The Hunger Games: Theorizing opportunities for peace education.

Abstract

The roles of popular books and films in influencing beliefs and teaching both awareness of injustice and the costs of violence are important to consider by contemporary peace educators. These media are powerful in cultural reproduction, shaping young people's identities, and, potentially, in social and transnational bridge building. This paper discusses a popular fiction series about children and armed conflict and its implications for peace education. A massive fandom has grown up around Suzanne Collins' young adult (YA) trilogy The Hunger Games (Collins, 2008), Catching Fire (Collins, 2009), and Mockingjay (Collins, 2010). Describing economic inequality, government oppression, torture, war, revolution, and children as combatants, The Hunger Games series explores harsh realities of contemporary world politics and its impact on children. But these novels also point to sources of resilience and healing and a vision of peace rooted in gender equity, rejection of violence, and remembering the costs of war. This paper explains how educators can draw out these themes through classroom discussions and activities. The paper shows how The Hunger Games series can be taught as a vehicle for coming to terms with "the other in ourselves" (Reardon, 1996, p. 51), recognizing our own capacity for violence, but also our capacity for empathy and for transcending violence, polarization and gender stereotypes. Additionally, it shows that the series has inspired and been used by young activists involved in struggles for social justice, and argues that a potentially important but underutilized vehicle for peace education is found in such fandom practices.

Supporting peaceful individuals, groups, and societies: Peace psychology and peace education.

“…In Peace and Conflict: The Journal of Peace Psychology, there have been examples of articles that prominently featured peace education or that were focused on its implementation or evaluation, but these articles have been relatively few and not part of any broader articulation of psychology and peace education (e.g., Nelson & Milburn, 1999;Salomon, 2006Salomon, , 2011. The journal also has included a few articles linking peace and civic education in theorizing about how to promote peaceful individuals and societies (Fischer & Hanke, 2009;McEvoy-Levy, 2017).…”

Children and armed conflict: Interventions for supporting war-affected children.

“…McEvoy-Levy (2017) provides a thought-provoking analysis of how popular media, which young people find captivating, can become useful vehicles for peace education. Using Susan Collins’ trilogy The Hunger Games , Catching Fire , and Mockingjay , she illuminates how it is possible to help students explore issues such as the perils of violence, gender inequity, economic and political oppression, child soldiers, and government manipulation of populations through the media.…”

Tolerance in UAE Islamic Education Textbooks

“…Religious education is often found to promote tolerance (e.g., Barnes 1997;Saeed 1999;Schweitzer 2007;Abu-Nimer et al 2016;Afrianty 2012;Vanner et al 2017;Waghid and Davids 2014;Jones 2007;Kyl 2004;Baligadoo 2014;Naumenko and Naumenko 2016;Fujiwara 2007;Halai and Durrani 2018;Das (Sarma) (2013); McEvoy-Levy 2017;Rashed 2015). Internationally, the role of Islamic schools has been debated in relation to their possible influence on religious intolerance (Elbih 2012).…”