Building A Peaceful Society

To truly move toward a more peaceful society, it is imperative that peace education better address structural and institutional violence. This requires that it be integrated into institutions outside of schools and universities. Doing so will be challenging, as many of these institutions are structured on domination and control, not on partnership and shared power. In particular, U.S. criminal justice, social services and prevention programs, and sport have tended to be dominator-modeled. This book offers analysis and suggestions for overcoming these challenges and for integrating peace education into important social institutions. Creativity will be one of the most useful assets in moving peace education from schools to other institutions. This book argues that with creative visioning, collaboration, and implementation, peace education can be integrated into the most challenging situations and provide hope for holistic changes in our society.

"Currently our society is experiencing unprecedented conflict and violence from many different types of situations and causes. As our society is becoming increasingly more diverse, it has become more apparent that we need to rely on more environmentally sustainable mechanisms and cooperative behaviors to help address and reverse this trend. Political extremism, ethnocentric ideology and recent authoritarian leadership has resulted in an increasingly divided and polarized community. This book attempts to address the problems of violence and extremism through our evolutionary history in the need for all groups of individuals to work cooperatively and contribute to a healthier and more productive community where all individuals are afforded opportunities to share their skills in a more holistic, organic and collaborative process, what Ervin Staub (2013) refers to as the "constructive social process." This book examines how natural and ecologically sustainable (i.e., "green space") environments can help to promote more cooperative and prosocial behaviors within our communities and address the serious problems involving violence and ethnocentric ideologies"--

This book coherently maps a path to sustainable global peace. Written by a team of scholars from many disciplines, each contribution provides one way to shift us from our current way of being and onto the path to peace. The work identifies a group of approaches relevant to the contemporary world and the crises we face. It covers politics, the environment, food security, architecture, and other areas of human activity. The authors see positive peace as a way to encourage humans to actively create a peace-filled world. Their essays suggest how, together, we can ensure that human flourishing is possible for all people. Peace activists, environmentalists, and climate scientists will find this a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

We know that peace education helps individuals transform conflict in their own lives, understand and respect other cultures and ways of living, and treasure the Earth. Teachers of peace education encourage their students to cooperate with each other, think critically, solve problems constructively, take part in responsible decision-making, communicate clearly, and share their feelings and commitment openly. These skills and values are essential for survival in an increasingly interdependent world, where violence has become an instrument of policy. Peace education seeks to enable learners to envision a range of possibilities that could lead from a culture of war and violence to a culture of peace. One widely used method to encourage such envisioning is posing an inquiry into the characteristics of peace. Efforts are being made to educate students and teachers about non-violence and human rights via peace education programs. This book lays a foundation for students, teachers and peace educators to explore the elements necessary to create a peaceful society. Educating for Peace will help to build a peaceful, just and sustainable world for our children. Educating for Peace consists of seventeen chapters. Chapter one deals with the pro-motion of education for a peaceful society; chapter two details how to emphasise the importance of peace to children. Chapter three of this book sketches out peace education in a non-formal way, while chapter four deals with education for peace and non-violence. The following chapter clearly defines the conceptualization of peace education. Chapter six defines what exactly a culture of peace entails, while chapter seven deals with a research study on non-violence. Chapters eight and nine address pressing concerns in peace education and creating a violence-free school respectively. Chapters ten and eleven deal with the role of value education for world peace. Chapter twelve deals with pedagogical approaches and chapter thirteen defines human rights education. The remaining chapters deal with different aspects of peace education. This book is an attempt to identify and deliberate on topics that should be addressed if we are to fully establish peace education. This book is written mainly for researchers, peace educators and students.

There are more conflicts than ever in the world, more than 75 years after World War II. Question is: Have we really made a big effort to ban war? War has become an industry. Trillions of dollars are spent yearly on this machinery of mass destruction. The cost of destruction is massive. Whole countries are bombed to pieces in endless wars and millions of people lose their lives. We have come to justify violence as a legitimate way to intervene in conflicts. It is time to disrupt this way of thinking. We can prevent war, build peace and make an impact. That is the point of entry of this practical guide which has an ambitious goal: let us all become peacebuilders and impact leaders and create an Economy of Peace. The guide describes a methodology and approach to peacebuilding which starts with an inner journey of self-discovery and self-awareness. The peacebuilding model that has been developed revolves around four important values: trust, empathy, respect and integrity. The idea is to make business of peace and to think about peace in terms of value and social impact. With concepts borrowed from business management, an innovative perspective to peace is presented which challenges us to think about peace as the best value proposition for a better world after COVID-19. The guide is written in a comprehensive style and consists of a train the trainer program, a theoretical framework underpinning the models that are used and a toolkit with exercises. The author and her colleagues whom she collaborated with, offer a practical, easy-to-use and innovative approach built on extensive experience and having worked with hundreds of people from war-torn countries, having visited many conflict zones and lived under junta’s and repressive regimes herself. A peaceful world is possible. This guide is a starting point to make it happen.

This collection of ethnographies discusses how non-violent values and conflict resolution strategies can help to create and maintain peace.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

Peaceful peoples are societies that have developed harmonious social structures which allow people to get along with each other, and with outsiders, without violence. This bibliography includes annotated references to books, articles, and other English-language publications.