Four major challenges facing peace education in regions of intractable conflict.

Abstract

Although peace education all over the world faces numerous challenges, such as conflicting collective narratives, historical memories, contradictory beliefs, and severe inequalities, there are additional challenges that transcend content and method. Four such major challenges that pertain to the very core of peace education are discussed: (a) the creation of a ''ripple effect'' whereby the impact of peace education programs spreads to wider social circles of society; (b) increasing the endurance of desired program effects in light of their easy erosion; (c) the need for differential programs given the differences in culture and in the role that each adversary plays in a conflict; and (d) the need to find ways to bridge between general dispositions, principles, and values and their application in specific situations where competing motivations are dominant. I argue that the four major challenges are also common to other kinds of programs, such as human rights, antiracism, and tolerance.Peace education in regions of intractable conflict is often carried out in sociopolitical contexts that essentially negate the messages of such programs (e.g., Barash, 1997) and which are sometimes described as subversive activities during ongoing intractable conflict (Minow, 2002). However, beyond political opposition, there are other challenges facing peace education: contradictory collective narratives, charged negative emotions, severe inequalities, and more (Salomon, 2004(Salomon, , 2006. Some of these are dealt with head-on, as in the case of historical memories that fuel the conflict (e.g.,

Conflict, transition and education for ‘political generosity’: learning from the experience of ex-combatants in Northern Ireland

“…While, as noted above, most citizenship education curricula contain content on the democratic systems of government emerging after conflict, Northern Ireland is not unique in failing to educate young people about the political processes involved in transition, specifically those mentioned at the outset of this article. The alignment of the goals of citizenship education, history education and transitional justice discussed above, in conjunction with the claims that peace education programmes are more successful when they engage with deeper issues of identity, historical inequalities and power relations and are linked to wider peace-building initiatives in society (Salomon 2011), provide a compelling argument for curricula in conflict-affected societies to include knowledge and understanding of, and critical engagement with, the processes of transitional justice discussed at the outset of this article.…”

A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment

“…Yet even these scholars admit that the "long-term implicit sleeper eff ect is, so far, an open question" (Salomon 2011, 50). Furthermore, Salomon contends, a program's success in creating individual and communal change has more to do with the diff erences across educational approaches; "peace education" is not a one-size-fi ts-all proposition (Salomon 2011). Aside from exceptional cases-such as an experiment conducted on a group of Sri Lankan alumni from an intergroup program, whose positive transformations were detected one year after the program ended (Malhotra and Liyanage 2005)-there is research that supports the existence of long-term participant change when alumni participate in even minor follow-up activities (Leippe and Eisenstadt 1994).…”

“…Th ere is also evidence that integrated pedagogical methods have the most potential to change participants, pointing to the weakness of a one-size-fi ts-all approach. In short, the long-term eff ects of intergroup programs are as much related to diff erent sociocultural contexts, distinct needs, and dissimilar pedagogies as anything else (Abu-Nimer 1999;Halabi 2004b;Weinstein, Freedman, and Hughson 2007;Osler and Leung 2011;Salomon 2011;Ty 2011).…”

“…Salomon (2011) argues there are two challenges with regard to creating social change through a program working with a select number of students. Th e fi rst relates to the psychological eff ects on the students:…”

Building Peace Through Knowledge

“…He enumerates four major hurdles: the formation of a ripple effect; combatting the swift erosion of desired program effects; the need for different kinds of programs, reflective of the different cultures of the actors in the conflict; and figuring out how to help people apply general values in the context of competing and dominant interests (Salomon 2010). He enumerates four major hurdles: the formation of a ripple effect; combatting the swift erosion of desired program effects; the need for different kinds of programs, reflective of the different cultures of the actors in the conflict; and figuring out how to help people apply general values in the context of competing and dominant interests (Salomon 2010).…”