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In the following excerpt, Günther Gugel and Uli Jäger from the Institute for Peace Education Tübingen present several fundamental principles of peace education work.
Since peace education is continually accused of promoting a naive and glorified view of the world and/or one-sidedness, both authors have drawn up a list of 'peace education basics' which is presented on a separate page.
"Peace education does not take place in a social no-man's land, but is always concerned with openly expressed or hidden conflicts. It makes an attempt to manifest and visualize matters of conflict and provide potential for confrontation. Dealing with conflict is occasionally even classified as the central object of peace education. Sometimes peace education is capable of contributing to positively influencing the course of conflicts, in the most positive cases, it can even provide solutions to conflicts. In all cases, its aim is to contribute to making conflicts less violent.
However, it should never contribute to accustomisation to conflict potential for reasons of false harmony. For this reason, peace education always exists in contrast to a reality void of peace and cannot debilitate itself in 'bearing out' the conflict at the personal and social level born out of social reality, but must aim to encounter the interests that rest at its foundation (principle of the capacity for conflict). This understanding has often led to the criticism of peace education, in that it is accused of breaking the taboo of social conflicts and turning them into a problem hence encouraging and inciting them.
As has already been mentioned, peace education deals with initiating social and political learning processes in the sense of developing favorable social behavior and the ability to participate in politics. Although peace education is understood as being value-related, it would be incompatible with its principles to indoctrinate fixed values and standards. For this reason, the starting point for the learning process initiated is open in principle (principle of openness).
The principle of correspondence also applies: the aims, educational content and learning methods must correspond to each another. This means among other things that force may not be used or instigated during the educational process, whether in a concrete situation or for the the purpose of organizing the learning process, so as not to come into conflict with the aim of the non-violent accomplishment of personal, social or international conflicts being strived for (principle of non-violence).
In addition, peace education must orient itself towards the needs and problems of its respective audience (orientation to principles or needs) and connect with the respective state of (peace) research without becoming its intermediary (principle of verifiability).
Like every other pedagogic effort, peace education is oriented towards long-term educational processes and change and is only a limitedly suitable means of crisis intervention in the sense of a 'pedagogical fire brigade.' What must clearly be seen here is the danger of political instrumentalisation, since it can never be the aim of peace education to communicate specific moral values or even political convictions in crisis situations, or in the face of growing pressure relating to a problem.
Peace education must retain its independence at all times in the face of all authorities and figures of responsibility (principle of independence). Against the background of party-political interests and ideological differences, a danger of instrumentalisation always exists for peace education, if terms, aims and content are not clarified. Ultimately, peace education must unquestionably advocate consideration of the interests of the victims of war and violence (principle of partiality)."
[Günther Gugel / Uli Jäger: Gewalt muss nicht sein. Eine Einführung in friedenspädagogisches Denken und Handeln. 3. Aufl., Tübingen 1997; Internetversion: Link]
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"If peace is both the destination and the journey then what we teach and how we teach it must not be separated in our preparations for working with pupils." - Patrick Whitaker, Curriculum Considerations; in David Hicks, Ed., Education for Peace |