Peace Education

Description

In recent years, there has been a growing, world-wide recognition of the central role played by education in meeting the complex demands of peacemaking and peace building. Often lacking, however, are individuals prepared with the knowledge and skills to act as leaders for educational reform to support sustainable peace processes.

The UPEACE Master's Degree Programme in Peace Education is designed to train such individuals. The programme will build the capacity of educators from around the world to contribute to educational, social, and cultural change through peace education. It is designed to enable participants to effectively engage in peace education at all levels, from the design of educational policy to the development of effective and culturally relevant peace education programmes, to the actual skills of teaching for peace both in and out of the classroom.

The programme assumes that a peace educator must have a broad knowledge of the basic concepts and skills within the multidisciplinary areas that converge in contemporary peace studies. Graduates of the programme will also be specialists in the application of the insights of peace studies within the broader social and cultural environments within which formal and non-formal education take place.
The centerpiece of the programme is the project development process. While participating in the UPEACE Peace Education Programme, peace education students will work on the development of an educational project that can be immediately applicable in an educational setting of the student's choosing.

Objectives
The MA in Peace Education Programme designates two main interdependent learning outcomes to be pursued:

1. To prepare leaders and specialists committed to the building of a culture of peace and non-violence by educational means (formal, non formal and informal settings);
2. To support students in developing competence in analyzing, developing, and reforming curricula, didactic methods, pedagogies, and educational resources for a comprehensive view of peace education.

Student entry profile
The UPEACE Peace Education Programme is particularly suitable for persons who are interested in peace education oriented educational policy and development, administration and evaluation, both in public and private educational settings, as well as teachers and professors interested in peace oriented pedagogy. It is also suitable for educators interested in community education.

Admission to the Master’s Degree Program in Peace Education will be open to a limited number of qualified students who have completed a bachelor’s degree or equivalent at an accredited higher education institution and who demonstrate an active interest in the field of Peace Education. Preferably students will have had prior studies in an education related discipline and previous education work experience.

Programme Outline

TERM 1

TERM 2

TERM 3

Course Descriptions

TERM I

IPS-6010 Foundation Course in Peace & Conflict Studies
The Foundation Course in Peace & Conflict Studies is the common element of all UPEACE academic programmes. It establishes the core issues, insights, and debates within peace studies as an integrated and interdisciplinary field of research. It reviews a range of theories in order to provide students with the conceptual tools necessary to effectively analyze the various dimensions of contemporary conflicts occurring at different levels. Through a systematic exploration of the complexity of conflicts and their causes, the course introduces students to the immense challenges that exist for peace. Nevertheless, there are many options for those committed to the furtherance of peace, and the course concludes by examining several of these approaches.

Through the exploration of these themes, students will be encouraged to develop their understanding of the connections that can be drawn between the various topics they will encounter through their other coursework at UPEACE. The larger goal of the course, then, is to provide students with a rubric for integrating diverse topics, readings, and information from various disciplines and bringing them to bear on the crucial challenges and dilemmas facing those working for peace.

PEP-6010 Peace Education: Theory & Practice
Drawing on ideas, perspectives, and experiences from diverse contexts, PEP seeks to provide students with a holistic and critical understanding of the theory and practice of peace education. Essentially, the course content and processes will explore a range of conceptual/analytical perspectives and encourage students to reflect on the possibilities and challenges of educating for peace in a world of complex and escalating conflicts and violence.

Participants will initially learn about the visions, paradigms, and conceptual frameworks of educators and educational movements for peace at all levels of life across South and North regions of the world. The multiple strands and dimensions of peace education, encompassing education for disarmament, local/global justice, human rights, inter-cultural solidarity, environmental care and personal peace, will be clarified in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Besides appreciating the need to analyze the root causes of conflicts, violence and peacelessness, participants will also familiarize themselves with key pedagogical principles of educating for peace, encompassing (i) holism, (ii) dialogue, (iii) values formation, and (iv) critical empowerment or conscientization.

PEP 6010 looks at six themes of conflicts and peacelessness within a holistic framework of peace education, namely: (i) educating for dismantling a culture of “war” (micro/macro levels), which includes problems and issues of direct violence and strategies of active non-violent resolution of such conflicts; (ii) educating for living with justice and compassion, which focuses on the realities of structural violence, especially in relation to paradigms of development and globalization, and alternative relationships and structures for local and global justice; (iii) educating for human rights and responsibilities, which seeks to deepen the knowledge and skills of promoting human rights; (iv) educating for inter-cultural solidarity whereby cultural diversity is respected while the values and principles of a common humanity are fostered; (v) educating for environmental care, which recognizes the inter-connectedness of all beings and planet earth, and suggests alternatives to build sustainable futures; (vi) educating for personal peace, which highlights the urgent need for nurturing values, principles, and practice of inner/personal growth to complement the tasks of building outer or social peace. Students will also be exposed to a range of creative and participatory teaching-learning strategies that role model the pedagogical principles of peace education.

Students will undertake a “reflective journey” that allows them to reflect upon their past, present, and future journey in life as they explore the meanings of the six themes in the framework. This course also provides an opportunity for students to be involved in a curriculum material development project in peace education for teachers, teacher educators, and adult educators.

PEP-6020 Research Methods
This course will provide students with a variety of design, development, and research tools and skills useful for developing programmes in Peace Education. It will develop students’ theoretical knowledge and applied skills in conducting qualitative, quantitative and participatory research in the fields of peace building and conflict analysis and resolution, with a strong emphasis on gender issues and their cultural implications.

PEP-6060 Educational Change for Peace
The purpose of this course is to nurture analytical skills for educational reform by developing familiarity and understanding of the role of education in society, the social and political organization of educational systems (formal education) in various national and cultural contexts, and their relationships with informal learning. A critical topic will be the relationship between educational systems, nationalism and militarization. Skills will be fostered for the analysis of educational systems and organizations in terms of their mission, structure, strategy, culture, and history. Finally, general strategies and policies for educational reform will be studied, with particular emphasis on the promotion of peace education.

GPB-6030 Cultures & Learning - from Violence towards Peace
The major assumptions of this course are that humans can learn and change their acquired violent behaviors and beliefs and that human violent behavior is mostly transmitted from one generation to another via cultural means of socialization. The course also aims to develop understanding of the role of cultural, ethnic, religious, gender, linguistic, and other forms of sub-identities in creating peaceful environments. Students will learn concepts and frameworks to analytically link the different forms of violence in society with gender-based violence. In addition, the course will explore gender-based initiatives to reduce violence in society and promote values and practices of peace. It explores creative ways to handle 'difference' as a central assumption in Peace Education.

PEP-6030 Peace Education Seminars
This is an ongoing seminar throughout the academic year, which provides students an opportunity to relate peace studies content to peace education, to foster skills practice and reflection, to assist in the building and strengthening of the learning community, and to provide opportunities for students to engage in peace education praxis through service learning.

TERM II

Elective Period
Students can select from a number of courses offered as part of the elective period at UPEACE and the UPEACE Institute.

PEP-6070 Education for Conflict Transformation & Peace Building
This course will provide a basic understanding of the nature of protracted social conflicts as a framework for appreciating the role that education can play in conflict management and transformation. It will provide practical skills development in defining goals, strategies and pedagogical principles for developing peace education in these contexts. The course will stress innovative approaches for introducing the principles of non-violent strategic action and conflict intervention into various formal and informal educational settings, and actual hands-on training in designing and integrating non-violent action and conflict intervention in personal, professional, and social settings. Finally, attention will be given to the role of education in the prevention of violent conflict.

PEP-6080 Language, Media, & Peace
Language, Media, and Peace will provide a critical methodology for recognizing how language communicates and reinforces ideologies that sustain social institutions and practices antithetical to a culture of peace. It will also provide an overview of how language can contribute to the escalation or de-escalation of conflict and consider language policies in education to determine whether and, if so, how they violate linguistic rights and promote inequality. Integral to the presentation of these aspects of language use will be the role of the media, specifically its potential for reinforcing ideologies and creating a climate that promotes violence. Finally, opportunities will be provided to apply the knowledge about the above aspects of language use to the development of methods and materials that will incorporate these perspectives on the role of language in social life into peace education.

PEP-6061 Peace Education: Strategies for Life and Action
This course focuses on practical strategies and tools for promoting peace education in formal educational systems, as well as community settings. Topics include the introduction of peace education into curricula and materials development; school system reform: roles, accountability and politics; teacher education and training strategies: pre-service and in-service; movements and organizations supporting educational reform (NGOs, teachers' and parents' organizations); the relationship between schools and other community and cultural organizations (the media, religious organizations, the arts, the health sector, etc.) in cooperation for the promotion of peace education; advocacy strategies and skills for educational reform, emphasizing strategies for motivating teachers and education officials for change; and the use of information technology and networking.

PEP-6040 Sustainable Development Education
Our rapidly changing world presents profound challenges for educators. How can we create learning experiences to equip our students for a future that is hard to imagine and make decisions that help build a better world?

This course combines foundational knowledge and deepens educational specialization in the crucial area of sustainable development. Its goal is to develop a sound understanding not only of the relationship between worldwide economic development trends, environmental constraints and conflicts, and of the potential avenues for constructing a more peaceful and sustainable world, but also of curriculum and pedagogical approaches that take into account the realities of the 21st century.

This course will introduce students to several cases of education for sustainable development around the world – in schools, in universities, in non-formal educational settings, and at the workplace. The methodologies and pedagogies used will be analyzed and critiqued in order to draw from these cases insights for designing education for sustainable development projects in a variety educational contexts. The course will help identify factors that affect the choice of teaching and learning strategies most suitable for developing the knowledge, skills, values and perspectives of education for sustainable development.

GPB 6050 Practices of Conflict Management & Peace Building
In the first part of the course we will first look at the Conflict Resolution approach to theorizing conflict, understanding its origins, the vocabularies for speaking of conflict in ways that “get to the heart of the issue” and focusing on the root causes. Then we will move on to a critique of what talking in these ways fails to say – and with what repercussions – about gender, power, privilege, and difference. The second part of the course addresses various responses to conflict. The third part looks at peace processes and the challenges presented by the concept of peace building.

PEP 6021 Independent Study Workshop
The Independent Study Workshop will developing skills necessary for writing the Project Development Report, including issues of academic honesty, use of databases, and planning for evaluation. Students will have an opportunity to share their projects with the group and receive feedback.

TERM III

PEP 7100 Project Development Report
Given that the main purpose of this program is to develop leadership and skills for education reform, the overall learning of the Programme will be evaluated through a Project Development Report, which is the Independent Study component of the Peace Education Programme. The Report will contain all of the key elements for the realization of an action plan for a substantive educational reform project. It is expected that it will serve as the basis for an actual project or, at least, serve as a guide for generating further projects.

Faculty for the Master's Degree Programme in Peace Education

Alicia CABEZUDO (Argentina) Ph.D., Education, University of Buenos Aires; Masters in Education: Specialist Professor for the Teaching of Human Rights, Peace and International Cooperation. Geneva, Switzerland. (1989); International Educational Coordinator of the Global Campaign for Peace Education. Hague Appeal for Peace.

Eliana CARVALHO MUKHERJEE (Brazil/USA) Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University. B.S. in Mass Communication from Emerson College. Assistant Professor in the UPEACE MA Programme in Peace Education.

Virginia FLORESCA-CAWAGAS (Philippines) Ed. D. (Doctor of Education) (Peace and Development) Notre Dame University, Philippines. Yoneji Ebitani Award for outstanding research in Curriculum and Instruction (joint with Toh Swee-Hin). Awarded by the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction, 9th Triennial World Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, July 1998.

Tony JENKINS (USA) M.A. in International Educational Development, concentrating in Peace Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. Co-Director of the Peace Education Center of Teachers College Columbia University and the Global Coordinator of the International Institute on Peace Education.

Mohit MUKHERJEE (India) Ed.M in International Education from Harvard University. B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. Resident Adjunct Faculty and Director, Centre for Executive and Professional Development at UPEACE.

Matthew NORTON (USA) Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford. He is a PhD student in the department of Sociology at Yale University, and a Junior Fellow of Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology. He was the director of the International Peace Studies Master’s degree programme at UPEACE 2003-2005.

Swee-Hin TOH (Australian, country of birth is Malaysia), Ph.D. (Sociology of Education & International/Intercultural Education); Professor & Director, Multi-Faith Centre, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia; Laureate, UNESCO Prize for Peace Education 2000.

Thomas M. TURAY (Sierra Leone), Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada; currently Lecturer, Coady International Institute, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Victor VALLE (El Salvador) Ed.D., George Washington University; M.Ed, University of Pittsburgh; Undergraduate studies, Civil Engineering, University of El Salvador. Dean for Latin America and the Caribbean Programme, and Head of Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at UPEACE.