Forgiveness education as a form of peace education with fifth-grade students: A pilot study with implications for educators.

Abstract

A 10-week forgiveness education curriculum based on a developmentally appropriate version of Enright’s process model was taught to two classes of fifth graders (Primary 6, ages 10–11, N = 30) attending a low-income school in a midwestern city in the United States. An exploratory, single-group pretest–posttest design was used to examine changes in forgiveness toward a specific offender, forgiveness knowledge and understanding, and levels of anger. Following the education, the students illustrated statistically significant increased forgiveness toward an offender who had hurt them and knowledge about forgiveness. Statistical significance was not found for changes in anger. Verbal statements from the students also illustrate that forgiveness education increased students’ knowledge about forgiveness and willingness to forgive in situations of hurt and conflict. Responses from students illustrated that they enjoyed the children’s literature in this specific forgiveness education curriculum. Implications for future research and the use of forgiveness education as a form of peace and moral education are discussed.