Education and Training
While many people believe that the means to peace is to be achieved through education there is no consensus on what form such education should take. This theme will look at education for peace throughout the formal schooling system and throughout the life cycle. Workshops will provide an opportunity to look at the methods as well as the content of the curriculum. Our keynote speaker David Johnson is well known for his work in co-operative learning in classrooms and the use of constructive political controversy in discussing difficult issues.
Speakers include:
- Allan, Amanda - 'Educating For What Purpose? Western Schooling In The Face Of Global Politics'.
- Apple, Michael - Keynote. Whose Markets, Whose Traditions? How Current Educational Reforms Increase Inequalities.
- Freeman, Elizabeth & Marshall, Patricia - A Model For Peacemaking And Peacebuilding In Schools.
- Giji Gya - The Public Role in Defining Security and Working for Peace
- Jenkin, Constance - Parenting For Peace: Reducing Conflict And Promoting Health In Early Adolescence.
- Johnson, David - Keynote. Waging Peace Through Education.
- Law, Siew Fang - Intercultural Conflict Resolution Or Guanxi And Conflict Resolution: A Chinese Perspective.
- Longaretti, Lyn - Building Peace Makers At School.
- Neale, Carla - Factors Predicting Reflective Racial Tolerance: Empathy And Reflective Judgment.
- Phillips, Scott - Inter-Faith Dialogue, Inter-Cultural Dialogue: A Developing Basis For Global/Local Cohesion.
- Rawlings-Sanaei, Felicity - Exploring New Frontiers In International Education: Towards International Peace And Reconciliation.
- Sanson, Ann - Maintaining The Momentum, Responding To Change: Psychologists For The Promotion Of World Peace 1984-2003.
- Taylor, Carol - Keeping Families Together: A Community-Based Early Intervention Parenting Program In A Regional Koori Community.
- Toumbourou, John - Parenting For Peace: Reducing Conflict And Promoting Health In Early Adolescence.
- Wertheim, Eleanor - Training Programmes In Preventive Diplomacy And Peacemaking Offered Through The United Nations Institute For Training And Research.
- Weston, Jane & Zbar, Vic - God Willing… There Will Be Peace. Sierra Leone: Post Conflict Peace Education Challenges.
- Wittenberg, Rivka - The Role Of Tolerance In A Changing World.
- Jayasinghe,
Jayantha - Lesson Plan For The Peace Education Program (Poster).
'Educating For What Purpose? Western Schooling In The Face Of Global Politics'.
There is nothing like mass uncertainty to activate reflection of policies and principles of action.
Western education systems pride themselves on educating children to be members of global communities; in building pastoral care and programmes of learning based on sound developmental principles; on demonstrating successfully acquired levels of literacy, numeracy and information technology and on creating leaders and learners of the future.
But are Western school curricula and teachers flexible and progressive enough to adapt to the challenging, virtual realities of globalisation and its political and psychological impacts on the lives of its children - children of today and citizens of tomorrow?
Terrorist threats and war mongering delivered in powerful, dramatic and often overwhelming style by the media and communication technology have left an indelible effect on the psyche of western citizens and their children these past two years. Schools and education systems cannot ignore the consequences of the global context in influencing the perspectives that a child builds of their world and their future, and the impact that such beliefs have in how a child enters the learning domain and the domain of life. But can education and school systems adjust their curriculum focus and teaching approaches at the pace required to avert individualistic, passive or aggressive defences and detrimental responses of helplessness, fear and hopelessness? What will it take?
This paper
will firstly present some psychological and educational frameworks for
examining the phenomenon of global fear and insecurity and its impact
on children and conclude with comment on issues that schools and education
systems could be addressing now to remain relevant to the needs of children
within a present and future context of peace. The paper will provide a
forum for further discussion of the responses desired of the western education
system to adequately address the phenomenon of fear and instability that
has swept the Western world these recent months and to advocate for the
proactive education of children for empowered, peaceful and humanitarian
visions.
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Whose Markets, Whose Traditions? How Current Educational Reforms Increase Inequalities.
Although couched in the discourse of "increasing democracy", current educational reforms in many nations are creating even more inequalities. These reforms are the result of the fact that a "new" set of compromises, a new alliance and new power bloc, has been formed that has increasing influence in education and all things social. This power bloc combines multiple fractions of capital who are committed to neo-liberal marketised solutions to educational problems, neo-conservative intellectuals who want a "return" to higher standards and a "common culture", authoritarian populist religious conservatives who are deeply worried about secularity and the preservation of their own traditions, and particular fractions of the professionally oriented new middle class who are committed to the ideology and techniques of accountability, measurement, and "management." While there are clear tensions and conflicts within this alliance, in general its overall aims are in providing the educational conditions believed necessary both for increasing international competitiveness, profit, and discipline and for returning us to a romanticised past of the "ideal" home, family, and school.
In essence, the new alliance has integrated education into a wider set of ideological commitments. The objectives in education are the same as those that guide its economic and social welfare goals. They include the dramatic expansion of that eloquent fiction, the free market; the drastic reduction of government responsibility for social needs; the reinforcement of intensely competitive structures of mobility both inside and outside the school; the lowering of people's expectations for economic security; the "disciplining" of culture and the body; and the popularisation of what is clearly a form of Social Darwinist thinking. Behind a good deal of this is an unacknowledged "racial contract" and a fear of the culture and body of "the Other". The raced and classed effects of this are increasingly visible. The seemingly contradictory discourse of competition, markets, and choice on the one hand and accountability, performance objectives, standards, national testing, and national curriculum have created such a din that it is hard to hear anything else. As I have shown in a number of recent volumes, these tendencies actually oddly reinforce each other and help cement conservative educational positions into our daily lives.
The results of these policies are the production of a "thin" rather than "thick" democracy and in the reproduction of both dominant pedagogical and curricular forms and ideologies and the social privileges that accompany them. The growth of that odd combination of marketisation and regulatory state, the move towards pedagogic similarity and "traditional" academic curricula and teaching, the ability of dominant groups to exert leadership in the struggle over this, and the accompanying shifts in common-sense--all this cannot be wished away. In response to this, we have much to learn from the more educationally and socially critical policies and practices that are being built in places such as Porto Alegre, Brazil and elsewhere.
Michael
Apple is the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and
Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison,
Wisconsin. He is highly regarded as an important voice in "contemporary
progressive education." This highly regarded critical theorist has written
extensively, deconstructing and analysing our educational system. He has
also taught at both elementary and secondary levels and provided guidance
for teachers and administrators as they strive to improve educational
outcomes for all children. He teaches courses in curriculum theory and
research and in the sociology of curriculum. His major interests lie in
the relationship between culture and power in education. His current research
centres on the limits and possibilities of critical educational policy
and practice in a time of conservative restoration.
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Freeman, Elizabeth & Marshall, Patricia
A Model For Peacemaking And Peacebuilding In Schools.
Schools play a critical role in introducing students to peace-making and peace-building through their culture and through the processes and practices they adopt to manage conflict. Schools seeking to promote cultures of peace are challenged to find creative ways of addressing student needs: for connection in the form of relationships; for fairness in the form of consistency and flexibility, and for respect in the form of 'genuine' listening. Current research indicates that when these needs are not met many students become involved in interpersonal conflict and experience alienation and disconnection from school. Our own research sheds light on the factors that interfere with the fulfilment of student needs.
For schools
to successfully promote cultures of peace teachers need self-management
skills and the skills to sustain positive relationships, solve interpersonal
problems and manage conflict constructively. Teachers have identified
a strong need for the provision of professional development that supports
them in the relationship and conflict management aspects of their role.
Empowered teachers are more able to contribute to and promote a school
culture that fosters the development of these skills in students. The
key ingredients of a professional development strategy that has proved
effective in enhancing teacher confidence and skill in modelling and practising
peace-making skills are presented in this paper. The paper concludes by
identifying a model for peace-making and peace-building in schools.
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The Public Role in Defining Security and Working for Peace
The role
of the public citizenry in working for peace and towards conflict prevention
is rhetorically acknowledged, yet often ignored and denigrated. This paper
provides outlines of two relative success stories of the public and NGOs
- a combination in these cases, of public citizens and people with knowledge
backgrounds in the field of conflict prevention and working for peace.
The first looks at approaches to conflict in West Africa. Here, diamond
trade revenue is used by rebel groups to buy arms, further fuelling conflict
- a subject regularly on the UN Security Council agenda. In the case presented
in this paper, prominent NGOs worked together with government delegates
and corporate diamond representatives to present solutions to the UN Security
Council in addressing the conflicts in Angola, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia. An examination is undertaken of firstly
the obstacles met in working towards a diamond certification scheme to
reduce diamond revenue fuelling conflicts and secondly the ways these
obstacles were overcome.
The second looks at the re-burgeoning peace movement in Australia in the
lead-up to and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This second case looks
at this movement from the perspective of Medical Association for Prevention
of War (MAPW) - an affiliate of the Victorian Peace Network. MAPW is a
relatively small organization of 800 health professionals. The paper discusses
their perspective and role in invigorating the peace movement and the
niche that MAPW filled to enhance the drive and credibility of the citizenry
protesting war.
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Parenting For Peace: Reducing Conflict And Promoting Health In Early Adolescence.
The Program
for Parents evaluation demonstrated that parent education programs can
be disseminated nationally within an effective model. The central component
of the Program for Parents intervention was Parenting Adolescents a Creative
Experience (PACE). This presentation will describe the background and
details of the use of PACE as a parent education approach. The details
of the PACE program developed to support parents and to encourage harmonious
parent-adolescent relationships will be described. Through Program for
Parents PACE groups were adapted for use in culturally diverse (including
Indigenous) communities, and also delivered in communities and in schools.
The successful dissemination of PACE through Program for Parents has inspired
a new program called "Resilient Families". This is designed as a universal
preventative intervention, and is currently being trialed in Victorian
secondary schools. The integrated components of the program will be described
including: 1) a student curriculum, 2) parent education evening, 3) sequenced
parent education PACE groups, and 4) targeted family counselling and 5)
programs to build parent communities within schools.
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Waging Peace Through Education.
Education is a key to creating peace and reconciliation. In order for peace to exist, citizens of every country need to understand the nature of cooperation and constructive conflict resolution as well as adopt a set of values concerning interdependence. The easy way to teach such concepts and related competencies is in the schools. Thus, each student should receive at least 12 years of working cooperatively with others, resolving conflicts constructively, and adopting civic values. The Cooperative Learning Center has been training teachers in almost every part of the world to use cooperative learning, the academic controversy procedure, and the Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers Program. There is a set of civic values inherent in each one of these procedures. Each of these programs is based on psychological theory, validated by considerable research, and operationalised into practical procedures for teachers, students, and administrators. The result is an increasing number of adults throughout the world who understand the nature of cooperation and are quite skilled in creating and maintaining cooperative systems, understand how to resolve constructively both intellectual conflicts inherent in decision making and conflicts of interests and are quite skilled in doing so, and who value the well-being of others and the common good. Education may be the key tool for developing new generations of individuals skilled in creating and maintaining peace.
David
W. Johnson is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University
of Minnesota, where he holds the Emma M. Birkmaier Professorship in Educational
Leadership and serves as a co-director for the Cooperative Learning Centre.
Previous occupations have included organisational consultancy work with
schools and businesses in North and Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia,
the Middle East and the Pacific region. In complementarity with his academic
career, Professor Johnson is also a practicing psychotherapist.
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Intercultural Conflict Resolution Or Guanxi And Conflict Resolution: A Chinese Perspective.
Every conflict process involves perceptions, emotions, attitudes and communication patterns, and it is often influenced by various social factors such as social rules and power and status factors. Members of the same culture are likely to share a set of values and beliefs acquired in the process of socialisation or enculturation, in which they have their own preferred ways in resolving a conflict. Consequently, when culturally different assumptions are present in conflict, such cultural variations can significantly impact upon the effectiveness of conflict management techniques. This panel provides an opportunity to bring together several speakers of diverse cultural backgrounds to articulate the Indigenous knowledge of conflict resolution.
This paper
explores the multiple notions of guanxi, which is a unique ideology of
relationships within Chinese culture which incorporate concept of network,
connection, symbolic capital, mutual obligation, trust and almost the
alternatives to contracts and legal rights. Through examining the discourses
on guanxi, the paper examines the perceptions and interpretations of conflict,
different conflict approaches, agreement and a resolved conflict that
is meaningful to the Chinese people. The paper discusses the impact of
a guanxi-oriented conflict approach in intercultural and intracultural
context, and questions the applications of conventional conflict resolution
approach on multicultural contexts.
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Building Peace Makers At School. (workshop)
Schools and teachers constantly face challenges in creating safe, happy and peaceful learning environments for all students. Aggressive behaviour and bullying in schools is an ongoing issue. With the current social climate of unrest and unresolved conflicts it is important to model, reassure and skill students in effective conflict management, peace building and relationship making and maintenance. Constructive uses of conflict as a tool for learning foster positive interpersonal relationships and importantly encourage students to be critical and active members of the school and society.
This workshop
explores practical strategies and classroom activities that can assist
in solving interpersonal problems and sustaining positive relationships;
promote the constructive management of conflict, and enhance the development
of essential skills necessary for effective conflict resolution, peace
building and active citizenship within a global society.
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Factors Predicting Reflective Racial Tolerance: Empathy And Reflective Judgment.
The primary
focus of this research was to investigate whether dispositional empathy
or reflective judgment were associated with reflective racial tolerance
judgments among young adults. Participants aged between 18-24 years completed
written measures of racial tolerance, empathy, and reflective judgment.
As predicted, tolerance judgments differed according to both the context
and behavioural dimension of tolerance: Participants were significantly
less tolerant towards Middle Eastern refugees than Aboriginal students
and Asian young people, and were significantly less tolerant on the speech
dimension than the belief or act dimensions. In general, the best predictors
of tolerance were empathic concern and perspective-taking. Contrary to
expectation, reflective judgment was not related to tolerance judgments,
once empathy was accounted for. The findings of this research suggest
directions for further investigation into the specific factors that might
predict racial tolerance, such as fear and anxiety, or educational level.
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Inter-Faith Dialogue, Inter-Cultural Dialogue: A Developing Basis For Global/Local Cohesion.
The paper
will build on the case made by Bikhu Parek for the development of intercultural
dialogue as the most strategically rational response to addressing terrorism
and its underlying causes in the post-S11 context. The paper will illustrate
a local instance of Muslim-Christian dialogue in the western suburbs of
Melbourne, which developed post-S11, and which is assisting in the development
of intercultural dialogue and a networked approach to community development.
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Exploring New Frontiers In International Education: Towards International Peace And Reconciliation.
The challenging
task of investigating the multifaceted effects of globalisation on education
is now a major scholarly endeavour. The integrative and disintegrative
trends which characterise globalisation have far-reaching implications
for education. Indeed, the body of literature under the label of 'international
education' has emerged as a direct consequence. The working definition
of international education adopted in this paper is as follows: International
education is a transformative discourse which locates all fields of enquiry
in a supranational frame of reference. As such it represents a new departure
point for the investigation of reality. This paper examines, in the context
of globalisation, new frontiers in this emergent discourse, namely, citizenship
education, multicultural education, intercultural education and education
in international understanding. It concludes that international education
holds promise for the advancement of international peace and reconciliation.
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Maintaining The Momentum, Responding To Change: Psychologists For The Promotion Of World Peace 1984-2003.
Psychologists for the Promotion of World Peace (PPOWP) is an Interest Group of the Australian Psychological Society. It was established in 1984 at a time when the threat of nuclear war was very salient. Its members sought to use psychological skills and knowledge to increase understanding of the issues involved and to advocate for peace. With the end of the Cold War, many 'peace' groups disintegrated. This paper will explore the factors which contributed to PPOWP's continuing existence and vibrancy. These include its organisational base, a developing tradition of producing attractive marketable resources, a focus on both 'micro' and 'macro' aspects of peace, an openness to the changing world situation, and successful efforts to recruit younger psychologists. The paper will outline some of the many ways in which psychologists can work together to use their knowledge to promote peace.
Dr. Ann
Sanson is an Associate professor in the psychology department at the
University of Melbourne. She has a BA from the University of Western Australia
and a PhD from La Trobe University. Her research interests include conflict
and its resolution, as well as developmental psychopathology, in particular
the development of externalising and internalising problems in childhood
and adolescence and within-child and environmental influences on child
development. Dr. Sanson is a member of multiple organisations including
the Australasian Human Development Association, Psychologists for the
Promotion of World Peace (formerly Psychologists for the Prevention of
War), Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace and International
Society for the Study of Behavioral Development.
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Taylor, Carol & Jenkin, Constance
Keeping Families Together: A Community-Based Early Intervention Parenting Program In A Regional Koori Community.
This presentation will provide an overview of a successful early intervention parenting program that was delivered in 2001 by the Wanjana Lidj Aboriginal Family Preservation Service in Gippsland, a regional area of Victoria, Australia. The program formed part of the Early Intervention Parenting Project, a model of an early intervention service funded by the federal Department of Family and Community Services under the Child Abuse Prevention Program.
The program successfully engaged men and women of various ages, backgrounds and life experiences in the local Koori (Indigenous) community. It not only addressed the needs of the participants in terms of parenting and family relationship skills, but also provided a safe forum in which broader issues of living at peace personally, within the family, the community and the environment could be explored.
The success
of the initial 10-week program has meant that it has been run repeatedly
since 2001, and has expanded in size and scope to meet the changing needs
of new members and the wider community. The coordinator of the program
was recently awarded a centenary medal for her work in supporting and
strengthening families through the Wanjana Lidj organisation.
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Parenting For Peace: Reducing Conflict And Promoting Health In Early Adolescence.
Adolescence
represents an important period for the emergence of a range of health
and behaviour problems including violence, delinquency, substance abuse,
sexual risk taking, depression, and suicidal behaviour. Recent evidence
demonstrates programs delivered to parents of early high school students
can have positive benefits for a range of adolescent health issues and
that a 'community contagion' effect can be generated through high school
family intervention. This paper presents the rationale and evidence for
comprehensive family intervention aimed at promoting healthy youth development
through the adolescent phase. Findings will be presented from the evaluation
of a comprehensive family intervention project trialed in high schools
in Australia. Findings are presented for Program for Parents, a national
Australian initiative aimed at reducing risk factors and enhancing resilience
and cohesion in families with early adolescents. The main finding was
that the intervention appeared to be effective in decreasing family conflict
and reducing risk factors for youth suicide. Community dissemination appeared
to be effective in recruiting families experiencing more severe problems
and providing support to these disadvantaged parents. Evidence suggested
that a social contagion effect can be generated through secondary school
family intervention. The possibility of promoting school-wide change inspired
the development and evaluation of a new intervention, "Resilient Families".
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Training Programmes In Preventive Diplomacy And Peacemaking Offered Through The United Nations Institute For Training And Research.
This paper presents a description and history of Peace-making and Preventive Diplomacy Training programs offered to UN staff, international diplomats, and representatives of NGOs through the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The UNITAR training programmes in this field were developed as a response to a lack of training for UN staff in Peace-making and Preventive Diplomacy. Despite the fact that the UN has built into its charter many functions involving prevention of conflict and peace-making once conflict arises, prior to the UNITAR programs there was a lack of training opportunities for UN staff to develop capacities in conflict analysis, prevention of conflict, negotiation and mediation, using an interest based approach. The first such training programme to be developed by UNITAR was the UNITAR/IPA Fellowship Programme in Peace-making and Preventive Diplomacy, which consisted of a two-week residential programme attended by UN staff from the various substantive UN departments and agencies; international diplomats; and some NGO representatives. Resource persons providing training included a mixture of academics and practitioners with experience in international conflict resolution. Training included theory, experiential exercises, lectures and discussions on specific cases. This paper describes aims of the programme; the training format and content; types of participants and resource people; outcomes; and later developments in training after the initial fellowship programme was established.
Subsequent training programmes in peace-building, and peace-making are described including those developed specifically for regions in Africa, for Indigenous peoples representatives in various regions of the world, and for more senior staff at the UN. A project specifically designed to transfer lessons learned by Special Representatives of the Secretary General (SRSG) to other SRSGs is also under way and will be described briefly.
Eleanor
Wertheim received
a Ph.D.in clinical psychology in the United States at the University of
Connecticut, 1981, having spent a one-year internship at a psychiatric
hospital in California. She then worked for a year at a Community Mental
Health Centre near Boston. In 1982, Eleanor joined La Trobe University
where she contributes to undergraduate and post-graduate programs and
teaching in the areas of counselling and therapeutic skills and cognitive
behavioural interventions. Her have two main areas of special interest:
conflict resolution and the processes related to forgiveness and reconciliation
and eating disorders and body concerns. As part of her interest in conflict
resolution, has conducted and facilitated a substantial amount of training
in negotiation and conflict analysis. This has included working with the
United Nations Institute for Training and Research on programs in Austria
and Africa, which included facilitating and lecturing in programs for
UN staff and diplomats on the topics of preventive diplomacy and peace
making. Eleanor currently teaches negotiation in the School of Law and
Legal Studies at La Trobe, and has been on the national and state committees
of Psychologists for the Promotion of World Peace. Her current research
interest in conflict resolution involves examining the factors that lead
to forgiveness and reconciliation after perceived wrongs committed by
others.
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God Willing… There Will Be Peace. Sierra Leone: Post Conflict Peace Education Challenges.
Sierra Leone has suffered a ten-year civil war which only ceased in 2000. Some of the main education issues for the country are the destruction of the school system, the trauma suffered by children and the wider community, the need to re-integrate former combatants, who are themselves children, and the challenge of understanding the past and re-building a secure society.
In this paper,
we will describe a World Bank project to develop an integrated (years
1 to 9) peace education curriculum for the Sierra Leone Ministry of Education,
Science and Technology (MOEST). In particular, the paper will discuss
the need to work with notions of active human agency in a country comprising
both Christian and Moslem belief systems. The implications for peace education
curriculum developers will be explored.
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The Role Of Tolerance In A Changing World.
Our world must be a place where we not only live but a place where we live together. This is particularly important in a world that has become more diverse as an outcome of changing geo-political realities. Tolerance is only necessary when difference or diversity is present because it is only when confronting diversity that our acceptance of others is truly tested (Robinson, Witenberg & Sanson, 2001; Vogt, 1997). Yet some people object to the very idea of tolerance and others do not embrace the mutual responsibility it entails.
This presentation will report on studies conducted in Australia, Israel and the Ukraine to better understand the nature and aetiology of racial tolerance. Specifically, it will explore definitional issues of tolerance, its contextual nature, how it develops and the psychological motives which promote it. The role of society to promote and protect tolerance will also be explored. Australia is one of the most diverse societies in the world, but are we tolerant?
Dr. Rivka
Witenberg is currently working at the University of Melbourne. Her
current research involves developing a model of racial tolerance, as well
as collaborating on research about tolerance in two countries with Valentina
Pavlenko in the Ukraine. Her other research interests include; cognitive
development and conceptual change, development of reasoning and problem
solving, moral reasoning and tolerance, the effect of knowledge and beliefs
on reasoning, and the effect of context on development
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