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Students’ Local Communities Form Necessary Foundational Contexts for Peace Education

Shane P. Emery

College of Education, University of Toledo

TSOC 5600: Foundations of Peace Pedagogy

Dr. Dale T. Snauwaert

June 25, 2020

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Abstract

In the various theories of peace education (comprehensive peace education, critical peace

education, and integrative peace education), there is significant compelling and thought-

provoking discussion of where the focus of peace education should be directed, as well as what

methods and concepts of peace education are best-suited to achieving its purpose. With some

shades of difference appearing in the language of each theory, there appears to be consensus

around peace education promoting justice, humanization, and the elimination of violence as

purposes. What emerges as a requirement of effective peace education and a question that must

be addressed is what “space” or level of society peace education should focus on to most

effectively achieve its purpose. This paper argues that, as a counter to cultural violence in

particular, peace education must use the local community of the student as a context in which to

develop essential capacities for peacemaking. Elements from each theory are incorporated into

the argument to support this position with broad but thorough overview of philosophy being

favored over specific practices in the classroom.

Keywords: peace education, comprehensive peace education, critical peace education,

integrative peace education, local community, violence, cultural violence, reflection, reflective

inquiry, critical consciousness

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Students’ Local Communities Form Necessary Foundational Contexts for Peace Education

In identifying the purpose of education as a mission of environmental sustainability,

David Orr proposed that “all education is environmental education” (1994, p. 12). This of course

needs to be taken in its context as a comment on education with an ecological focus where

students are taught their place in the natural world (Orr, 1994). However, broadening the

understanding of “environment” from conceptualization as a purely natural setting to

conceptualization as the totality of physical and cultural conditions in which humans live and

operate offers a larger picture of what education is and can be. Taken this way, the environment

of each individual becomes the real world that they are exposed to on a daily basis with all of the

historical, economic, environmental, political, and other factors that influence that world. Thus,

education as a field and practice is called on to remain relevant through acknowledgment of

these factors in the lives of students. All education must be education about the world as a

concrete entity. Additionally, accepting education’s position as an engine for social change and

the educator’s responsibility to offer peace education as a civic duty (Snauwaert, 2020) gives

education a direction – not to just teach about the world, but to teach to improve the world. In

order for issues and flaws at any level in a global system to be made real and relevant to students,

the starting place for education must be in the students’ actual lived experiences. The lived

experience of any student (including their realized states of oppression or violence) is linked to

their existence in a social order. All individuals exist as agents in complex, layered, and

interconnected systems that range from the local (e.g. workers in an association) to the

international (e.g. citizens of a nation-state) and denote the individual’s place in the social order

(Galtung, 1969, p. 176). For a student to understand their place in the world, their education
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about its realities and constituent flaws must begin with the most immediate realities that they

can see at the local level in their community.

As stated above, education is positioned as a tool for social change. The pressing issues

of security, humanity, violence, and injustice are among the issues that education is capable of

addressing. In its various approaches and theories, a model of peace education is specifically

geared to address these realities by teaching both about peace (developing practices and

capacities in students for the accomplishment of a peaceful society) and for peace (taking into

consideration overarching issues of peace that need to be addressed at the international and

multi-cultural level) (Reardon, 1999, pp. 399-401). Within the theory of peace education, there

are diverse but often complementary approaches and methodologies to consider, and each may

propose a different purpose for the field as a whole. With comprehensive peace education, for

example, the focus is articulated to be more on a global vision of peace as presented by Reardon

(Reardon & Snauwaert, 2014). With critical peace education, there is a defined focus on local

experiences with the sort of injustices peace education aims to resolve in Freire (1970) and Bajaj

(2008). And with integrative peace education, there is a focus on seeking peace within school

communities (Danesh, 2011). Shades of difference between these approaches aside, the purposes

of any approach to peace education are well aligned in addressing violence (personal, structural,

and cultural) and expanding human rights. Having identified that a necessary starting point for

education’s mission is rooted in relevance and the immediate realities of students, it will be

argued here that the foundational context for peace education must be the local level and that

each of the approaches to peace education has a necessary tool or perspective to offer to this

foundation.
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Before exploring how each of the various approaches to peace education (comprehensive,

critical, integrative) contribute to a worldview of peace founded at the local level, it is important

to address and define the problems that peace education seeks to resolve. After all, the success of

any peace education program must be measured on its ability to solve these problems. One goal

of peace education suggested by Reardon is the achievement of “a more humane society, be that

on a community, national, or local basis” (1999, p. 398). This goal appears universally supported

by peace education approaches and suggests that the renewal and expansion of human rights

should be among the problems the field addresses. This is later furthered by Reardon: “Education

should be devoted to the development of the ability to learn and should concern itself with

deepening and extending the capacities that are comprehended by the notion of the positive

human potential” (2014, p. 97). Framing peace education around the achievement of human

potential points to the core problem that must be addressed, the limiting factor to human

potential: violence. According to Galtung, “violence is present when human beings are being

influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential

realizations” and violence is “the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual”

(1969, p. 168). Violence is thus capable of taking on many forms. So long as human potential is

being limited in an avoidable way, it can be said that the cause is violent in nature. Due to the

broad range of types of violence, it is unreasonable to seek a single solution that will be capable

of eliminating all of them. The type of violence to be addressed will dictate the tool that should

be employed in peace education.

The typology of violence proposed by Galtung (1969) is necessarily thorough and

detailed. To speak of it in broad terms tends to miss important nuances. However, three broad

types of violence stand out that are distinct enough from one another to warrant individual
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attention: personal violence, structural violence, and cultural violence (Galtung, 1969, 1990).

None of these should be considered in a vacuum, as each contributes to the others. Personal

violence, the most visible of the three types, relies on tools (e.g. weapons) or organizations (e.g.

mobs, armies) to target humans somatically (by denying input of food, water, air, etc. or output

of movement) or psychologically (Galtung, 1969, pp. 174-175). Structural violence, a much less

visible type than personal violence but one that in many cases causes personal violence to occur,

relies on social structures (e.g. political and economic systems) to limit human potential

(Galtung, 1969). Structural violence most often manifests in the oppression of one group in a

society, the arbitrary domination of one group over another. Supporting the continuation of both

personal and structural violence is cultural violence, the symbolic aspects of culture in religion,

ideology, language, art, and science that justify violence (Galtung, 1990, p. 291).

There is some argument to be made that one type of violence is sufficient to eliminate

another or that one type of violence presupposes another, but in attempts to fight fire with fire,

violence with violence, flaws in the conception of what constitutes violence are revealed

(Galtung, 1969). Violence is never presented as sufficient to remove all of the injustices it itself

creates. This is the necessary, if daunting, work of peace education. The problem of personal

violence enacted between individuals or groups can be mitigated by first recognizing alternatives

to conflict. Reardon explains that conflict resolution education can lead to a reduction in violence

as it fosters in students “a broader repertoire of behavioural skills for dealing with conflict”

(1999, p. 403). If individual members of society develop the capacity to resolve conflict non-

violently, then the problem of direct personal violence can be effectively reduced or eliminated.

If the attitude to find non-violent solutions is taken to an international or global level, then it

achieves a human society that “derives from positive, mutually beneficial relationships”
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(Reardon, 1999, p. 398) and thus increases the security of each member. The route to the

elimination of structural violence is less about the development of skills and more about the

development of awareness. A student’s awareness of injustice and of their right to seek public

justification through such means as civil disobedience (Brownlee, 2017; Snauwaert, 2020) is a

foundational understanding that they will need in order to engage as citizens in a democratic

society and to address injustice non-violently. An educator who denies students the opportunity

to question the world around them is engaging in an act of violence against them by limiting

their potential to improve that world. This proposition is best defended by Galtung’s description

of psychological violence to “include lies, brainwashing, indoctrination of various kinds” (1969,

p. 169). Educators thus have a duty to raise their awareness of injustice, especially the injustice

that may be present in the community where they teach and their students live. Failure to do so

runs the risk of indoctrinating students into an oppressive system. In a culture where

“oppression” is often perceived only as a tactic used by an enemy, it can be difficult to see how

oppression is often embedded in the unquestioned norms of a culture (Young, 2015). This

perhaps points to the roots of violence as a whole in the category of cultural violence. It is in

targeting cultural violence that peace education is best equipped to eliminate violence overall.

Because it is through culture that values are formed and strengthened, the education system must

be leveraged to part ways with a culture of war and build instead a culture of peace. Instead of a

culture that legitimizes or justifies violence, reframing values around “peace culture” would

justify and legitimize the direct and structural peace necessary for a secure society (Galtung,

1990). The first exposure that students have to culture is through the local community in which

they are raised. Therefore, if peace education is to be effective in renewing cultural values

toward social justice, human rights, and non-violence, it must use the community context as a
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foundation for student understanding of these topics. This capacity for peace education to

address a fundamental challenge in the struggle against violence is a core feature of the argument

to use a “bottom up” (local first) strategy (Bajaj, 2008, p. 4) to achieve its overarching purpose.

The methods and perspectives offered by the different approaches to peace education fit into this

strategy in complementary ways.

A central feature of both the comprehensive and critical approaches to peace education is

the capacity to question norms and narratives in the local and global community, which makes

them crucial to countering structural violence (i.e. social injustice). However, the integrative

theory of peace education offered in the Education for Peace Integrative Curriculum (EFP)

includes several practical steps that can engage students in a community mindset as a way to

develop a peaceful worldview (Danesh, 2011). The integrative theory of peace education focuses

on the idea of “unity” through an embrace of diversity (Danesh, 2011, p. 134). Importantly, EFP

articulates, as one of its main goals, that the peace education program should assist all individual

members in creating a culture of peace in their school communities (Danesh, 2011, 133). This

community is not confined to the interior of the schools, an idea that would undoubtedly be

supported by Orr since it extends the classroom beyond its four walls (1994, p. 14), but engages

the family unit and leadership in the community in the process of peace education (Danesh,

2011). The curriculum of the EFP seems to place equal weight on educating about and for peace

as it seeks to impart foundational knowledge of the unity-based worldview, elements of peace

culture, and elements of healing culture (Danesh, 2011, p. 23) along with practical applications

of these concepts that are actionable within the community (Danesh, 2011). Another key feature

of the curriculum is, as the theory’s name implies, integration. Peace, as a prerequisite for a

humane society, cannot be taught as a subject unto itself. It must be “woven into the whole fabric
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of the school environment” (Danesh, 2011, p. 100). Each subject and discipline within a school

community needs to use peace as a framework, addressing such issues as unity in diversity,

interethnic harmony, shared community beliefs, peaceful conflict resolution, and dealing with

trauma as a matter of course (Danesh, 2011, p. 100). Trauma in particular, as a byproduct of

violence, is a matter that local communities (at the school and family level) can and should

confront together. Reflecting on where violence is present in their lives and considering a better

path forward is a way in which the integrative theory of peace education strengthens values of

peace and addresses cultural violence.

The capacity for reflective inquiry is cited as a core purpose for comprehensive peace

education. If it were incorporated into the EFP curriculum as a reflective tool, it would support

the desired shift in worldview toward not just unity but also the humanity-based worldview

desired by comprehensive peace education (Reardon & Snauwaert, 2014). Reflective inquiry

taps into the necessary capacity for self-reflection that students will need to question cultural

norms. Forming this capacity in students will require educators to ask crucial, relevant questions

about the world, starting with the local community. The shape and direction of these questions

are informed by comprehensive peace education and easily framed in the local context when

considering that cultural transformation relies on the questioning of personal norms and values.

Earlier, individuals are described as agents within systems. In order for students to determine

their place in the system as a whole and ascertain whether the systems around them support

justice, students must engage in reflective inquiry, measuring their values against those in the

system. The power and necessity of this is upheld in Reardon’s analysis:

Internalizing values is possible through the acquisition of knowledge and the

development of skills if the learning process is mediated through active and reflective
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involvement of the learner with the substance of study… This is especially so if the

process involves the examination and—in most cases—the challenging of the worldviews

of the learners and their societies. (Reardon & Snauwaert, 2014, p. 147)

Cultural change relies on value realignment or value recognition. While engaging students with

basic principles of peace education (human rights education, unity-based world views, etc.), they

must reflect on whether the values of peace are aligned with their personal values and the values

enshrined in the ethics and norms of their community. Even the most self-serving of value

systems can recognize that security “derives from positive, mutually beneficial relationships”

(Reardon, 1999, p. 398). This baseline feeds into the need for reflection in learning. Reflection is

a developed capacity that enables the development of other essential capacities necessary for

peacemaking: responsibility, risk-taking, reconciliation (between parties), recovery (from trauma

and violence), reconstruction (of society through envisioning, imaging, and modeling), and

reverence (for humanity and the other capacities of peacemaking) (Reardon & Snauwaert, 2014,

pp. 99-102). In their teaching, educators must model these capacities and engage in reflective

inquiry of their own. Educators must help students form the bridge between reflection and action.

Starting from injustices at the local level not only eases the development of peacemaking

capacities but also offers an opportunity for students to put peacemaking into practice in

meaningful ways that directly impact their lives.

The tool of reflective inquiry offered in comprehensive peace education also lends itself

well to perhaps the most compelling of peace education theories and the one that makes the

strongest argument for peace in a local context: critical peace education. In his Pedagogy of the

Oppressed, Freire makes the case for a much needed critical consciousness or critical awareness

in education (1970). As with the other peace education theories, restoring humanity to the
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relationships throughout society is a core goal, but this must be done through the raising of a

critical consciousness in the oppressed class (Freire, 1970). For Freire, the pedagogy of the

oppressed “is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are

manifestations of dehumanization” (Freire, 1970, p. 48). Developing a critical consciousness

then is a necessary step to achieving and safeguarding human rights. Like reflective inquiry, the

“authentic reflection” in critical peace education considers “people in their relations with the

world” (Freire, 1970, p. 81). Importantly, the educator must engage in the process of raising their

consciousness as well and work alongside the oppressed toward justice. The teacher, Freire says,

must become a “student among students” (1970, p. 75). Students and teachers are meant to

explore the issues of peace education in concert, examining their values and the values of the

communities in which they learn (Freire, 1970; Bajaj, 2008). Without a local context for

students’ value systems, educators cannot effectively appreciate the historical influences that the

student community must contend with or aid in the transition toward peaceful worldviews (Bajaj,

2008). Bajaj argues, “Attention to local struggles legitimizes collective agency in pursuing

justice through human rights” (2008, p. 5). This collective agency formed at the local level

serves as a building block for collective efforts toward justice at the global level in the ideal end

that students become global citizens in addition to being local agents. But justice must first be

achieved in the micro-level through the reflective framework of peace education, either in the

form of reflective inquiry or critical consciousness. True reflection will lead to the action

necessary for justice (Freire, 1970, p. 66).

If there is any opposition to forming a foundation for peace education in local contexts, it

would likely be an argument for a more ambitious and far-reaching focus on global peace as a

primary objective. There are, of course, issues at the international level that threaten security and
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reinforce violent trends across society. Snauwaert (2020) outlines these succinctly to include

issues of military force, weapons of mass destruction, wealth distribution, human rights

protection, and environmental crisis (p. 2). These and other considerations will be faced in years

to come by the generations of students working through the education system today. The issues

are pressing and necessitate systemic change in social structures, as well as in international

relationships that are necessary to combat global crises. However, changes in law or policy are

not sufficient to establish lasting peace and confront new challenges that may arise. A shift

toward peace must be more fundamental, grounded in the consciousness of the students that will

become stewards of the world. While the purpose and goals of the various theories of peace

education are aligned with human rights expansion, there is a danger of creating cultural violence

by establishing a universal precedent for these concepts or the way individual agents engage with

them. The hope is that all societies reach the ideals of humanization and unity, but they must

arrive there through self-determination, not through one culture’s values being forced on their

own.

One strong warning against the imposition of one culture’s values over another’s is

provided by Rivage-Seul in a critique of a democratization program (Philosophy for Children)

that was attempted during an unstable period in Guatemala (1994). The program’s error was in

using material, teaching practices, and value systems upheld in Western thought that did not

equate to local values or needs (Rivage-Seul, 1994). The intent of democratization, real

democratization should have been to engage the people in an authentic process of critical

reflection, but instead only provided an appreciation for democratic values that could not be

acted upon without greater change in the system (Rivage-Seul, 1994). Democracy and

democratic values are important to achieving peace, but for real democracy to be achieved,
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democracy that enables people “to intervene in daily life in ways that allow them to meet their

interests on a just basis – on terms of equal dignity, actualization, and fulfillment with other

people” (Rivage-Seul, 1994, 53), the process must begin with the people. The process must begin

with the community if it is to be sustainable.

Peace education’s mission to create a more just and humane society through the

elimination of violence is one that all educators must take up as their civic duty, and developing

the most effective methods for realizing that purpose should be of primary concern to them. To

free students and themselves from oppression and violence, educators must aid students in

developing a belief in themselves, confidence in themselves, and ownership of their knowledge

(Freire, 1970, p. 63) and must “re-examine themselves constantly” (Freire, 1970, p. 60). This

indication that peace is a primarily personal task reveals the direction in which education must

turn to achieve it – to the self first, then to the things in the immediate sphere of influence (the

community). Each theory of peace education presented here contains elements that reinforce and

support peace in a local context. In applying the methods and concepts, justice can be found at

the local level to provide a model for justice at the global level. To achieve a just society, all

education must become peace education. And peace education must build a home for itself from

the ground up.

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