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Before defining peace education, it is necessary to comprehend what peace is. In his article “Peace Theory: An Introduction,” Johan Galtung (1986) compares different linguistic equivalents to the concept of Peace in a variety of cultures, including: pax, eirene, salaam, shalom, shanty, and ho p'ing-p'ing ho. The Latin pax means the absence of war, absentia bellum under the assumption of a set of binding obligations that are to be observed. The Greek-Hebrew-Arabic concepts of eirene, shalom, salaam, pick up peace ideas that also are found in such concepts as justice, equity, equality, and freedom.The Yoruba alafia, is “the sum total of all that mankind may desire: an undisturbed harmonious life” (Rweyemamu 1989, 382).

Francis (2004) defines peace “as the absence of war, fear, conflict, anxiety, suffering and violence and about peaceful coexistence” (Francis 2004). To him, peace connotes: the absence of war, presence of justice and development; existence of respect and tolerance among and between people; maintaining a balance with the ecosphere and quite importantly, having inner peace and wholeness. Johan Galtung (2004) opines that there could be direct violence referring to physical, emotional and psychological violence; structural violence, i.e. deliberate policies and structures that cause human suffering; and cultural violence that manifests in cultural norms and practices that create discrimination, injustice and human suffering. He also categorizes peace into positive and negative peace. Positive peace can be described as the absence of unjust structures, unequal relationships, justice and inner peace;

when negative peace can be equated with the absence of direct violence, war, fear and conflict at the individual, national, regional and international levels.

Peace education is not limited to formal education but also extended to both informal and non-formal education, which includes the home and various voluntary organizations. Content and forms may be quite different in these education types, depending on contextual conditions. Peace education is very different from most subjects offered in schools. Groups and individuals both project onto the concept of peace education their own particular vision of a desirable society (Bar-Tal 2002, 28). The meaning of peace education is therefore often ambiguous and shares different elements making a broad descriptive overview of the discipline impossible.

According to Betty Reardon (2000) in “Peace Education: a Review and Projection”, peace education is the transmission of the knowledge about the requirements, the obstacles and the possibilities for achieving and maintaining peace. Furthermore, it involves the development of reflective and participatory capacities for applying the knowledge of peace education to overcoming problems and achieving possibilities. She adds that peace education:

is a planned and guided learning that attempts to comprehend and reduce the multiple forms of violence (physical, structural, institution and cultural).Used as instruments for the advancement or maintenance of cultural, social or religious beliefs and of political economical institutions or practices (Reardon 2000, 401).

Peace education requires not only providing information about peace and its achievement, but also supplying the tools to allow its students to actively assist in the pursuit of that goal. Hudson (1992) argues that:

It is education that actualizes people's potentialities in helping them learn how to make peace with themselves and with others, to live in harmony and unity with self, humankind and with nature. The principles upon which this statement rests include: ‘1. the cardinal prerequisite for world peace is the unity of humankind.2. World order can be founded only on the consciousness of the oneness of humankind. ‘This basic tenet of democracy rests on the principle of human dignity, which is very much inherent in the dimensions of peacebuilding efforts (Gardia and Mehta 2014, 96).

Furthermore, with the proliferations of programs, peace education has become quite diverse and difficult to define. Programs around the world differ widely in terms of ideology, objectives, emphasis, curricula, contents and practices. Johnson and Johnson assert that the multitude of definitions of peace education may be grouped into the following: cognitive, affective and behavior definitions. They define peace education as “teaching individuals the information, attitudes, values, and behavioral competencies needed to resolve conflicts without violence and build and maintain mutually beneficial, harmonious relationships” (Johnson and Johnson 2010, 226).

According to Navarro-Castro (2008), there are various forms or facets of peace education practices: Disarmament Education, Human Rights Education, Global Education, Conflict Resolution Education, Multicultural Education, Education for International Understanding, Interfaith Education, Gender Education, and Environmental Education. Each of these focuses on a problem of direct or indirect violence. Each form of peace education practice also includes a particular knowledge base as well as a normative set of skills and value-orientations that it wants to develop (Navaro-Castro 2008, 35).

Harris in Peace Education: The Concept, Principles, and Practices around the World asserts:

Peace education has been practiced by generations of humans who want to live in peace. Peace education tends to draw out of people their natural inclinations to live in peace. Peace educators educate people about the processes that promote peace, using teaching skills to build a peace culture. They are interested in all different aspects of violence from the interpersonal to the geopolitical. They see that education provides an important strategy to achieve peace, because it provides awareness about different peace strategies, including peacekeeping (or peace through strength), peacemaking (or peace through communication) and peacebuilding (or peace through a commitment to nonviolence) (Harris 2005, 18).

Peace education has a great role to play in the twenty-first century, as it shapes new global citizens who embrace peace. Multiple global efforts toward creating a more peaceful world have been undertaken recently as we are at the end of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s International and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010) (Brantmeier 2010, xiv).

Rather than defining peace education in the negative such as education for the elimination of violence, peace education efforts can be understood in the positive as efforts that can bridge knowledge and action that integrates differences in ways that both honor diversity and establish common ground. Peace education works on bringing people together and is about social change. It requires a deep personal commitment in our hearts and minds to peaceful living, teaching, learning, researching and institutional transformation. It is relevant because it can provide hope even amid what has been described as intractable conflict.