Peace education in practice? A case study of peace education in England

In the contemporary world, wars, violence and injustice never seem to end. In an attempt to replace this culture of violence with a culture of peace, peace education attempts to raise awareness of non-violent and constructive means of dealing with conflicts, and to promote necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes and values. This research aims to gain insight into the reality of the current practice of peace education in schools in relatively stable countries. While a school is one of the places where children learn values, attitudes and behaviour, schooling is often criticised for maintaining and reinforcing different forms of violence, including physical violence and inequality. This study explores theoretical and practical aspects of peace education and key issues relevant to these aspects, including its place in schooling. The empirical study investigates a peace education organisation in the UK, West Midlands Quaker Peace Education Project (WMQPEP) and one of its projects in a primary school. WMQPEP particularly focuses on interpersonal skills to build peaceful relationships and raise self-esteem. The overall research provides understanding of the principles and practice of peace education as well as its impact, and identifies some factors which can either promote or undermine effective peace education in schools

Schooling for violence and peace : how does peace education differ from ‘normal’ schooling?

This article reviews literature on the roles of schooling in both reproducing and actively perpetrating violence, and sets out an historical explanation of why schools are socially constructed in such a way as to make these roles possible. It then discusses notions of peace education in relation to one particular project in England before using empirical data from research on the project to examine contrasts between peace education approaches and ‘normal’ schooling from the viewpoints of project workers, pupils and teachers. It concludes that such contrasts and tensions do indeed exist and that this raises serious questions about the compatibility of peace education and formal schooling

Education to Promote Peaceful Relationships in Schools in the UK

This article examines the current practice of education to promote peaceful relationships in schools in the UK, and how it responds to the issues of bullying, violence and conflict occurring in the playground and classroom. By drawing on the study of an existing project in schools in England, it investigates the principles and practice of the initiative as well as its impact, and identifies some factors which can either promote or undermine its effective and sustainable practice in schools. The project mainly aims to nurture children's social skills, self-confidence and emotional literacy, with a view to enabling them to resolve conflict in nonviolent and constructive ways. While the findings suggest its positive effects that the project has had on children, there are some challenges in implementing its practice in the context of schooling