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Peace Education Resources

A great deal of exciting educational reform and just generally good teaching falls under the heading of Peace Education. According to one international authority on this, “Peace education is a participatory holistic process that includes teaching for and about democracy and human rights, nonviolence, social and economic justice, gender equality, environmental sustainability, disarmament, traditional peace practices, international law, and human security” (Hague Appeal for Peace, 2005)

Conflict Resolution Education is typically understood to focus on the local/domestic level while the focus of Peace Education is generally more global in perspective. Peace Education also “has a stronger emphasis on social justice orientations and larger systemic issues of violence than conflict education programs” (Jones, 2004).

A portion of the growing collection of free Peace Education print resources found in our catalog is displayed at the bottom of this page. You can also choose to directly browse the full list of items categorized under peace education in our catalog. Other especially relevant materials include

all of which are hosted by our site. Lots of good content!

If you are interested in a broader bibliography of Peace Education readings, check out this Peace Education resource collection from Ian Harris and Mary Lee Morrison.

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Sample Catalog Resources

Below you'll find a randomized listing of up to 20 related items (we may have more...) drawn from our Resource Catalog.

Resource Title Description Links
Youth and Conflict: Best Practices and Lessons Learned Mercy Corps, as an international NGO focused on "saving and improving lives in the world's toughest places" believes youth are a force for positive change -- the generation that can help transition their countries into productive and secure nations. However, youth are the primary participants in conflict today. The reasons they participate in conflict are multi-dimensional - they lack economic opportunities, political voice and a sense of belonging or connection to their communities. Often the only way young people can imagine changing their predicament is through violence. In Mercy Corps programs the focus is on catalyzing youth's desire for change into positive outlets. This 11-page pdf publication is a sample of Youth and Conflict Best Practices and Lessons Learned drawn from Mercy Corps' programs, other agencies, donors, think tanks and researchers. It is divided into six sections: * General Program Design and Implementation. This section includes advice on training, as it is a central part of many of our youth programs. * Economic Engagement * Political Participation * Youth-to-Community Connections * Youth-to-Youth Connections * Addendum: Lessons from Our Colleagues
Peace bridges: Newsletter of Peace Education Centers, issue #10, 2007 Pdf newsletter of a conflict resolution education program in Armenia, with most stories written by school children.
Practicing peace: A peace education module for standards 4 through 6 in Solomon Islands 87-page word document which presents peace education for the Solomon Islands context. "The primary method used in peace education is generally referred to as a "facilitated" or "interactive" model of teaching. In this method, the teacher becomes a facilitator of learning and a co-learner with the students. Students and teachers use experiential strategies to practice skills for peace. There is a shift in the value placed on being a teacher. Using the facilitated processes of conflict resolution and peace education, teachers and students learn together and teach each other." Covered areas include: Interpersonal skills; Understanding and accepting differences; Children's rights; Building community and Mediation.
Learning to live together: Building skills, values and attitudes for the 21st Century 167-page pdf study which, "represents an attempt to interpret the aim of ‘learning to live together’ as a synthesis of many related goals, such as education for peace, human rights, citizenship and health-preserving behaviours. It focuses specifically on the skills, values, attitudes and concepts needed for learning to live together, rather than on ‘knowledge’ objectives. The aim of the study is to discover ‘what works’ in terms of helping students learn to become politely assertive rather than violent, to understand conflict and its prevention, to become mediators, to respect human rights, to become active and responsible members of their communities—as local, national and global citizens, to have balanced relationships with others and neither to coerce others nor be coerced, especially into risky health behaviours ... The recommendation emerging from the study for national policy-makers and curriculum specialists is that a core national team of educators committed to the goals of peace-building, human rights, active citizenship and preventive health should be created, in order to put together and pilot test materials and methodologies related to these goals."
Programa Fortalecimiento de la convivencia democratica, derechos humanos y resolucion pacifica de Powerpoint presentation that outlines peace and conflict resolution education initiatives developed in Columbia.
Food, education, and peacebuilding: Children's learning services in Sierra Leone Second online chapter from "Education That Makes a Difference: Success Stories for Conflict Resolution Educators," dealing with the Children's Learning Services established in Sierre Leone. Since 2001 CLS has mobilized volunteers and practitioners in peacebuilding, quality basic education, and nutrition security in and out of school. Original Source: Chapter 11 from People Building Peace II: Successful Stories Of Civil Society (Project of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention) by Paul Van Tongeren, Malin Brenk, Marte Hellema, and Juliette Verhoeven (Eds), Lynne Rienner Publishers (2005)
Peace education: A pathway to a culture of peace 178-page pdf document which "helps the educator, whether in formal or non formal settings, to understand that peace is a holistic concept and state of being and that it can not be learned in the traditional lecture-note taking-testing framework. Indeed, peace education can be integrated into many disciplines. The culture of peace must replace the culture of violence if we and our home, planet Earth, are to survive ... teaching the value of tolerance, understanding and respect for diversity among the school children could be introduced through exposing them to various countries of the world, their geography, history, and culture. At the appropriate levels, curricula must include human rights, the rules governing international law, the United Nations Charter, the goals of our global organization, disarmament, sustainable development and other peace issues. The participation of young people in this process is very essential. Their inputs in terms of their own ideas on how to cooperate with each other in order to eliminate violence in our societies must be fully taken into account. In addition to expanding the capacity of the students to understand the issues, peace education aims particularly at empowering the students, suited to their individual levels, to become agents of peace and nonviolence in their own lives as well as in their interaction with others in every sphere of their existence ... We have organized the book into three sections. Part I presents chapters that are meant to help us develop a holistic understanding of peace and peace education. Part II discusses the key themes in peace education. Each chapter starts with a conceptual essay on a theme and is followed by some practical teaching-learning ideas that can either be used in a class or adapted to a community setting. Part III focuses on the peaceable learning climate and the educator, the agent who facilitates the planting and nurturing of the seeds of peace in the learning environment. Finally, the whole school approach is introduced to suggest the need for institutional transformation and the need to move beyond the school towards engagement with other stakeholders in the larger society."
Peace Pedagogy Learning Modules from Peacelearner.org A series of learning modules developed by Daryn Cambridge for a Peace Pedagogy course he taught at American University in the Fall of 2012. The course was designed around seven pillars of peace education: community building, enabling multiple intelligences, nurturing emotional intelligence, exploring approaches to peace, re-framing history, transforming conflict nonviolently, and life-skills building. The learning modules were posted at the public website PeaceLearner.org as part of the course. Here's a listing of the available modules: Learning Module 1 – Welcome to Peace Pedagogy Learning Module 2 – Peace Education Voices Learning Module 3 – Community Building Learning Module 4 – Social and Emotional Intelligence Learning Module 5 – Conflict Resolution Learning Module 6 – Yoga and Meditation Learning Module 7 – Nonviolence Learning Module 8 – Environmental Sustainability
Peace lessons from around the world 144-page pdf educational resource for primary and secondary students providing 16 lessons based on the four strands of the "Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century [which] comprises fifty proposals for actions and policies, which taken together, could move the world toward the end of war and the beginning of a culture of peace." The strands are: Roots of War/Culture of Peace; International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law; Prevention, Resolution and Transformation of Violent Conflict and Disarmament and Security. The lessons come from Albania, Cambodia, Philippines, Kenya, India, Nepal, US, Catalunya (Spain) and South Africa. There is also a forword by South Africa's former Minister for Education, Kader Asmal, a lesson on how to create your own peace lesson by Prof. Betty Reardon, and pages of helpful resources. Hard copies can be ordered via www.haguepeace.org.
Two faces of education in ethnic conflict, The: Towards a peacebuilding education for children 54-page PDF study which, "should be considered as a first attempt to explore a set of highly complex and controversial issues. Its potential contribution is twofold: a focused and critical examination of the peacebuilding and peace-destroying role of education; and the placement of children on the mainstream peacebuilding and reconstruction agenda in a way that goes beyond their necessary but narrow inclusion as child soldiers ... The project began with the observation that formal education is often viewed as a neutral or technical process of information dissemination set within a given societal context. It found that this starting point inhibited consideration of the role of education in the creation of a “constructed” – rather than “given” – societal context. The broadening of the analytical focus reveals that implicitly and explicitly, intentionally and unintentionally, education inevitably has a societal impact – for good or for ill."
Exploring Humanitarian Law Curriculum Package Exploring Humanitarian Law (EHL) is an adaptable toolkit that gives educators easy-to-use materials to expose students to issues of international humanitarian law, the rules that ensure respect for life and human dignity in war. The toolkit offers educators primary source materials and strategies that reinforce and enrich existing curricula and educational programs. The full curriculum is available for download as a 360+ page pdf. Humanitarian law is a body of international law that aims to protect human dignity during armed conflict and to prevent or reduce the suffering and destruction that results from war. All nations are party to the Geneva Conventions, and therefore have a legal obligation to encourage the study of humanitarian law as widely as possible. These laws, together with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, should be viewed as an integral part of today's basic education. Aligned with social studies requirements around the country, Exploring Humanitarian Law offers educators activities that can be used as a whole or mixed and matched into current lessons. High-quality materials, including news accounts, photos, letters, videos, case studies and interactive projects bring real events and people to life, helping teachers connect lessons of the past with events of today.
Introducing cooperation and conflict resolution into schools: A systems approach 29-page PDF chapter in the 2001 publication: Peace, conflict and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st Century by D.J. Christie, R.V. Wagner and D.A. Winter. The chapter argues the fundamental importance of a systemic approace to peace and conflict resolution education. The authors discuss five levels of "school systems through which one can introduce cooperation and conflict resolution concepts, skills, and processes: Level 1, the student disciplinary system; Level 2, the curriculum; Level 3, pedagogy; and Level 4, the school culture and Level 5, the community—will enhance the view of the school system as an “open system” embedded in a larger communal system which can aid in the sustainability of school system change."
Empowering students for just societies: a handbook for primary school teachers
Collaboration across fields: Implementation and sustainability of SEL, CRE, PE and CE 73-page PDF conference reader from the two-day summit, "Collaboration across Fields: Implementation and Sustainability of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Conflict Resolution Education (CRE), Peace Education (PE), and Citizenship Education (CE), held in Cleveland, Ohio on June 19th and 20th, 2009. The conference "brought together government representatives from among the 50 states and invited countries (Ghana, Kenya, Montenegro, Philippines) and their non-governmental organization partners. Organizations were invited because of their interest in developing legislation and policy in peace education, social and emotional learning, conflict resolution education, and/or civics education and their interest in securing ways to strengthen implementation and achieve sustainability of these efforts ... this capacity building summit offered a dynamic opportunity to develop a global infrastructure to advance the work in the fields of conflict resolution education, peace education, social and emotional learning, and citizenship education. The summit brought together policymakers, researchers and educators representing regions across the United States and select member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict GPPAC). These national and international guests exchanged successful macro level policy design and implementation models at the state-wide or national level, and macro level evaluation methodology and tools for states and countries. Specific areas of focus included: Teacher education, research and evaluation, and policy implementation options for primary, elementary and secondary education at the national or state levels."
Will you listen?: Young voices from conflict zones 28-page pdf report which accompanies "the official 10 year Graca Machel Strategic Review report ... submitted to the UN General Assembly on October 17, 2007. It compiles the views and recommendations from more than 1,700 young people from 92 countries through focus group discussions ... [which] included children and young people who have experienced conflict themselves, with many of the participants speaking about how their own lives have been affected. Facilitators tried to ensure a safe environment, to use the local language where appropriate and to create a certain 'comfort level' for the participants despite the unique challenges in each country."
UNESCO: Mainstreaming the culture of peace 26-page pdf created by UNESCO which "defined the Culture of Peace as consisting of values, attitudes and behaviours that reject violence and endeavour to prevent conflicts by addressing their root causes with a view to solving problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations. The 1999 United Nations Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace (resolution A/53/243) called gor everyone – governments, civil dociety, the media, parents, teachers, politicians, scientists, artists, NGOs and the entire United Nations system – to assume responsibility in this respect. It staked out eight action areas for actors at national, regional and international levels:" Those 8 action areas are: Fostering a culture of peace through education; Promoting sustainable economic and social development; Promoting respect for all human rights; Ensuring equality between women and men; Fostering democratic participation; Advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity; Supporting participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge and Promoting international peace and security.
Peace Education Online Learning Module - UNESCO Education Server This modular online learning unit on Peace Education is available via the international UNESCO education server D@dalos dedicated to civic and peace education. The content was developed by the Institute for Peace Education in Tübingen, Germany. Main sections include: What is Peace Education?; What does Peace mean?; Why do we need Peace Education?; What do Peace Educators do?; and Peace Education and Fair Play. Includes a section on conflict analysis that provides 10 models for how to approach this task.
Practicing peace: A peace education module for youth and young adults in Solomon Islands: 4th draft 99-page word document developed "to help people resolve interpersonal and inter-group conflict through productive and peaceful strategies, and to teach young people how they can participate in public life. The module is intended for use with youth and young adults in community and school settings in Solomon Islands." Skill areas include: Understanding rights and responsibilities; Understanding cultural diversity; Restorative justice and reconciliation; Gender relationship skills; Ability to live with change; Leadership qualities Conflict prevention; Traditional definitions of peace; Understand[ing] interdependence between individuals and society and Respect[ing] different cultures."
Learn Peace : How students can rid the world of nuclear weapons Produced by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, this colorfully illustrated 43-page pdf provides a collection of 18 disarmament education activities for use by young people. It is written in a voice that speaks directly to youth, encouraging them to learn more and take action to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The activity titles are as follows: Have a classroom debate; Organize a writing competition; Write a letter to the editor; Make up your mind; Design a peace symbol; Role-play a nuclear crisis; Transform a nuclear bomb ; Honour the victims; Run a United Nations debate; Fold paper cranes for peace; Celebrate the victories; Write to your leaders; Promote abolition online; Hold a trivia night; Describe a nuclear blast; Conduct an opinion poll; Meet with your mayor; Plant sunflowers for peace.
Classrooms in peace: Preliminary results of a multi-component program 24-page PDF article from the "Ineramerican Journal of Education for Democracy," vol. 1, no. 1, September, 2007. Abstract: "Classrooms in Peace is aimed at preventing aggressive behaviors and promoting peaceful coexistence through 1) a curriculum for the development of citizenship competencies in the classroom; 2) extracurricular reinforcement in groups of two initially aggressive and four prosocial children; 3) workshops for, visits and phone calls to family mothers/fathers. A first implementation of the complete program showed a drastic decrease in aggressive behaviors and indiscipline and a considerable increase in prosocial behaviors, adherence to rules, and friendship networks among classmates. The combination of universal components and targeted components for those most in need seems to be highly valuable, especially in violent contexts."