TY - THES
T1 - Critical Peace Pedagogy in Post-Conflict Societies: Fostering Empathy and Resilience
AU - Nguyen, Hannah
AU - Nillas, Leah A.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Peace education offers a powerful approach to address and resist direct, cultural, and structural violence and oppression. In this framework, learning becomes an act of resistance against violence, fostering an environment where oppressive dynamics can be challenged and unlearned (Freire, 1974). By recognizing the disproportionate power dynamics in education, particularly between teacher and student, peace pedagogy aims to promote democratic values and empower students with individual agency for self-advocate. This approach not only counters violent realities but also cultivates positive peace going beyond the absence of violence, encouraging collective nonviolent action and social transformation. Peace pedagogy holds the potential to shift ideologies, policies, and cultures toward a more peaceful and just society. This research conceptualizes a synthesis of peace education research using Freire’s ideas of liberating education, Nussbaum and Sen’s capabilities approach, and John Dewey’s education theories, and analyzes currently implemented peace education pedagogies. This research also addresses the dilemma of incorporating the teaching of human rights, as well as how the above initiatives effectively incorporate these notions in an ethical and de-colonizing way. As world conflicts heighten, how can we establish an integrative peace history and social science curriculum that is resilience-building and can assist post-conflict students in unlearning oppression and bridging the gap of the otherness?
AB - Peace education offers a powerful approach to address and resist direct, cultural, and structural violence and oppression. In this framework, learning becomes an act of resistance against violence, fostering an environment where oppressive dynamics can be challenged and unlearned (Freire, 1974). By recognizing the disproportionate power dynamics in education, particularly between teacher and student, peace pedagogy aims to promote democratic values and empower students with individual agency for self-advocate. This approach not only counters violent realities but also cultivates positive peace going beyond the absence of violence, encouraging collective nonviolent action and social transformation. Peace pedagogy holds the potential to shift ideologies, policies, and cultures toward a more peaceful and just society. This research conceptualizes a synthesis of peace education research using Freire’s ideas of liberating education, Nussbaum and Sen’s capabilities approach, and John Dewey’s education theories, and analyzes currently implemented peace education pedagogies. This research also addresses the dilemma of incorporating the teaching of human rights, as well as how the above initiatives effectively incorporate these notions in an ethical and de-colonizing way. As world conflicts heighten, how can we establish an integrative peace history and social science curriculum that is resilience-building and can assist post-conflict students in unlearning oppression and bridging the gap of the otherness?
M3 - Faculty Advisor of Undergraduate Research
ER -