Las plantas: sus funciones y adaptaciones al medio 1. Describir cómo se realiza la absorción

The issue regarding the lack of evaluation in peace education discussed above is also related to another issue; lack of theoretical or philosophical foundations and fundamental educational rationale for peace education, which would underpin the values and meanings of peace education. Considering that many peace education programmes are implemented without any theoretical or research rationale, Johnson and Johnson (2005: 276) address the need for conceptual frameworks for peace education, which can support the development of programmes and research. Similarly, others (e.g. Gur-Ze’ev, 2001; Page, 2004) claim that the current approach to peace education by international organisations has not provided and

developed any fundamental educational rationale for peace education. Moreover, according to Page (2004: 4), much of the critical literature has failed to express and systematically improve the philosophical foundations of peace education. Overall, as Gur-Ze’ev (2001: 315) realises, in current peace education, there has been ‘little theoretical coherence or philosophical elaboration concerning the propositions, aims, methods, and evaluation of their effects and their meaning,’ hence ‘many of the difficulties and shortcomings peace education practitioners face are not challenged because of this lack of conceptual work and reflection’.

Page (2004: 5-10) suggests possible philosophical foundations in the area of ethics, based on the following five approaches, which could be integrated into peace education: first, virtue-ethics with the emphasis on the development of character and personality based on harmonious and co-operative relationships; second, consequentialist-ethics, which emphasises the consequences of actions or of education, with the belief that individuals with critical insights can change the future structure of society; third, aesthetic ethics, which values peace, with some influence of moral ethics; fourth, conservative political ethics, which shares the idea of peaceful social change; fifth, the ethics of care, which emphasises supportive relationships (e.g. sympathy, kindness) rather than justice (e.g. rights and duties) which is often linked to power and coercion (i.e. war in the name of national rights and justice).

Some of these suggestions are relevant to theories, ideas and approaches in different areas, which have been highlighted previously to support the ideas, principles and practices of peace education. The theories, ideas and approaches include Curle’s (1971) and Galtung’s (1975) ideas of peace and peaceful relationships based on co-operation and integration, characterised by conditions for fulfilling human potential; Gandhi’s (1951) philosophy of non-violence;

Kant’s (1795/1917) and Rawls’ (1973) ideas of morality as a sense of justice; Freire’s (1972) critical pedagogy for nurturing critical consciousness and reflective thinking to transform reality; Piaget’s (1932/1977) and Kohlberg’s (1981) approaches to moral development through experience of role-taking and co-operation in social interaction; Dewey’s (1916/2005:

83-4) approach to education with an emphasis on experience in which people learn to connect actions and the consequences; Lederach’s (1995) and Francis’ (2002) ideas of conflict transformation which aims to transform conflict into better relationships or more just structures of society without violence. The ethics of care reflect the idea of Carol Gilligan (1982: 17-9), who emphasises care and concern for others in women’s moral development by criticising Kohlberg’s (1981) mere focus on rational morality and justice as male-oriented.

Apart from these theories and approaches relevant to Page’s (2004) suggestions, there are other theories or approaches which have been introduced in this thesis on the study of peace education in schools, including reproduction theories (e.g. Bowles and Gintis, 1976) and other critical perspectives on formal education (e.g. Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977/1990; Foucault, 1977), which help to investigate characteristics of formal education as the context of peace education and the contrasting principles and practice between the two.

Since these theories, ideas and approaches in the areas of peace and conflict studies, the philosophy and pedagogy of education, sociology of education and child development psychology have often been mentioned in literature in relation to the principles and practice of peace education, they can be used as the basis for potential theoretical or philosophical foundations to support the values and significance of peace education.

4.4 Conclusion

The discussion of the nature of peace education above shows that there are two major aspects of peace education, which are ‘education for peace’ (nurturing skills, attitudes, behaviour and values underpinned by the idea of peace), and ‘education about peace’ (learning about peace-related issues) (e.g. Hicks, 1988a; Bjerstedt, 1990). These aspects of peace education could involve all levels of peace, from personal to global, based on the ability of individuals to maintain peace in their relationships as well as in wider contexts (e.g. Hicks, 1988b;

Johnson and Johnson, 2005). Thus, the important aim of peace education is to offer people the

opportunity to learn relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviour and values with a view to developing the full potential of individuals (according to the idea of peace defined by Curle, 1971; Galtung, 1975), which could lead to a more just and peaceful society.

This process of peace education is regarded as the empowerment of people by raising their consciousness of reality, and by nurturing the necessary tools and the capacity to transform existing unequal and violent structures into peaceful ones. While this interplay between the development of individuals’ capacity and the improvement of society underlies the nature of peace education, the general viewpoint on the relationship between individuals and society is supported by Mead (1934/1967), who perceives that the social reconstruction and personality reconstruction of individuals are the two sides of a single process of human social progress.

Thus, it is clear that peace education supports the possibility of influencing and changing the future shape of society, rather than maintaining the present model of society by reproducing unequal power relations existing in society (Burns and Aspeslagh, 1996: 4-5).

In the light of these purposes of peace education, the study has also identified certain capacities that peace education attempts to nurture, including critical thinking, moral autonomy, co-operation, self-esteem, social and emotional aspects of development, skills in conflict resolution, and knowledge of peace-related issues. While the practice is based on learning through experience, co-operation, interaction and dialogue, it is considered as important to adopt methods which are compatible with the idea of peace (Galtung, 1975;

Hicks, 1996). On the other hand, one of the difficulties in promoting peace education in schools and through teacher education seems to be rooted in contrasting principles and practice, in peace education on the one hand and general formal schooling on the other.

In the light of the review of the literature, the following empirical study attempts to examine relevant themes and issues in the principles and practice of peace education based on an existing project (see Appendix A for a summary of underlying assumptions of the study).

CHAPTER 5

Methodology