Education for Peace in Educational Policies. A Historical Assessment and Future Challenges

Abstract

Education for peace is one of the main challenges of any educational system. Nonetheless, the different approaches to peace over time have had an impact on the way we perceive education for peace. The aim of this paper is to asses education for peace and present future challenges. A documentary and interpretive analysis of several sources and implemented educational policies has been used relating three perspectives: precedents of education for peace, current situation of education for peace and European trends with regards to policies aimed at peace building beginning at school. Our findings show a clear evolution that moves from an initial view of peace as theoretical, static, negative and perfect, to a more dynamic, broad, positive and imperfect view, which has meant an increase of European educational policies to foster peace. Nevertheless, it is evident that education for peace requires more social commitment and materialization in order to get to the classrooms and efficiently contribute to the achievement of quality and equity in the educational system.