s view, an international education for peace should not
only teach students how to think, but also how to act (Röhrs and Tunstall-Behrens 1970). His
students engaged in projects and expeditions such as mountaineering and sailing and in what he
called ‘Samaritan service’. Student were taught first aid skills and served as coastguards, lifeboat
crew and fire fighters. When a potential sponsor of Hahn’s school asked how sailing could
contribute to international education, Hahn responded:
I said we had at the moment the application before us for a future king of an Arab country to enter
Gordonstoun. I happened to have at the school some Jews [as well]. If the Arab and one of these Jews
58 L. van Oord

were to go out sailing on our Schooner, the Prince Louis, perhaps in a North-easterly gale, and if they
were become thoroughly seasick together, I would have done something for international education.
(Hahn 1954)
In the Diploma programme, this thought is embodied in the compulsory creativity, action, service
(CAS) requirement. CAS is a core element, and although students are not formally assessed in
this area they can fail the Diploma if they are unable to show evidence of participation in all three
areas of the CAS requirement. Students are expected to reflect on their creative, active and service
initiatives through evaluation questionnaires.
CAS aims at developing students’ creative, physical and social skills. Experiential learning
through cooperation is key to the CAS requirement which, it is hoped, leads to ‘a sense of respon-
sibility towards all members of the community’ and ‘the development of attitudes and traits that
will be respected by others, such as determination and commitment, initiative and empathy’ (IBO
2001e, 3).
Not all IB schools will be able to put Arabs and Jews on a sailing boat to ‘become thoroughly
seasick together’, and only an exceptional few of these schools actually operate lifeboat stations
and fire brigades as part of their CAS programmes. Yet in less spectacular form Hahn’s vision is
still present. The international content made available in the various subject guides is comple-
mented by a compulsory service and action element, where students, ideally, learn how to act
upon their newly acquired knowledge. Such an education, the IB movement believes, contributes
to a better and more peaceful world.
At first sight, the CAS programme might not come across as conflict resolution education,
since this kind of education is very much associated with training in communication skills and
conflict mediation. This perception is too narrow, however. One of the first school-based conflict
resolution curricula was developed by the Quaker Project on Community Conflict (Prutzman
et al. 1988). They emphasise three particular goals for conflict resolution education. First, to
promote growth towards a community; second, to develop awareness of human feelings; and
third, to help students explore the ways in which they can personally respond to problems and
conflicts suffered by others. With its CAS programme, the IB believes that it does just that.
According to the guide:
Participation in CAS encourages students to share their energies and special talents while developing
awareness, concern and the ability to work cooperatively with others. The IB’s goal of educating the
whole person and fostering more caring and socially responsible attitudes comes alive in an immediate
way when students reach beyond themselves and their books. The educational benefits of CAS apply
in the school community, and in the local, national and international communities. (IBO 2001e, 3)

Developing the peace dimensions

The above illustrates that, first and foremost, the IB is committed to international education, but
other types of peace education are to some extent available as well. Still, individuals within the
IB community argue that this is not enough. Malcolm McKenzie, for instance, believes that ‘an
academic curriculum that is avowedly international must be different and more diverse than what
is taught in most schools in most places’. Continuing his analysis, he argues that such an educa-
tion should include content that is more openly global:
Lessons should be learnt and applied across the curriculum, classroom and non-classroom, from IB
courses such as Theory of Knowledge, World Cultures, World Religions, Peace and Conflict Studies
and Environmental Systems. This infusion would create opportunities for our students to acquire
skills in Environmentalism, Conflict Management, Interfaith Awareness and Global Citizenship and
Global Ethics. (McKenzie 2004)
Likewise, Colin Jenkins argued for the implementation of a compulsory ‘global concerns’
programme into the core of the IB:
 Journal of Peace Education 59

The question must always be at the front of our minds—are global issues a necessary component of
a balanced curriculum in the twenty-first century? […] We are all subject to the doomsday scenarios
of the media and of literature. The Antarctic is melting, it is not safe to sunbathe, tribal and religious
conflict and violence are rarely out of the news, the information technology revolution is changing
our lives, social structures appear to be breaking down. […] How are we preparing the coming gener-
ation to face it? In education our eyes are firmly on standards, but are they standards for the right
things? (Jenkins 1998, 95–6)
Interestingly, both McKenzie and Jenkins have been principals of Atlantic College, the pioneering
school that developed the peace and conflict studies course. Within the IB community, education
for peace is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones of a genuinely international education
(Thomas 1998). An important question worth analysing is how many IB Diploma students encoun-
ter the different elements of peace education embedded in the programme. Are all Diploma students
‘touched’ by peace education? Curriculum designers acknowledge that there is often a difference
between the written curriculum and the taught and assessed curricula. In this terminology, the
written curriculum refers to the content explicitly published in subject syllabuses, the main focus
of this article thus far. The taught curriculum refers to what teachers actually teach, and the assessed
curriculum to what is being examined (IBO 2006b). Ideally, these three curricula overlap
completely, yet in reality this is never entirely the case. In order to establish how far IB Diploma
students have access to the elements of peace education available in the written curriculum, two
questions need to be asked: how far do teachers actually teach these elements of the IB subjects
and how widely are the courses with a specific peace education stance offered? In other words,
how much access do most IB Diploma students have to this written curriculum?
A good indication of student access to the dimensions of peace education is the popularity of
the aforementioned courses among Diploma candidates. These figures are annually published in
the IB’s statistical bulletin (IBO 2006a). It has already been mentioned that the peace and conflict
studies course was completed by 0.18% of all Diploma candidates in May 2006. The percentage
of IB human rights candidates is even lower; in the same examination session it stands at 0.07%,
a total of 23 students. Although the percentages are higher for the other subjects discussed above,
it remains remarkably low. In May 2006, environmental systems was taken by 8.8% of all
Diploma candidates and economics (HL and SL) by 26%. History is a popular subject; almost
80% of all Diploma students take it. In many IB schools, history is the only humanities subject
on offer. Yet very few history students answer exam questions on the topic ‘The state and its
relationship with religion and with minorities’. The history subject report of May 2006 states that
this particular topic ‘produced very few responses’ and that the essay questions on the topic
‘attract some of the weakest candidates who seem unable to find or cope with the demands of
questions in the other sections’ (IBO 2006c, 10). This indicates that the topic is hardly taught by
IB teachers, or at best taught badly.

Conclusion
At present, only a small percentage of all Diploma candidates have access to the courses which
include the various types of peace education explicitly. And although forms of peace education
are also embedded in the more popular subjects such as history, these specific topics are often not
taken up by IB teachers.
Perhaps the IB movement can become more proactive in triggering a larger number of IB
schools to adopt the courses with a specific peace education dimension. It should also encourage
IB teachers to focus more specifically on those elements in the subject guides which educate for
peace. History teachers, for instance, would be helped enormously if the IB produced teacher
support material on a topic like ‘The state and its relationship with religion and with minorities’.
A topic like this is unfamiliar to most teachers, and suitable textbooks are not readily available.
60 L. van Oord

The IB could facilitate the development of teaching material in this area. It could also train teach-
ers more specifically in dealing with the peace dimension of its courses during teacher training
conferences. It is stimulating to hear that the IB is planning to do just that in its future teacher
workshops. The IB has also started to publish course companions, and some reference is made in
these books to the internationalist ideals of the Diploma programme.
A more radical solution would be to embed elements of peace education in the Diploma
programme’s core, the part of the curriculum all students have to fulfil. As discussed earlier, at
the moment the core entails the theory of knowledge course, the extended essay and the CAS
programme. Perhaps the IB can join ‘one of the fastest growing school reforms in the West’
(Harris 2004, 14) by developing a conflict resolution course which IB schools can offer as part of
their CAS programmes. Not only would this provide IB students with skills and experiences in
conflict resolution, it could also help to institutionalise peace within the schools themselves
(Johnson and Johnson 2006). Students who successfully participate in such a course could then
be honoured with an additional IB conflict resolution certificate in addition to their IB Diploma.
Finally, the IB should consider what it wishes to do with the peace and conflict studies course,
which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007. It could play an active role in making the course
more widely available to IB schools around the world. Releasing the course from its school-based
nature and providing teacher support material and workshops would be an important step forward.
The same should be considered for the human rights course.
Such initiatives would allow a larger number of Diploma candidates to be immersed in the
education for peace already present in the programme. The IB’s effort to infuse peace education
elements in its educational programme is impressive. It should now try to ensure that more
students studying for the IB Diploma are touched by these various types of peace education.

Note
1. The figure of 31,249 refers to all students who were awarded a full Diploma. Figures for all candidates
including fails are hard to obtain, as students can also opt for single-subject certificates. In May 2006,
a total of 72,170 candidates registered for at least one examination session. This includes retakes, single-
subject certificate candidates and other categories (IBO 2006a, 10). Data for 2007 was not yet available
when this article went to press.

Notes on contributor
Lodewijk van Oord is Head of Peace and Conflict Studies at the United World College of the Atlantic in
Wales, where he also teaches history of the Middle East. He holds an MA in history from the University of
Leiden and an international teaching degree from Utrecht University, both in the Netherlands. His educa-
tional research focuses on the theory and practice of international education, with particular reference to the
International Baccalaureate. He regularly writes op-eds and articles in Dutch newspapers and journals on
political and historical issues.

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