IV:Peace Education: A Transformative

Response to Major Societal

Challenges
A Hollistic Understanding of Peace
Types of Violence

Reporter: Jonalie D. Obal

TOPIC OUTLINE:

 What is Peace Education?

 Holistic Understanding
 Types of Violence
What is Peace Education?
• 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.

• helps young people gain knowledge, enhance their skills in the area of peace, and form an attitude

about the meaning of peace in human life.

• Peace education activities promote conflict resolution that promotes peace and values such as

respect for human rights, freedom and confidence.

What is Peace Education?
• 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.
 “ If we want to
reach real peace in
Click icon to add picture this world, we
should start
educating
children.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
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.
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.
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.
• Negative peace refers to the absence of war or physical/direct violence, while
positive peace refers to the presence of just and no exploitative relationships,
as well as human and ecological well-being, such that the root causes of
conflict are diminished.
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 (Barnaby, 1989).
Frameworks of Peace
POSITIVE
NEGATIVE PEACE
PEACE PEACE

STRUCTURAL
VIOLENCE

DIRECT VIOLENCE
SOCIO-CULTURAL
VIOLENCE

ECOLOGICAL VIOLENCE

VIOLENCE
Types of Violence

• PREJUDICE is the negative feeling or attitude towards a person or a group

even if it lacks begin.
• STEREOTYPE refers to the negative opinion about a person or group based
on incomplete knowledge.
• DISCRIMINATION refers to negative actions towards members of a specific
social group that may be manifested in avoidance, aversion or even violence.
Types of Violence
Types of Prejudice:

Racism- the belief that one’s own cultural or racial heritage in innately superior to that others,hence, the lack of respect or
appreciation for those who belong to a “different race”.

Sexism- a system of attitudes, actions and structures that subordinates others on the basis of their sex, where the usual
victims are women.

Heterosexism-negative attitudes towards lesbian and gay.

Classism-distancing from and perceiving the poor as “the other”.

Linguicism-negative attitudes which members of dominant language groups hold against non-dominant language groups.

Ageism-negative attitudes held against the young or the elderly.

Lookism-prejudice against those who do not measure up to set standards of beauty. The usual victims are the
overweight, the undersized and the dark-skinned.

Religious Intolerance- prejudice against who are followers of religious other than one’s own.
Types of Violence
Types of Violence and Abuse:
Physical Violence
Physical violence occurs when
someone uses a part of their body or
an object to control a person’s
actions.
Psychological Violence
Psychological violence occurs when
someone uses threats and causes
fear in an individual to gain control.
Verbal Abuse
Verbal abuse occurs when someone
uses language, whether spoken or
written, to cause harm to an
individual.
Sexual Violence
Sexual violence occurs when a
person is forced to unwillingly take
part in sexual activity.
Spiritual Violence
Spiritual (or religious) violence
occurs when someone uses an
individual’s spiritual beliefs to
manipulate, dominate or control that
person.
Financial Abuse
Financial abuse occurs when
someone control’s an individual’s
financial resources without the
person’s consent or misuses those
resources.
Emotional Violence
Emotional violence occurs when
someone says or does something to
make a person feel stupid or
worthless.
Cultural Violence
Cultural violence occurs when an
individual is harmed as a result of
practices that are part of her or his
culture, religion and tradition.
Neglect
Neglect occurs when someone has
the responsibility to provide care or
assistance for an individual but does
not.
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.
Thank you for Listening! 