Nature, Rationale, and Effectiveness of Education for Coexistence

Abstract

Coexistence is a state of mind shared by society members who recognize the rights of another group to exist peacefully as a legitimate, equal partner with whom disagreements have to be resolved in nonviolent ways. Achieving coexistence is a great challenge because of the negative relations between the two groups. These negative relations, the result of ethnocentric beliefs or intractable conflict, are widely shared and their abolition requires deep societal change. Education for coexistence plays an important function in this change. The article suggests that when negative relations are based on ethnocentrism, education for coexistence plays a major role in changing the nature of the relations. But when negative relations derive from intergroup conflict, education for coexistence has less influence.Within the realm of intergroup relations, different concepts were offered to describe positively valued relations between groups. Among them are concepts like tolerance, multiculturalism, peace, reconciliation, and coexistence. In essence, they have been mostly used for describing desired states to which societies, nations, or states should aspire. The underlying assumption in developing these concepts has been that the system of intergroup relations currently prevailing in many countries is far from being satisfactory and there is a need to change them completely, or at least to improve them. Therefore, the term education has often been attached to these concepts (i.e., peace education, education for multiculturalism or education for coexistence) to describe active attempts to educate people to value and aspire to these states as well as to learn to live accordingly by acquiring corresponding

Educating Jewish and Arab children for tolerance and coexistence in a situation of ongoing conflict: an encounter program

“…The educational system in Israel is segregated by ethnicity and language (Jewish sector/ Arab sector). Therefore, intentional, planned and inclusive coexistence programs have a vital role for they are the primary and most significant mechanism for intergroup interaction among school-age children and adolescents (Ministry of Education, 1984; Bar-Tal, 2004;Stephan et al, 2004). Educators, in cooperation with school counselors, school psychologists and the whole school staff, can play an active role in this educational effort for coexistence.…”

Changes in Antisocial Behaviour in the Classroom and the Impact on Students, in Spain

“…We share the opinion of Bar-Tal [15], who maintains that education for coexistence in schools has many advantages. Firstly, school is compulsory for children and adolescents, which facilitates providing adolescents with education in coexistence.…”

“…This means that coexistence is associated on the one hand with the individuality of members of a group, that is their capacity to understand that each individual has legitimate needs, aspirations, way of being etc., and on the other hand, understanding the shared perspective of the members of a community. All this can be categorised as an educational process, the objective of which is to achieve cooperation, dialogue and social integration [15]. Thus, coexistence could be seen as the first step towards, and a necessary condition, for both personal development and for interpersonal and intergroup relations.…”

Monitoring the effects of an education for peace program: An Israeli perspective

“…A growing number of studies from around the world (e.g. Bar-Tal, 2004;Salomon & Cairns, 2010;Smith, 2011) have demonstrated the use of peace education programs as a vehicle for promoting mutual understanding, reconciliation and co-existence in deeply divided societies. Thus, various agencies, including the education system, have actively tried to counter these negative attitudes by deepening familiarity and encouraging empathy with the other side.…”