This paper assesses the efficacy of teaching a new course in the communication curriculum entitled Nonviolent Communication and Peace. Three studies are included: two pilot studies at a large Eastern US university and a final study which also included data from a concurrent study at a large Canadian university. Results from a pre-post…

This article introduces a pedagogical tool for raising critical consciousness and nurturing resistance to discrimination. "Autoethnographic mapping," integrating guided cognitive mapping and autoethnographies, has been implemented for a decade now within the framework of a college course occasioning dialogue between Palestinian Arab and…

This is a qualitative assessment of a theater arts peace education program for high-school students. We present the results of qualitative interviews with students who participated in a peace education program. They tell us in their own words what they believe they learned. Given that most peace education evaluation is quantitative or focuses on…

This study investigated specific attitudes and beliefs, related to the concepts of peace education, of participants in an "Introductory, basic help increase the peace program" (HIPP) workshop. Pre- and post-workshop ratings showed significant differences on two important attitudinal variables: first, the importance of being familiar with the…

In March of 2009, the author decided to establish the Center for Peace Education (CPE) in Liberia solely dedicated to promoting a non-violent culture by imbuing students with the skills, knowledge, and attitude needed to peacefully coexist. To begin the process of building a culture of peace, in April of 2009, CPE conducted a baseline survey in 14…

The contact hypothesis has arguably been the leading theoretical paradigm for educational interventions in divided societies. However most of the studies with children have been quantitative, focusing on contact outcomes and failing to take account of children's views. Therefore this paper presents the findings of a qualitative study of…

This study reports on a study of student attitudes towards war. To study the impact that the type of university attended has on a student's level of support for war and attitudes towards war a 15-question survey on moral disengagement in support of military actions based on one developed by McAlister was given to college students attending Quaker,…

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…

What are some of the obstacles to demilitarization of society? What role does worldview in general, and views of gender, future and peace in particular, play in this process? What could be some aspects of the intervention when educating students and the wider community for peace? This article discusses the results from a pilot study that…

This article discusses a qualitative research project designed to investigate processes and outcomes of learning in a first-year undergraduate course--"Introduction to conflict resolution: theory and skills" (ICR)--taught in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. The research project was set up to help us understand how…

This study deals with how to establish positive attitudes and behaviours between Israelis and Palestinians that endure during times of negative shifts in the external conflict. In this study it will be shown that educational projects that bring Israelis and Palestinians together over a longer period of time, and that use the premises of the…

The study focuses on exploring the method of changing pre-service teachers' stereotypes about different ethnicities. The purpose of the study is to test, or try out, an approach for changing beliefs and attitudes of teacher candidates towards peace-building, democracy, humanism, and accepting others. The procedure for this study involved…

During World War II the United States and Japan experienced what Rouhana and Bar-Tal described as "a clash of narratives between two societies". The Japanese envisioned themselves as heroes saving Asia from western colonisation, while the Americans felt the need to defend the West from the "Yellow Peril". In the research reported below, US…

The aim of this paper, in the area of peace education, is to demonstrate the feasibility of using stories as part of educational programmes and research. This paper has two sections. In the first, a brief overview of peace education theory and practice in the Israeli context will be presented. The concept of stories and the possibility of using…

Empathy for the adversary is part of peace education. Does the vicarious experience of suffering affect empathy towards the suffering of an adversary? Specifically, does the visit of Israeli youth to Auschwitz affect their empathy toward the Palestinians? Three hundred and nine high school students participated in the study: One half went on the…