Symmetric peace education as advanced by Anatol Pikas — A critique and an analysis

The ideas of symmetric peace and symmetric peace education, developed by Anatol Pikas in the preceding article, are here criticised for their lack of definition; it is also alleged that inadequate explanation is given of how the concepts may be applied — for example, in the case of a strong power oppressing a weak one. In particular, this critique concentrates on Pikas' assumption of who the antagonists are, and on his belief in the value of prepared teaching materials. Brock-Utne argues that the common enemy is the arms race itself and that the inculcation of critical and discriminating attitudes is likely to be more effective than producing teaching packages. Constructive alternative ideas, incorporating some of Pikas' thinking, are offered. These emphasize (1) the importance of joint cultural/education exchange programmes for promoting international understanding at grass-roots level; (2) the need to put one's own house in order before criticising the neighbour's — a reference to Sweden's policies, with which Pikas claims to identify, and to the implications of Norway's membership of NATO for those in that country concerned with building peace; and (3) the desirability of setting up fora where, under the right conditions, a type of symmetric peace education can be pursued.     

Introduction: education,war and peace

Abstract

This editorial introduction to the special issue on education, war and peace proposes that the dynamics between education, war and peace have been insufficiently researched in the history of education but have become a focus of increasing attention. Education for war, education for peace, the impact of war on education, and representations of war and peace are particular aspects of this general theme that are developed in detail in the collection as a whole.     

Racial Identity Theory and Peace Education: Tools for the Teacher In All of Us

As people develop a meaningful understanding of racism, they also experience shifts in their appraisals of self and others as members of an unfairly stratified society. Consistent with the premises of Helms' (1995) racial identity theory, these shifts can be explained as transformational processes that have relevance to matters of morality and peace advancement. Individuals who operate at advanced levels of racial identity development overcome the confinements inherent in a racism Zeitgeist and in so doing, learn to accept themselves and others more authentically. This theory can prove crucial to peace promotion in children because it espouses to nurture the integration of self within the broader spectrum of humanity. Educators who transform their selves can also transform their educational practices by disrupting cycles of socialization that adversely influence children's identity formation. They can also contribute to the creation of new structures of socialization. In this paper, I describe this theory and how it applies to peace education.     

犹太复国主义两重性对以巴和平的利弊分析

犹太复国主义具有两重性:它既是犹太民族的解放运动;也有狭隘的民族主义成分.犹太复国主义的两重性对以巴和平产生的影响也是双重的,利弊兼有.犹太民族是爱好和平的民族,相信它能够战胜犹太复国主义中的非理性成分,使中东走向全面和平.     

Gender differences in peace education programmes

Peace education programmes have become part of the school curriculum all over the world, as a way to enhance positive relationships between conflict groups. However, although gender differences are being taken into account when planning various educational programmes, this is usually not the case with peace education. The present study aimed to reveal gender differences regarding peace and peace pedagogy. One hundred and eighty Israeli Jewish and Arab high school students participated in a peace contact education programme. Gender and group differences were examined both before and after participation in the programme. The findings revealed that the Jewish and Arab female youths were more dovish than the males both before and after participating in the programme, and gained more from the encounters. Implications for conflict resolution and peace pedagogy are discussed.     

Conceptualizing the use of technology to foster peace via Adventure Learning

In this paper we present and discuss the findings of a systematic literature review on the use of educational technology initiatives to foster peace outcomes, and we relate those findings to Adventure Learning. In the first section of the paper, we suggest that technology-infused peace initiatives rely predominantly on targeting antecedents to peace, such as collaboration, interaction, communication, and understanding of the “other”, rather than peace itself, while at the same time employing varied pedagogies and technologies, with limited empirical support for sustainability of claimed positive outcomes beyond the end of an intervention. These findings align with numerous aspects of the Adventure Learning approach to education. In the second section of the paper therefore, we use Adventure Learning as a way to conceptualize the task of using technology to promote peace outcomes and propose important issues that need to be considered when designing peace-seeking Adventure Learning interventions.     

关于和平教育的思考

和平教育是指学校传授和平与冲突化解理论、传播和平知识与和平文化、提高人们的和平意识、塑造和平文明的教育。和平教育具有跨学科、多层面和现实性等多种特征。在实施和平教育的过程中应着力提高教师的和平素养,重视和平教育的课程与教材建设,探索和平教育的有效方法,注重多元文化的教育,形成家庭、社会与学校的和平教育合力。     

论列宁的和平外交思想及外交实践

为了巩固处于帝国主义包围之中的苏维埃政权，列宁在分析国际形势的基础上提出了利用国际矛盾、争取持久和平的外交思想。在这一外交思想的指导下，苏俄利用国际上的各种矛盾，开展高度灵活的外交活动，打破了被帝国主义包围的局面，巩固了苏维埃政权，维护了战后的持久和平。列宁的这一外交思想具有伟大的历史意义和现实意义。     

美国和平教育发展对我国教育的启示

美国和平教育是19～20世纪在世界和平运动的促进与指引下在对教育作用的反思的过程中兴起的一种教育思潮。在论述美国和平教育形成的社会背景的基础上,近一步探寻了美国和平教育的哲学理念。为普世知识开辟和平道路的夸美纽斯、主张用实用主义的学科教学促进和平的约翰．杜威、力推培养全球公民意识促进和平的蒙台梭利和用对话与批判推进和平的保罗．弗莱雷等皆为美国的和平教育提供了丰富的理论滋养。美国和平教育也经历了“和平世界愿景的提出——从反战走向积极的和平教育——迎接女性的和平教育——和平危机的时代——和平教育的积极发展”发展轨迹。美国和平教育发展对促进我国教育中对和平教育本质与使命的理解、提高对和平教育重要性的认识等方面都具有一定的启示意义。     

论和平文化研究的创新和发展

和平文化是中国传统文化的核心价值取向。芷江和平文化源远流长,侗民族的基因传承了和平文化,抗战受降的历史孕育了和平文化,现实发展的需要催生了和平文化。深入开展和平文化研究,建立起比较完善的和平文化体系,不但能够为中国芷江·国际和平文化节提供理论支撑,丰富节会的文化内涵,加快经济社会发展,而且能够促进芷江和平文化理论的转化运用,对于构建社会主义和谐社会具有重要的现实意义。     

The violence of peace and the role of education: insights from Sierra Leone

Research on peacebuilding has mushroomed over the last decade and there is a growing interest in the role of education in supporting peacebuilding processes. This paper engages with these debates, UN peacebuilding activities and the location of education initiatives therein, through a case study of Sierra Leone. In the first part, we explore the complex and multi-dimensional nature of violence in post-conflict Sierra Leone. In the second, we critically address the role of education in the conflict and post-conflict period, highlighting education’s centrality as a catalyst to conflict, and then reflect on the failure of the post-conflict reconstruction process to adequately transform the education system into one that could support a process of sustainable peacebuilding. Finally, we conclude by exploring the ways that greater investment and focus, both financial and human, in the education sector might, in the long term, better contribute to a sustainable and socially just peace.     

Symmetric peace education and Unesco's potential for promoting it

Peace education activities, widely contrasting and often mutually inconsistent, may be understood as constituting a dialectic in which each step is based on fundamental human reaction patterns mobilized as incentives. Although neither thesis, ‘Sounding the Alarm’, nor anthithesis, ‘Identifying Causes’, is adequate on its own for building peace, each is a necessary stage in development towards the synthesis, ‘Symmetric Peace Education’. According to this concept, peace can only be achieved through co-operation between the parties threatening or threatened by each other; and the task of symmetric peace education is to bring both sides and involved neutrals together to work out a basis of common values and joint activities while protecting the identity and integrity of all participants. On the micro-level, in schools, appropriate exercises can be designed to enable pupils to learn, from their own experiences of conflict, symmetrical and constructive habits in communication. Extension to the macro-, international, level may be achieved by representative groups of educators working together without destructive confrontation to produce common peace education packages: these would be used symmetrically by mutual agreement in countries currently rearming against each other. A different approach is proposed for bringing together groups of other professional people in ‘prepared, constructive confrontations’ in order to reduce distrust and increase mutual understanding. The express purpose for the foundation of Unesco was to build peace; and by virtue of this mandate and the nature of its constitution, the organization is uniquely placed to promote symmetric peace education in the ways described.     

Memes,munitions, and collective copia: The durability of the perpetual peace weapons snowclone

This essay examines the commonplace argument that particular weapons have the power to end war forever. I argue that the basic form of the durable memetic phrasal pattern that emerges from the commonplace’s many iterations is Weapon X makes war impossible. I call this meme the perpetual peace weapons snowclone. Snowclones are formulaic communication patterns that enable users to swap out words, phrases, or images for one another without breaking the original pattern. To understand how and why the perpetual peace weapons snowclone remains cogent for weapons advocacy, I connect Erasmus’s concept of copia to the contemporary concept of snowclones. Taken together, collective copia and snowclones demonstrate how simultaneous linguistic flexibility and rigidity help memes and other rhetorical commonplaces to replicate. I then trace the perpetual peace weapons snowclone’s replication with a historical survey of the oft-repeated commonplace through the development of the atomic bomb, at which point the perpetual peace weapons snowclone transformed into an ideological principle that warranted Cold War nuclear deterrence theory and the Atoms for Peace campaign. The case study demonstrates how, in general, all kinds of commonplaces, memes, clichés, stereotypes, archetypes, and proverbs get reproduced across time and space when collective copia and snowclones interact.     

注重软权力,推动和平发展战略的实现

软权力理论是冷战后新兴的国际关系理论之一。与强调经济、军事等有形力量的硬权力不同，软权力主要强调文化、价值观念等方面的影响力和吸引力，以及主导国际制度与议题、生产和传播信息的能力等等。提升软权力，有利于促进我国社会的全面发展，有利于营造和平的国内外环境，有利于提高我国的国际地位和影响力。总之，软权力的提升将成为我国实现和平发展战略的关键。     

论奥运追求和平

回顾了古代奥运会追求和平的历程，论述了现代奥林匹克运动自诞生之日起就以追求和平为己任．虽然在其发展过程中屡遭战争的威胁，但奥林匹克追求和平的信念没有改变．并为人类的和平事业做出了卓越的贡献；相信通过全世界人民的共同努力，未来的奥林匹克必将使战争远离．圣火必将取代战火．     

Civic education and visions of war and peace in the Spanish transition to democracy

Abstract

This article explores visions of war and peace in the education system during the Spanish transition to democracy. During those years, the Spanish state was faced with the challenge of leaving its authoritarian political past behind and forging a democratic civic culture. As the concepts of war and peace are inextricably linked to those of state and citizenship, they are a useful tool with which to examine changes in civic education. A wide variety of educational sources has been explored, with particular attention to the emotional nature of the depiction of both war and peace. This study reveals two opposing styles. The official discourse demonstrated a factual treatment of war and a tendency to concentrate on international bodies and their actions, when it came to fomenting peace. The treatment of peace in the circles of teachers’ local initiatives was different. First, peace was defined not only as the absence of war but also in terms of social equality and solidarity. Second, there was a conscious effort to get the students involved in opposing war, reinforced by emotionally charged messages regarding its horrors.     

中日共同推动东亚地区的和平与发展

中日目前在继续改善双边关系,共同推动战略互惠关系的全民发展.在东亚地区,如何加强相互双边与多边关系与合作,共促本地区的和平与发展,是中日两国所面临的和需要实践的重要课题.东亚当前仍面临和平与发展的机遇,但也依旧面ll缶着各种挑战.今后,中日不仅需要更加搞好双边关系,还需要共同努力,携手共促本地区关系与局势的和谐与稳定,共同推动东亚地区各国间在经济领域的互惠合作与经济发展,共同维护本地区局势的安全与和平.     

Concepts of peace education: A view of western experience

Approaches to the theory and practice of peace education are as varied as the situations across the world in which it is undertaken. Against a framework established by the Peace Education Commission of IPRA, current trends in the conceptualization and experience of peace education (from a Western view-point) are considered and reveal (1) acceptance of ‘development’ with ‘justice’ and ‘human rights’ as integral to the concept of peace; (2) emphasis on the psychological as well as socio-political, economic and structural conditions that maintain present injustices and oppressions; (3) renewed efforts to try out innovative educational approaches to a variety of learning situations, from the pre-school to adult formal and non-formal settings; (4) new concern about the materials, content and techniques of learning; and (5) fresh examination of the inter-relationships between theory and practice, research and action. Analyzing a number of conceptual approaches to peace and disarmament education, the authors support a political, participatory strategy and set it in a historical context. Hence, its connection with development education and the significance and implications of a global perspective are demonstrated. The global perspective is seen as a growing-point for peace education today, providing the potential for political consciousness and action.     

Deliberative Democratic Theological Education: A Proposal for Youth Ministry That Builds Peace

Abstract

Drawing on research in deliberative pedagogy, this paper will develop in depth one piece of a larger project that envisions peace education as an essential component of youth ministry. The paper proposes a sacred pedagogy that engages theological concepts through deliberative, democratic discussion, teaching young people skills in engaging across difference as well as habits of deliberative theological thinking for a lifetime of spiritual growth. The specific example of engaging the problem of how we image Jesus will serve as an illustration of the potential for a series of curricular materials for use in congregational youth settings.     

The affective (re)production of refugee representations through educational policies and practices: Reconceptualising the role of emotion for peace education in a divided country

Drawing into a discussion of the politicisation of emotion, this paper develops a framework to analyse some of the processes and strategies by which educational policies and pedagogical practices ??emotionalise?? the representation of refugees in conflict-ridden societies such as Cyprus and explores the implications for peace education. In particular, this paper aims to refine our understanding of how emotions affect the ways in which educational policies and practices reproduce self-other dichotomies through certain representations of the refugee experience. It is argued that these dichotomies are relevant to the emotional reactions against peace education initiatives. Second, this paper examines alternative possibilities of promoting peaceful coexistence, while taking into consideration the affective (re)production of refugee representations yet without undermining the refugee experience. Better understanding of how emotion is involved will help educational policymakers and teachers in divided societies to take into account the hitherto poorly developed aspects of the ways in which emotions, the refugee experience and peace education are inextricably intertwined.