PEACE EDUCATION:

A Transformative Response
to Major Societal
Challenges

Dr. Diosdado P. Estimada

Faculty, CAS Dept

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Topic Outline

What is Peace Education?

Holistic Understanding
Levels of Peace
Types of Violence

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter you should be
able to:
1.Define the concept of peace in a holistic
way;
2.Explain the contribution or importance
of peace education in the quest for
positive social changes or transformation;
3.Identify and explain the key themes of
peace education.
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 INTRODUCTION
Peace education is the process of acquiring 
the values, the knowledge and developing 
the attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in 
harmony with oneself, with others, and with the 
natural environment.
The greatest resource for building a culture of
peace are the people themselves, for it is through
them that peaceful relationships are created.
Thus, educating people toward becoming peace 
agents is central to the task of peace building.

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 A Holistic Understanding of Peace

Traditional Point of View

The simplest and most widespread
understanding of peace was that of absence
of death and destruction as a result of war
and physical/direct violence

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 A Holistic Understanding of Peace

Modern Point of View

 It was realized that it was not only war and direct
violence that caused the death and disfigurement.
 Structural violence also led to death and suffering
because of the conditions that resulted from it: extreme
poverty, starvation, avoidable diseases, discrimination
against minority groups and denial of human rights.

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 A Holistic Understanding of Peace

Peace is both the absence of

personal/direct violence, and the
presence of social justice.
The meaning of peace can be
captured by the idea of a negative
peace and the idea of a positive peace.
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 A Holistic Understanding of Peace
Negative peace refers to the absence of war
or physical/direct violence, while positive
peace refers to the presence of just and non-
exploitative relationships, as well as human
and ecological well-being, such that the root
causes of conflict are diminished.

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 A Holistic Understanding of Peace
 The non-exploitative relationships mentioned above refer
not only to relationships between humans but also those
between human and nature.
 Peace with nature is considered the foundation of “positive
peace” (Mische, 1987). It is because the earth is ultimately
the source of our survival, physical sustenance, health and
wealth; it is not possible to provide for human survival if
nature’s capacity to renew itself is seriously impaired.
 I t must also be remembered that human behavior is
intimately related to the availability of basic resources
9(Barnaby, 1989).
Frameworks of Peace

NEGATIVE POSITIVE
PEACE PEACE PEACE

STRUCTURAL
VIOLENCE
DIRECT
VIOLENCE
SOCIO-
CULTURAL
VIOLENCE

ECOLOGICAL
VIOLENCE
VIOLENCE
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 PEA
CE
BET
LEVELS OF PEACE WE
EN
HU
MA
NS
AN Harmony with
D Nature
GLOBALTHE PEACE
EAR
Respect for other
TH
nations, Justice,
Harm AN
Tolerance,
Harmony
ony D with Others
with Cooperation
BEY
the INTERGROUP/SOCIAL PEACE
ON
Sacre Respect for other
d
D groups within
nation, Justice, Tolerance, Harmony
Sourc Cooperation with the
e INTERPERSONAL PEACE Self
Respect for other persons, Justice, Tolerance,
Cooperation

PERSONAL PEACE
11 Self-respect, Inner resources: love, hope
 Types of Violence

Betty Reardon, a peace educator who

has made significant contributions to
the field, defines violence as “humanly
inflicted harm” (Reardon, n.d.).

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 Types of Violence
Conceptual map of Violence done by Toh
Swee-Hin and Virginia Cawagas (1987). It is
a typology that indicates the various types/
forms of violence and some
examples/illustrations of each type in the
personal, interpersonal, social and global
levels.

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 Types of Violence
Level Personal Interpersonal/ National Global
community
Type(s
)
Direct/Physical Suicide, drug Domestic Civil war, Conventional
abuse violence, violent violent crimes, war, nuclear
crimes human rights war, human
abuses rights abuses

Structural Powerlessness, Local National Global

alienation, low inequalities, inequalities, inequalities,
self-esteem, poverty, hunger, poverty, hunger, poverty, hunger,
anxiety prejudice, prejudice, prejudice,
cultural cultural cultural
domination, domination, domination,
racism, sexism, racism, sexism, racism, sexism,
religious religious religious
intolerance intolerance intolerance

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 Types of Violence
Level Personal Interpersonal/ National Global
community
Type(s
)Ecological Over- Over- Over- Over-
consumption consumption, consumption, consumption,
pollution pollution, pollution,
chemical and chemical and
biological biological
warfare warfare

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 Peace Education as Transformative
Education
Peace education or an education that promotes a
culture of peace, is essentially transformative, because:
 It cultivates the knowledge base, skills, attitudes and values
that seek to transform people’s behaviors.
 This means that the learning process utilized in peace
education is holistic and it tries to address the cognitive,
affective and active dimensions of the learner.
 The action towards transformation may include action
against prejudice and the war system, or action for social
and economic justice. Paying attention to all these levels-
the cognitive, affective and active- increases the possibility
that the peace perspective or value that is being cultivated
would be internalized.
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 DISCUSSION
THE PEACEABLE TEACHING-LEARNING
PROCESS
COGNITIVE PHASE
(Being aware,
Understanding)

ACTIVE PHASE AFFECTIVE PHASE

(Taking practical (Being concerned,
action) Responding, Valuing)
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 REFLECTION
A holistic understanding of peace is needed for
the youth to be educated on the different facets
of peace for them to be able to live and apply
what they have learned in order to be able to
have peaceful relationships with themselves,
with others, with other nations and with the
world as a whole to prevent increasing the
number of victims affected by violence of
various kinds.

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 LEARNING TASK
1. In your opinion, why is peace education
important in our present time?
2. The list of Peace Education’s schema of
knowledge, skills and attitudes and
values is exhaustive. What else can you
add to each (knowledge, skills and
attitudes)? Explain.

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