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Journal of Peace Education

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Peace education: an impact assessment

of a case study of UNESCO-APCEIU and
the university for peace
a b
Kevin Kester
a
Department of Global Communication and Culture , Linton
Global College, Hannam University , Daejeon , Korea
b
Faculty of Education , University of Cambridge , Cambridge , UK
Published online: 24 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Kevin Kester (2013) Peace education: an impact assessment of a case study
of UNESCO-APCEIU and the university for peace, Journal of Peace Education, 10:2, 157-171, DOI:
10.1080/17400201.2013.790252

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 Journal of Peace Education, 2013
Vol. 10, No. 2, 157–171, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2013.790252

Peace education: an impact assessment of a case study of

UNESCO-APCEIU and the university for peace
Downloaded by [Computing & Library Services, University of Huddersfield] at 11:03 25 December 2014

Kevin Kester*

Department of Global Communication and Culture, Linton Global College, Hannam

University, Daejeon, Korea; Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
(Received 27 September 2011; final version received 7 March 2012)

Each year the Asia-Pacific centre of education for international understanding

(APCEIU), operating under the auspices of UNESCO, hosts a peace education
training-of-trainer’s program for teacher-educators from Asia-Pacific member
states. In this paper, I examine through a qualitative case study approach the
programmatic design and evaluation of the APCEIU training program, seeking
to monitor its medium-term impact on educators in order to understand the
broader implications of peace education training. Research findings are based on
consultation records, documentary analysis, observations, and questionnaire
responses from participants of the 2009 peace education training program. In
the medium-term impact assessment report, 14 educators offered data pertaining
to their post-program implementation of peace education concepts and practices
into their work. Data was also collected from several participants two years later
to continue monitoring progress. These results are further compared to impact
data gathered from eight graduates of the University for Peace. Findings indicate
that among the 23 educators who participated in the study all have gone on to
develop peace education programs or policies in their home countries.
Keywords: peace education; impact assessment; teacher-training; UNESCO;
UPEACE

Introduction
Peace education is an emerging academic discipline and professional practice for
the development of formal and nonformal learning programs aimed at the creation
of peace cultures around the world. These peace education programs employ myriad
approaches, principles, and goals. Some of the programs seek the immediate cessa-
tion of physical violence in schools and communities (Johnson and Johnson 1996,
2006; Bickmore 2002). Others emphasize the cultivation of values and behaviors
conducive to peace, such as nonviolence, cooperation, social justice, and sustain-
ability (Harris 1988; Reardon 1988). Some emphasize gender equity (Boulding
2000; Reardon 2001) while others study foreign policy (Mirra 2008). Many
programs aim for social transformation (Hicks 1988, 1994, 2004; O’Sullivan 1999)
and others for international understanding (Boulding 1988; Toh 2004). Peace
programs are established within high schools (Reardon and Cabezudo 2002; Danesh
2008), while some are integrated into undergraduate curricula (Kester 2008), and

*Email: kevin.kester@hannam.kr

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

 158 K. Kester

others in teacher-training institutes (Jenkins 2004; Toh 2004). Concepts and

practices of peace education are mainstreamed into the work of community groups
(Jenkins 2007), governments (Fountain 1999; Zasloff, Shapiro, and Coyne 2009),
nongovernmental organizations (Save the Children 2010), and civil society
initiatives (Hague Appeal for Peace 1999).
At the present moment there are peace educators working in every region of the
globe. A reading though seminal works in the field, such as Ian Harris’s Peace
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Education (1988), Betty Reardon’s Comprehensive Peace Education (1988),

Stomfay-Stitz’s Peace Education in America (1993), Burns and Aspelagh’s Peace
Education Around the World (1996), and through newsletters and periodicals
published by the Global Campaign for Peace Education,1 illustrates the tremendous
reach of educators working for peace. These educators have been trained through a
variety of well-known university programs and institutes, such as the University for
Peace, University of Bradford Peace Studies department, George Mason Univer-
sity’s Institute for Conflict Analysis, Teachers College Columbia University’s Peace
Education Program, United Nations University Institutes, or UNESCO-affiliated
projects, to name only a few of the programs training peace educators.
In the Asia-Pacific, where peace education largely developed at the end of
World War II in response to nationalistic aggressions and experience of the fallout
from atomic weaponry (Burns and Aspeslagh 1996), peace education can be said to
be growing significantly. National Departments of Peace have been established in
Nepal and the Solomon Islands, and the Indian Government introduced peace as a
core subject into the National Curriculum Framework (NCERT 2005) thereby man-
dating teachers to be trained in peace and conflict resolution education. Teachers
College Columbia University, Japan, offered a graduate certificate in Peace Educa-
tion from 2004 to 2008, Hiroshima City University offers graduate and undergradu-
ate courses in peace studies every summer, and Ritsumeikan University (also in
Japan) offers international relations degrees with a focus on peace studies. Miriam
College and Notre Dame University, both in the Philippines, have peace education
programs, and Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, in New Delhi,
India, established an education for peace initiative in 2007. UNESCO’s Asia and
Pacific Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok, Thailand and UNESCO’s Asia-
Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) in Seoul,
South Korea, both offer substantial training programs. The latter is the subject of
this study. Though still a marginal subject in the modern academy, peace education
might be said to be alive and thriving in the Asia-Pacific (Srinivasan 2009).

Methodology
Within this context, I worked as consultant and assistant facilitator in the summer
of 2009 for the UNESCO APCEIU. My primary responsibility was with the evalua-
tion of the program and assessment of its impact on participants, of which this
paper emanates. Many peace educators argue the field needs greater assessment to
chart its impact on participants (Nevo and Brem 2002; Harris 2003, 2004, 2008;
Danesh 2008); therefore, I sought through my participation with APCEIU to con-
tribute to the literature on peace education assessment. It is my view that the
APCEIU program acted as a fertile training ground for preparing educators to teach
peace, justice, and sustainability. Participants of the training program share this per-
spective, and their reflections on the program impact are included hereafter. The
 Journal of Peace Education 159

impact assessment of the APCEIU program consisted of observations, pre-tests, for-

mative evaluations, and summative assessments of learning within the six themes of
education for international understanding: (1) disarmament, (2) social justice, (3)
human rights, (4) intercultural understanding, (5) environmental stewardship, and
(6) personal peace (Toh 2004). Pre-program questionnaires were collected in July
2009 prior to the workshops to provide a baseline for comparison, and formative
and summative evaluations were collected in September 2009. I then completed a
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follow-up questionnaire via e-mail with the participants eight months later, and a
second questionnaire two years later. The research was completed in Seoul in
September 2009, Toronto in May 2010, and Daejeon, Korea in September 2011.
I consider the impact of the program through Schugurensky’s (2003) ‘expansive
hypothesis,’ which assesses both internal changes in attitudes and behaviors, and
the expansion of professional engagements to new contexts. Schugurensky writes
that as citizens become more engaged in the subject of study (e.g. peace education)
at the local levels of decision-making (e.g. school-based and institutional design),
this increases their interest in broader issues of regional, national, and international
scope. Schugurensky argues that this participation has an educative effect where the
consequence is the development of informed, critical citizens who are prepared to
take action on larger challenges beyond their immediate grasp. He is borrowing
from many scholars who have theorized that through participating in democratic
processes citizens learn citizenship through doing (Mill 1862; Rousseau 1968; Pat-
eman 1970; Mansbridge 1997; Merrifield 2001; Lerner and Schugurensky 2007;
Pinnington and Schugurensky 2010). I am arguing that as educators are trained in
peace education and begin implementing their own programs or policies in minis-
tries and universities, they become further invested in the field. That investment has
a multiplying effect both for themselves and for other professionals around them.
Similarly, Reardon and Cabezudo (2002) argue that democratic educational practices
in the classroom lead to greater exercise of democratic decision-making in society,
and vice versa. They declare:

Education for global citizenship in a culture of peace requires a pedagogy of demo-

cratic engagement. Active and participatory engagement of students in the learning
process initiated by peace curricula is the most relevant and effective pedagogy to pre-
pare students for active participation in the global change process now being carried
forth by global civil society. (70)

Employing Schugurensky’s ‘expansive hypothesis’ and Reardon and Cabezudo’s

‘pedagogy of democratic engagement,’ I seek to illustrate herein that training
teacher-educators in peace education leads to the birth of new peace programs.
Those programs might influence myriad individuals and organizations across
communities and nations, as those teacher-educators train teacher-trainers, and
teacher-trainers then train teachers who educate learners. The capacity building of
teacher-trainers may then have a multiplying effect on educators, their learners,
and the communities in which those learners reside. This paper, in fact, reveals how
the APCEIU and University for Peace programs encouraged internal and behavioral
changes among participants, and contributed to the multiplier effect concerning the
creation of new peace education training programs and policies in participants’
home countries after returning from training. The impact is multi-dimensional and
multi-leveled. It eventually reaches learners and organizations who then might
 160 K. Kester

develop knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviors consistent with the develop-
ment of cultures of peace, as is the central objective of peace education (expressed
in UNESCO 1974, 1995; Earth Charter 2000).2

APCEIU peace education impact assessment

Forty-two participants from 24 countries were involved in the training program,
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including educators from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Papua

New Guinea, and Thailand, among other countries. They represented international
organizations, ministries of education, national institutes, universities, NGOs, and
public schools. In the pre-program questionnaires educators revealed background
information concerning their interests and previous experience with the field of
peace education. Many described peace education as ‘education planners’ capacities
to manage social change,’ ‘holistic, challenging and multidimensional initiatives in
fostering tolerance,’ ‘respect for fundamental human rights,’ and ‘engaging people
to become active citizens.’ The educators came to APCEIU expecting ‘to learn
about the educational systems of other countries,’ ‘networking among teacher-
education colleagues,’ ‘to learn about success stories in the fields of non-violence
and peace,’ and to ‘share practical examples with each other.’ As evident from the
comments above, pre-program questionnaires indicated that many of the educators
perceived peace education as focused on ‘holism,’ ‘sustainability,’ ‘human rights,’
and ‘responsibility,’ and they desired to learn the practical applications of the field.
Information from pre-program questionnaires gave trainers insight into common
ground that existed between the teacher-educators. This assisted in fostering a cohe-
sive environment of cultural and professional exchange during training, for which
teacher-educators expressed appreciation.
In formative and summative program evaluations, participants highlighted
several strengths and areas for improvement. The strengths as identified by the
teacher-educators include ‘the active and experiential nature of workshop sessions,’
‘gender balance among participants and facilitators,’ ‘satisfaction with affective
aspects of the program,’ ‘emphasis on critical thinking skills,’ and ‘the use of
creative pedagogy.’ Areas for improvement included ‘limited English abilities for
conversation and dialogue,’ ‘need for more participant interaction during training,’
‘desire for more space and time for cultural activities,’ and ‘avoid training programs
during religious observances (e.g. Ramadan).’ During the training program several
educators were fasting for Ramadan and cited the religious observance as a critical
point that inhibited them from full participation in workshops. They suggested that
the program not be held during religious holidays in the future. Overall, educators
described the program as a positive experience. One participant even declared,
‘APCEIU’s training program is a gigantic effort to create a better world.’
Eight months later, I sent the follow-up impact assessment to educators.
Fourteen responded. This impact assessment asked what affect the program had on
ontological perspectives or pedagogical techniques, whether participants had given
lectures on peace, developed programs for their workplace, implemented policy
changes, or sought to work with peace education in the future. The 14 professionals
who responded included teacher-educators and educational researchers from South
Korea (2), China (1), Vietnam (2), Philippines (1), Indonesia (2), Singapore (1),
Thailand (1), Myanmar (1), Bangladesh (1), Pakistan (1), and Papua New Guinea
(1). Of the 14 educators, eight are women and six are men. Each spoke positively
 Journal of Peace Education 161

about APCEIU’s mid-term impact. One participant from Papua New Guinea
reflected on his personal ontology,

We take for granted a lot of the things as they occur or happen without going further
in- depth to understand why things happen the way they do or why people act a cer-
tain way. By participating in APCEIU and getting to know people from diverse cul-
tures, languages, and countries, I have begun to understand that the world is not what
the media (both print & electronic) portray it to be. I now see people in different
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countries as individuals – who they are – and not as groups, such as racial groups and
religious groups.

Another participant, a professor from Myanmar, wrote about integrating peace and
ecological education into her professional practice,

The APCEIU 2009 program gave me a lot of insights for my profession. I gave a
seminar on peace education at my institution after returning from the program. Teach-
ing staff and students attended the workshop. We also planted trees on our campus for
greening.

A participant from Thailand proclaimed he introduced the field of peace education

to his colleagues and students,

I have introduced the six approaches to peace education to my colleagues through the
Research and Development Centre meeting on innovative measures for education for
sustainable development. At the personal level, my learning experiences on peace edu-
cation from the 9th APCEIU workshop have affected my academic interests. I have
been personally studying issues and concepts of peace, non-violence and conflict reso-
lution, especially during the political conflict in Bangkok from March to May 2010 in
Thailand, when hatred and violence were strongly developed by the government,
soldiers, protesters and other civilians. Peace education approaches have also been inte-
grated into my classes on Innovation in Teaching Social Studies, Seminar in Secondary
Education, and Society & Education for Sustainability. My colleagues and I introduced
peace education to a class of students in the Seminar in Secondary Education for 5th
year students who are completing their teaching practicum in schools.

An educator from Bangladesh spoke of incorporating peace education into her

undergraduate curriculum,

The effect of the APCEIU peace education training has been positive both personally
and professionally. As a teacher I have become a preacher of peace, love, happiness
and tolerance. Now I emphasize more to my students to be more loving, caring, toler-
ant, and respectful of others, irrespective of their caste, creed, class, ability or faith at
local, national and also international levels. At the institutional level I have incorpo-
rated peace education as a component into our undergraduate curriculum along with
education for sustainable development, and I trained master trainers under a training-
of-trainers program for secondary school teachers. I have also been in close contact
with the Ministry of Education to integrate peace education into the national curricu-
lum.

A participant from Indonesia wrote about establishing an education institute with a

peace agenda,

The APCEIU 2009 program has totally affected my mindset. Today and in the future,
the world needs learning activities and education based around a human rights
 162 K. Kester

approach. At my institute, we have created a training program for nine developing

counties in Indonesia. In October 2010, these programs will be executed. I have also
established a foundation – the Karunia Prestasi Foundation for Education. This foun-
dation is committed to an agenda assisting the Purilieus regions of North Sumatra,
which resides outside traditional access to global information networking like tele-
phones and Internet. The foundation aims to ensure that educational information (e.g.
scholarships, education funding, and research from all regions of the world) reaches
citizens in these regions, so that the countryside and borderline areas of North Sumatra
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might learn directly from information.

The samples from the follow-up impact assessment indicate a multiplying effect
among educators. I have continued to monitor this impact through a small-scale
longitudinal study, which is also compared to impact assessment data from other
peace education training programs. Two years after the APCEIU training program, I
sent a second questionnaire to APCEIU participants with the aim of monitoring the
continued impact of training on their profession. I also sent this questionnaire to
graduates of the University for Peace (more on this later). This latter assessment
included inquiry about life experiences that led the educators to the field of peace
education, the continued impact the program had on their worldviews and
professional practices, and any future plans the educators had to develop peace pro-
grams. Participants indicated in this second follow-up assessment their sustained
work in the field of peace education.

APCEIU two years later

An educator from Malaysia shared lessons learned from APCEIU that continue to
impact her university work for peace education,

I grew up in a small fishing village in Kelantan – about an hour flight from the
capital city, Kuala Lumpur. As for me, coming from a poor family, I have always
had an ambition from a very young age to get out from poverty and be somebody.
So I performed well in school. My first academic posting was in 1985. I decided at
that point to pursue my research in civic and citizenship education, for which I am
frequently consulted to sit in panels on the subject, or to discuss the pedagogical
aspects of teaching civic and citizenship education. After APCEIU, I made some
modifications to my teaching by integrating activities from APCEIU into my work-
shops. I also successfully managed to coordinate an MOU between my university
and APCEIU to hold a sub-regional workshop in 2010 in Penang for educators from
Southeast Asia. Apart from that I coordinated two workshops on education for inter-
national understanding for Malaysian teacher-educators and Malaysian school princi-
pals in 2010. I managed to secure funding and run workshops on peace education
for school students and will organize another gathering in October 2011. Every
semester, I also deliver a two-hour lecture to masters students on education for inter-
national understanding.

Similar to the educator from Malaysia, a participant from Vietnam also wrote about
his continued research into peace education at Hanoi National University of Educa-
tion,

I am a Physical Geography teacher-educator at Hanoi National University of

Education. I have taught here for 10 years. I am interested in geography, environmental
education, education for international understanding and education for sustainable
development. I refer to peace education as education for international understanding.
 Journal of Peace Education 163

After the APCEIU training program two years ago, I have continued my work and
research on environmental education, education for sustainable development and educa-
tion for international understanding. I am not only a teacher-educator in university, but
I also work as a consultant for environmental education. Now I am a part-time local
expert on environmental education for the Halong Bay Environmental Protection Pro-
ject. I hope to always work on education for international understanding in Vietnam.

Another Vietnamese educator from the Hanoi National University of Education

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wrote,

I am Vice Director of the Centre for Research and Promotion of Education for
Sustainable Development at Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE), where I
am also a Professor in Didactics of Geography. My professional interests are sustain-
able tourism education, climate change education, values education and peace educa-
tion. When I was a teenager, I lived under the bombing of the fierce war between the
United States and Vietnam. I understand the values of peace and would like to educate
our young people to love and respect the true values of peace. After taking part in the
APCEIU training program, I paid more attention to peace education and tried to make
significant efforts for peace education in my research and teacher education activities.
For example, in educating geography teachers for high schools I integrated peace ideas
and messages into my lectures.

Another educator described his work with the National Institute of Education in
Singapore,

My primary training is in Social Psychology, with a research focus on cooperative val-

ues and social assistance. After completing secondary school in Malaysia, I studied
and completed my PhD and worked in Canada and the United States for 14 years. I
returned to Malaysia to take up a position as Dean at a college. After four years, I
went to Singapore to work at the National Institute of Education (NIE). I have been in
Singapore for 14 years now. I am currently an Associate Dean at NIE. NIE is the only
teacher-education institute in Singapore. NIE’s annual intake is about 2000 students.
Peace education concepts were discussed during curriculum review and have been
developed for the initial teacher-education programs at my university. We have a two-
day workshop that is compulsory for all student teachers at my university. Part of the
workshop discusses issues of diversity and harmony/peace, and how these issues are
related to teachers’ roles. My team will continue to review and strengthen the inclu-
sion of peace education in our teacher-education programs.

Speaking of his continued work on national curriculum with the Ministry of

Education, an educator from Pakistan shared,

I have been dealing with national curriculum and textbook matters here in the Ministry
of Education (MOE) in Islamabad, Pakistan. At APCEIU, I developed a special inter-
est in ensuring the integration of topics of education for international understanding
and peace education into school curricula, across various subjects, and in textbooks.
As reported earlier, I conducted training workshops – two on HIV/AIDS education
and one on Developing National Curriculum Implementation Frameworks wherein I
highlighted concepts based upon my APCEIU training. In these training programs, I
noticed a greater interest among teachers for peace education concepts and learning
how these concepts can be emphasized while teaching regular subjects like social
studies and language arts. I also gave a keynote presentation at a seminar organized
by Right to Play in August 2010, where I highlighted ‘Health and Physical Education’
in the new curricula, and presented a paper on ‘Curriculum Reforms for Sustainable
Development’ at the International Conference on Education for Sustainable
 164 K. Kester

Development in 2010. Another project I developed, on the creation of a ‘Strengthen-

ing National Curriculum Resource Centre’ was approved by UNESCO Paris for
$23,000 USD in funding. The project was stopped, however, due to re-arrangements
and devolution of educational matters from the national to provincial levels. This mat-
ter is still being assessed. In the future, I plan to join a university in the private sector
and teach in the field of my research. I may also be involved in consultancy work.

And an Indonesian educator, whose response to the mid-term evaluation is shared

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above, spoke of his continued work with the education foundation he established
after APCEIU,

Since we completed training at APCEIU two years ago, I have been doing well. I
have discussed with the education community and the Ministry of Education issues
related to the implementation of peace and human rights as a curricular component. I
have submitted proposals to provide equal educational services to the Purilieus region
and borderline areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan provinces. APCEIU’s training has
changed my perspective in respect to others, in that now I more strongly believe that
every individual has the ability and the right to state opinions. Currently, I involve my
entire staff in defining the vision, mission and strategic plan of our foundation. The
result is a joint commitment to solving problems together. In October 2010, the foun-
dation completed the training program for in-service educators (which I wrote to you
about last year). This year we distributed 3200 books on practical learning (life skills)
to 8 locations in the Purilieus region and borderline areas, and we will also host the
in-service training seminar again in late September. In the future, I will continue to
submit project proposals related to the implementation of education for peace and
human rights in the Sumatra and Kalimantan regions. I am confident that these pro-
jects will continue to be supported by the Ministry of Education.

Responses from both the eight-month and two-year assessments showcase a multi-
plying effect of the program on the educators who participated in the study. In
responding to the questionnaires, participants provided crucial data from which to
gauge cautious insights into APCEIU’s impact on training participants. As evident
in their writing, the educators highlighted three primary areas of their post-training
activities in the field of peace education: the effect of the program on personal and
professional growth, subsequent teaching of relevant programs, and planned future
involvement in peace education. Analyzing the data, I see among these participants
an intense satisfaction with the program, as well as an expansive effect on their pro-
fessional inclination toward peace education through collegial exchange, program-
matic design, and the development of new research interests related to education for
peace. UNDP agrees. The agency concluded in its Project Final Review Report,
Capacity Building of Teacher Trainers in Asia-Pacific for the Achievement of MDGs
(2009), that among the key successes of the 2009 APCEIU program was the ‘multi-
plying effect through [the] training-of-trainers program and successful selection of
competent participants’:

While the beneficiaries of the Asia-Pacific Training Workshop were forty-two educa-
tors only, their high competency, professional profile and network, strengthened by the
training-of-trainers program of this project, are making the multiplying effect. As the
participants are carrying out training workshops for their colleagues and teachers in
their countries, indirect beneficiaries of this project are expected to multiply. To maxi-
mize this multiplying effect, [APCEIU] plans to conduct a systematic monitoring and
support program from next year on. (19)
 Journal of Peace Education 165

University for peace (Education) impact assessment

To further assess the longitudinal impact of peace education training programs, I
also sent the second impact assessment questionnaire to graduates of the University
for Peace. The eight graduates who responded completed their training programs
between 2006 and 2009.3 Their comments echo those from APCEIU. The Univer-
sity for Peace, a United Nations-mandated higher education institution in San Jose,
Costa Rica, trains educators in the philosophy and methodology of peace education
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(UNGA 1980, 2007; Jenkins 2004; Toh 2004). It provides a strong case for com-
parison to the APCEIU program. Comparing the data serves to further illuminate
the influence of these programs on educational policy and training, and provides
peace educators additional success stories of peace education training. Some educa-
tors’ responses are included here.
A graduate from Italy and the USA critically reflected on his experience with
the University for Peace,

I thought of ‘peace education’ before I knew whether it was something one could
study. I searched ‘peace education’ on Google, found out about the University for
Peace, went for a short course in November 2007 and then applied for the MA start-
ing in August 2008, and since finishing I’ve been hopping from one project to the
next, non-stop. I actually feel like I didn’t learn much from the coursework itself …
On the other hand, I became so involved in the university community. The MA pro-
gram did not have as much of an effect on me as being in the UPEACE context with
like-minded people, sharing ideas, and getting to know about the world of peace work.
I actually just started an NGO to make sure that education in peace does lead to peace
projects, and that peace projects benefit from an education in peace. My plans include
working on the Global Campaign for Peace Education, the Global Alliance for
Ministries and Departments of Peace, the National Peace Academy, peace education
awareness-raising, advocacy at the UN, and my own NGO – The Culture of Peace
Organization.

A graduate from Sweden cogitated on his training in peace education. He offers a

critical review, stating he would not recommend the university to others, as ‘it is
another example of people trying to cash in on the business of something that the
masses are claiming to want.’ Nonetheless, his response suggests a multiplying
effect from peace education training, where he now continues to speak and teach
about issues of peace.

I have lived in Canada, Sweden and Costa Rica, travelled to about 25 countries, and
am conversational in Swedish, French and Spanish. I am either blessed or cursed with
being able to see the ‘bigger picture’ and how things are inter-connected. I see how
the issue of ‘health care’ is important to so many and want it as an election issue, but
tie that to what governments are allowing that actually go against the health of the
people, and contribute to making them even more sick. Part of this work is political,
part scientific, part environmental and part spiritual. It is a journey as much for my
own personal awakening. Leaders claim to ‘want peace, or will impose peace’; peace-
makers claim to ‘negotiate peace’; researchers claim to ‘measure or quantify peace’;
academics claim to ‘study peace’ and institutions claim to ‘teach peace’. All of which
are impossible, because the very power, prestige and control enjoyed by these people
and institutions comes as a result of the exact opposite of that which they are claiming
to want. My work, through continued lectures, presentations, discussion forums and
my upcoming radio program will continue to reach out to individuals at whatever lev-
els they need to be reached. I will not offer a ‘catch all’ solution because this does not
honor individuals. I will talk to their concerns and their fears.
 166 K. Kester

A graduate from Canada contemplated on her experience with the University for
Peace, sharing deeply,

I was a senior in high school when student activists were killed at Kent State Univer-
sity by the National Guard. This event, which occurred very close to my home, was
pivotal in my political awakening and was the catalyst for much of my future activ-
ism. It just didn’t make sense to me that students who were demonstrating for peace
were being killed – and frankly it still doesn’t make sense to me. I became deeply
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involved in movements against the war, against racism, against nuclear weapons, and
the feminist movement. The University for Peace MA program in peace education had
a huge impact on my life. Some of that is directly related to the course content and
the passion of the instructors I had the pleasure and honor of working with. When I
left the University for Peace, I was inspired and ready to take on the world. However,
I found that after a while, when I had not found any work, nor was I surrounded by
all these lovely, like-minded people – I had a very hard time transitioning back to ‘real
life’ in Calgary. I wrote proposals for continuing education courses and applied for
various positions, and was feeling quite disappointed and nearly at the end of any
hope of working in the field of Peace Education when suddenly I received a Program
Director position with Project Ploughshares. I have not looked back since then, and
am happily ensconced in my work.

A graduate from the Philippines voiced the impact of the training program on her,

The MA I got from UPEACE, as well as the out-of-classroom experiences I have had
with my classmates, and the community in Costa Rica, expanded my world view, my
understanding of peace and conflict, challenged my role as well as my spirituality,
values, my capacity for tolerance, and to accommodate and respect differences. This
has a lot of implications in terms of how I deal with my students now, how I generally
deal with work, how I will go about my class, and how I treat colleagues, family, and
friends. Prior to studying at the University for Peace, I already worked at Xavier Uni-
versity-Ateneo de Cagayan here in Cagayan de Oro City, as a faculty program officer.
I handled a program for involving students and faculty in community engagement and
taught courses on general psychology. After graduation from the University for Peace
in October 2010, I returned to Xavier University, and I am now assigned to work with
the Vice-President for Research and Social Outreach. Among the initiatives that I
developed is the Peace Education Center under the School of Education. This Center
was inaugurated in December 2010.

Finally, a graduate from South Korea writes of both the impact of her training at
the University for Peace and her work with APCEIU,

I am interested in conflict and conflict resolution in family life, school life and
between states, especially between North and South Korea. I was born in Seoul during
WWII and was ten years old during the Korean War. After I graduated from Seoul
National University’s College of Education I became a home-economics teacher at a
Middle School. I later worked at the National Women’s Welfare Center. After three
years, I was able to attend a seminar in Tokyo for 40 days. This stimulated me to later
study gender issues at Ewha Women’s University, where I wrote my thesis on the wel-
fare of married working women. I then worked at the Korean Committee for UNICEF
as director of education and teacher training. UNICEF trained education officers on
Education for Development. At the first workshop I was so excited. They trained us in
Education for Development, Education for Conflict Resolution, Peace Education, etc. I
met Professor Betty Reardon from Columbia University with the Ministry of Educa-
tion at the course on Education for International Understanding in 1997. At Professor
Betty Reardon’s invitation, I attended IIPE and met experts in peace education,
including Dr Swee-Hin Toh and Dr Virginia Cawagas. In 2000, I began work as a
 Journal of Peace Education 167

teacher-trainer at UNESCO-APCEIU. At present, I want to create a course for peace

and conflict resolution for nursery teachers at the University for Peace Asia-Pacific
Centre in Seoul. I also want to inspire educational policy to include peace and conflict
education in nursery, primary and secondary education.

The University for Peace graduates who responded to the follow-up impact
assessment emphasized particular ontological changes they experienced through the
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training. They also indicated subsequent professional development opportunities and

personal practices influenced by their completion of the master’s degree program.
These three factors relate roughly to worldviews, pedagogical techniques, and
research. Pertaining to ontological changes, they expressed new perspectives on
inner peace and spirituality, human rights, and conflict resolution in community. In
terms of professional development, they highlighted the impact of the program on
their research interests. Pertaining to the educators’ professional practices, several
stated increased interest in teaching peace education related courses, specifically on
environmental issues and conflict resolution. The sample responses included in this
paper are representative of the 23 educators who participated in the study. The
responses indicate a multiplying effect akin to Schugurensky’s (2003) ‘expansive
hypothesis.’ With new courses created in home countries and national curricular
changes in progress or enacted, this might serve to qualify the significant impact of
peace education training programs.

Summary conclusion
As expressed in the introduction, participatory democratic approaches to education,
such as peace education, create a learning environment whereby people learn citi-
zenship and peaceful activism through their participation in the program (see Mill
1862; Rousseau 1968; Pateman 1970; Mansbridge 1997; Merrifield 2001; Schugu-
rensky 2004). According to Pateman (1970, 45): ‘The theory of participatory
democracy argues that the experience of participation in some way leaves the indi-
vidual better psychologically equipped to undertake further participation in the
future.’ Lerner and Schugurensky (2007), in their examination of a participatory
budgeting project in Rosario, Argentina, empirically found that such programs do in
fact have a positive impact on participants, where participants learn citizenship in
the process of practicing democracy, and those participants take that learning for-
ward into other dimensions of their life. This paper has shown the same holds true
for peace education training programs.
Teacher-training programs, such as APCEIU and the University for Peace,
result in such positive effects on participants, where participants engage with the
field of peace education beyond training and implement peace programs and pol-
icies in their home countries. The educators participating in this study, for exam-
ple, through their experience with peace education training at APCEIU and the
University for Peace, articulated their sense of increased professional prepared-
ness and psychological motivation to direct peace education training programs
after the conclusion of training. At least 23 educators went on to create pro-
grams in some facet. Accordingly, this study has revealed the impact of peace
education training on teacher-educators. Accordingly, I hope these findings might
assist other educators in better understanding the impact of peace education pro-
grams. My findings, while modest, display the immediate impact of APCEIU’s
 168 K. Kester

training program on 42 teacher-educators and researchers from across the Asia-

Pacific. This paper also highlights the medium-term impact of that program on
14 educators eight-months later, and four educators two years later, and
compares the data with the medium-term impact of the University for Peace
program.
I am not suggesting that every participant in peace education training programs
will go on to educate for peace, perhaps become an activist, or even apply the
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learning from the programs, but as shown throughout this article many educators
from APCEIU and the University for Peace did continue to apply the learning.
They did experience deep structural and worldview shifts and began to implement
that learning into curricula, both institutional and national. They have even estab-
lished peace education training centers of their own throughout the Asia-Pacific and
other regions.

Recommendations
In light of this impact assessment, I encourage future program designers to include
at least two additional components in their programs. First, I believe it is necessary
that the participants themselves explore through a dialogical process how they
would define and measure the success of training programs, rather than that defini-
tion being formulated by the researcher(s) alone. This would illuminate for all
involved in the multiple perspectives on what success might mean for a training
program. For example, does program success equate contributions to new literature
in the field? Does success lead to the development of workshops or courses on
peace education in research institutes and universities? Does personal transformation
constitute a successful program? How would the participants benchmark their own
achievements in peace education? Evaluation itself might become a method of
peace building (Mika 2002).
To facilitate such a discussion, I would suggest the inclusion of a module on
program evaluation in the overall training program, perhaps in the middle or near
the end of training. This module could include an introduction to the various
methods of evaluation used in other peace education programs around the world. It
could assess the relevance of the models to the Asia-Pacific context, or other
working contexts. This would help participants brainstorm and develop culturally
relevant models. This approach is much more participatory and offers an opportu-
nity to learn about the process of evaluation through doing. Furthermore, such an
approach would minimize a top-down assessment and increase diverse perspectives
on the subject. Mika (2002) writes in the abstract to his article on evaluation as
peace building:

An evaluation approach that is collaborative and elicitive may well serve as a catalyst
for transforming relationships of power, standing in stark contrast to more conven-
tional and staid evaluation practices that are technical in nature and actuarial in intent.
Election of an orientation is the most decisive and strategic choice that is made in
approaching evaluation and articulating value imperatives in fieldwork, coloring as it
surely does the pragmatic stages of evaluation and good practice for the peacebuilder.
(339)

Concerning diversity, it is an exigency that consultants and facilitators ensure an

environment of respect toward diverse identities and worldviews, as done at
APCEIU and the University for Peace. This includes an intellectual community with
 Journal of Peace Education 169

heterogeneous perspectives on peace education. It seems occasionally that the pre-

sentation of peace education themes and methodology becomes dogmatic or too
‘universalized.’ The notion of a universal peace education is surely antithetical to
the principles and objectives of a multidisciplinary and global discipline. For
example, when presenting models of peace education, facilitators should discuss the
models as ‘one model,’ or ‘a model,’ not ‘the model’ and ensure that participants
are aware of the many disparate frameworks that exist for the conceptualization of
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programs. Otherwise, trainers risk preaching one particular perspective on the field.
Finally, I remind trainers of the importance of community-building modules and
activities at the beginning and end of training. Though learning games and commu-
nity-building activities may take valuable time from presenting concepts and prac-
tices, the process of trust-building is indispensable to fostering a community open
to the intellectual experimentation that necessarily occurs in peace education train-
ing. Progressive peace education training workshops might center on critical
thought surrounding post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, and
decolonization processes, among other approaches. To enter into this critical dialog
with the self and others, it is helpful if participants have developed a sense of trust
and experimentation among each other before such discussion begins. Echoing what
participants have stated in the APCEIU assessment, I conclude that the use of crea-
tive pedagogy and development of open learning communities, in addition to peace
curricula, are perhaps the most important elements of successful peace education
training programs.

Notes
1. The newsletter for the Global Campaign for Peace Education is regularly published at
http://www.tc.edu/peaceed/newsletter/.
2. It should be duly noted here that I am not attempting, nor interested in, a neoliberal
accountability study of the institution and its facilitators, or whether the programs
achieved the greatest impact for the least cost. I am rather concerned with the multiply-
ing effect of training and assessment in the hopes of validating my previous assumption
that peace education is alive and thriving. Mika (2002) contends evaluation itself is a
process of peace building. It is from this standpoint that I view impact assessment,
where the educators themselves identify the impact and qualify it in their own words.
This research is an assessment of what learning was fostered through the training pro-
gram, whether that learning has been sustained, and through which avenues it has been
cultivated.
3. I also graduated from the University for Peace MA program in Peace Education in
2007.

Notes on contributor
Kevin Kester is a professor of international relations at Hannam University, South Korea,
professor of UN studies at the Asia-Pacific Centre of the United Nations-mandated
University for Peace, and a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of
The Young Ecologist Initiative Water Manual: Lesson Plans for Building Earth Democracy
(Navdanya Press, coauthored with Vandana Shiva).

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