Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility.

Overview & Synopsis

This book presents a comprehensive plan for instruction in the area of peace education. Chapter 1, "Personal Perspectives and General Approaches," identifies four major influences on peace education: (1) world order studies; (2) the Peace Education Commission; (2) the U.S.-based Peace Education Network; and (4) the feminist movement. Chapter 2 explores "Education for Negative Peace." The chapter defines negative and positive peace, explains why instruction in negative peace is desirable, and addresses the issue of indoctrination. Chapter 3 presents "Education for Positive Peace" and discusses global justice as the central concept of positive peace. Chapter 4, "Peace Knowledge: Content and Context," is a discussion of the sources of peace knowledge. The chapter offers a conceptual framework and a curricular outline for the "University for Peace," an international institution based in Costa Rica. Chapter 5 offers "The Fundamental Purposes of a Pedagogy of Peace." It examines concepts of wholeness, integrity, complexity, and change, and explores some of the impediments to peacemaking. The sixth and final chapter, "Toward Comprehensive Peace Education," sets out the dimensions of such education and its values and qualities. The chapter suggests that only through greater efforts in peace education will it be possible to avoid what Einstein called the "drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Appendices provide an annotated bibliography of references, an index, and notes about the author. (SG)