Should forgiveness be considered a civic virtue that promotes peace and justice following injustice? In the aftermath of conflicts as severe as state-sponsored genocide, how can relationships be restored, communities reconciled, and justice achieved? We interviewed 15 adults in Rwanda--survivors of the 1994 genocide, nominated as exemplars for…

Promoted by the peace process between the Santos administration (2010-2018) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which resulted in the signing of a peace accord in November 2016, peace education at Colombia's higher education establishments and schools is gaining momentum. Educators have seized upon the opportunity afforded by the peace…

Mahatma Gandhi's life, ideas and educational philosophies on the whole form important cluster in peace education. Gandhi mainly valued three types of correlation in education viz., physical environment, social environment and craft, which are unavoidable in peace studies. Through these correlations Gandhi wanted to develop qualities which were…

Since sports are increasingly used a way to bring formerly conflicting parties together post-conflict, more work needs to be done to ensure that sports are actually conducted in a way that promotes peace rather than exacerbates the conflict. Since many sports-for-peace programs cross cultural boundaries, this exploratory study was conducted to…

Complex dynamic systems (CDS) theory offers a powerful metaphorical model of applied linguistic processes, allowing holistic descriptions of situated phenomena, and addressing the connectedness and change that often characterise issues in our field. A recent study of Kenyan conflict transformation illustrates application of a CDS perspective. Key…

This paper reflects my experiences developing a course within the Criminal Justice Technology Associates of Science degree program at Valencia College that fuses topics unique to peace and police studies. The key challenge in developing this course was in confronting the paradox of the police as instruments of both peace and conflict. In dealing…

This response to Peterson's (2014) "Nonviolent Action as a Necessary Component in Educating for Democracy" enlarges the discussion of the role of the teacher/educator in deciding whether or when it is responsible to facilitate the engagement of students in acts of nonviolent dissent. Ultimately it would seem that the most important of…

This article introduces the notion of "justice-sensitive education"--derived from the ideals and practices of transitional justice (TJ) in countries emerging from conflict. It describes three mechanisms for this: structural reforms (relating to inequity and division); curriculum change (the treatment of history, human rights and…

The curriculum has been proposed as a powerful means with the potential to initiate social transformation. It reflects the dominant social, economical and political discourses and for this reason it seems reasonable to situate reconciliatory discourses in relation to the curriculum. Whilst curriculum scholars mostly agree that we need to seek new…

The 20th century was a century of genocide and other great violence between groups within societies. Already at the beginning of the 21st century, there have been mass killings, civil wars, violent conflict, and terrorism. This article summarizes influences that tend to lead to intense group violence. It then considers prevention, stressing early…

Civil wars are impeding progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. Educational access contributes to peace-building after civil war but little is known about the role of the school curriculum. A framework derived from a synthesis of peace education, human rights education and citizenship education is proposed and then examined through a…

In an ethnographically designed study, guided by a critical community psychology framework, Black staff members at a historically White Afrikaans university campus conducted email conversations relating to issues of race, social justice and reconciliation. The conversations were initiated by the author (Black) who mainly used prompts found in the…

This article considers the social problem of violence and the alternative of resolution through cooperation and compassion from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Violence is a social problem, the manifestations of which have a biological basis reflected in the development of aggression and the neural mechanisms that regulate it.…

Reconciliation is one of the most significant contemporary challenges in the world today. In this innovative new volume, educational academics and practitioners across a range of cultural and political contexts examine the links between reconciliation and critical pedagogy, putting forward the notion that reconciliation projects should be regarded…

As a teacher, Michael Eckert writes that he believes the classroom is the place where he can be most effective in promoting global peace and justice while he teaches students how to write essays and read literature. In part, Eckert's interest in this approach is a response to a challenge issued by Ihab Hassan, and recalled by Mary Rose O'Reilly in…