Does Peace Education Make a Difference in the Context of an Intractable Conflict?

Abstract

Peace education in regions of intractable conflict faces a number of severe challenges, such as conflicting collective narratives, shared histories and beliefs, grave inequalities, excessive emotionality, and unsupportive social climates. In this light, the chances of success for peace education programs are rather slim. A series of quasi-experimental studies carried out with Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian youngsters revealed that despite the ongoing violence, participation in various programs yields positive attitudinal, perceptual, and relational changes manifested in, for example, more positive views of "peace," better ability to see the other side's perspective, and greater willingness for contact. These changes depend on participants' initial political views, and thus, as found in one study, play an attitude-reinforcing function, but, as found in another study, prevent the worsening of perceptions of and attribution to the other side, thereby serving in a preventive capacity. Not all conflicts are born alike. One way to distinguish between conflicts is according to their sociopolitical context (Salomon, 2002). The kind of context of interest here is the intractable (Coleman, 2003;Kriesberg, 1993) or protracted conflict (Fisher, 1997). Such a conflict is characterized by being stubborn, violent, central, and total (Rouhana & Bar-Tal, 1998). It is accompanied by great uncertainties, stress, and more often than not, strengthened adherence to the collective narrative of one's group (e.g., Foster, 1999) and, consequently, extreme closed mindedness (Rapoport, 1960).The conceptions of what peace education attempts to achieve through its joint school-based or off-campus programs and learning projects, weekend workshops,

Education as a Tool for Peace? The King Abdullah Scholarship Program and Perceptions of Saudi Arabia and UAE post 9/11

“…Inspired by the experience of students in a Palestinian/Israeli study (Salomon, 2004) and from the context of the interviews in the current study, it would seem that bringing or gathering the two sides of a conflict 'under one roof' and give them the chance to work or socialise together works effectively in breaking some fears and in replacing hatred with friendship.…”

“…It is sad to view the hegemonic struggle of one over others and to learn that those who are born and raised in a privileged 'nation' are critical and judgmental of others who are not only misunderstood butoften deprived. Finally, ranking humanity on the basis of human condition as well as racial and ethnic attributes (i.e., nationalities, religion, power and color) create an "us" versus "them" mentality (Salomon, 2004).…”

“…Although the challenges and conflicts between countries, cultures, and religions vary according to sociopolitical contexts (Salomon, 2004), the benefits of peace education described below provide a sense of hope that can amend and/or reconcile the damaging, negative impacts of globalisation, help close the gap/s between cultures, and consolidate the three worlds into a more harmonious one.…”

Di̇n Kültürü Ve Ahlak Bi̇lgi̇si̇ (Dkab) Dersleri̇nde Bariş Eği̇ti̇mi̇ni̇n Yeri̇

“…Barış eğitimi farklı yollarla uygulanabilir ancak bilimsel ilkelerle yapılandırılması gereken bir disiplin alanıdır (Salomon ve Cairns, 2010). Bu nedenle barış eğitiminin tarihi (Burns ve Aspeslagh, 2004;Harris, 2010), şekli ve içeriği (Galtung, 2008), teorileri (Harris, 2004), eğitim bilimleri, psikoloji, sosyal psikoloji, politika, felsefe, iletişim ve medya, etik gibi bilim dalları içindeki yeri ve ilişkileri (Christie ve Wagner, 2010;Ellis ve Warshel, 2010;Lin, 2006;Page, 2008;Ross, 2010;Rusthoven, 2007; Tausch, Schmid ve Hewstone, 2010; Wintersteiner, 2010), çatışma ve şiddet olgularıyla ilişkisi ve bu olguları barış eğitimi yoluyla çözüm stratejileri (Christie, Wagner ve Winter, 2001;Salomon, 2004; Webel ve Galtung, 2007), farklı ülke, kurum ve kuruluşlarda barış eğitimi (Biton ve Salomon, 2006; Fountain, 1999; Salomon ve Nevo, 2005; Stomfay-Stitz, 1993), çocukların savaş, barış kavram algıları ve barış eğitiminin nasıl öğretilebileceği (Hakvoort ve Oppenheimer, 1993;Raviv, Oppenheimer ve Bar-Tal, 1999) gibi konularda çalışmaların yabancı literatürde sıklıkla yer bulduğu görülmektedir.Türkiye'de ise barış eğitimi ile ilgili ilk tez çalışmasının Önür (1994) tarafından gerçekleştirildiği görülmektedir. Önür (1994), ülkede barış eğitimine olan ihtiyaç ve talebin araştırılmasına öncülük etmek ve barış eğitimi konusunu eğitim araştırmaları gündemine taşımak amacıyla barış eğitimi tanımı, amacı, içeriği, yöntemleri ve barış eğitimi ile ilgili kavramları içeren bir çalışma yürütmüştür.…”

Does peace education really make a difference?

“…On the other hand, the change-objects affected by peace education programs pertain to more peripheral attitudes and beliefs, which are more easily changeable, more weakly associated with behaviors, and thus less consequential. This hypothetical possibility is briefly examined from both a theoretical and practical perspective, leading to three clusters of research questions: (a) Is the proposed distinction between central and peripheral attitudes and beliefs applicable to peace education programs?, (b) How stable are changes of peripheral attitudes in the absence of changes of the more central ones?, and (c) To what extent can only long-term, socialization-like programs affect core beliefs and attitudes?Peace education in contexts of intractable conflict faces formidable challenges that are unique to such contexts (Bar-Tal, 2004;Salomon, 2004a) and thus raise questions about its possible effectiveness. In this article I wish to discuss one such question and formulate researchable hypotheses that might provide explanations for some of the perplexing issues facing peace education.…”