An alternative to violence in education

Abstract

It is imperative that transformative educators understand how education can be manipulated to serve political and authoritarian agendas and to recognize its subtle manifestations in order to reshape education for the purposes of fostering peace, cooperation and acceptance. Bush and Saltarelli (2000) assert that in its extremes, education can have "two faces". It can be used as a tool to stimulate political unrest, foster hatred, justify violence and promote inequities; or in the case of peace education, facilitate the reconstruction of fragile states. Yet peace education programs continue to be criticized for their lack of rigorous evaluations largely by those demanding adherence to a positivist paradigm. This paper puts forward the conditions and a methodology that will increase the likelihood of program success and suggests that peace educators need to measure the social action taken by program recipients as well as gains made in knowledge, skills and attitudes.