Special features

TL;DR: The AERA conference in 2008 offered a glimpse into research on peace education, highlighting progress in various areas including participatory action research, healing from trauma, teaching reconciliation, safe schools and integrated education.

Abstract: In 2008, peace education scholars gathered in New York for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Their studies and reports offered a glimpse into research on current issues, enduring problems, promising initiatives and theoretical implications. The Special Interest Group (SIG) in peace education at AERA offered group and individual (roundtable) paper sessions as well as two symposia. At a time when news was dominated by war and violence, the sessions at this conference offered encouraging reports about ideas, curricula and instructional approaches for enhancing peace and reconciliation. In one paper session on global perspectives, four areas that have seen much violence were also witness to encouraging signs of progress. From Northern Ireland, a participatory action research project led by Ruth Leitch reinforced the importance of facilitating pupil voices, identity theory, and intergenerational impact, especially through teacher-centered and pupil-centered approaches. From the African Great Lakes region, particularly in Burundi, Elavie Ndura reported on recorded interviews revealing four main themes: reliving genocide, healing from traumatic incarceration and dehumanizing displacement and handling fear. From Israel and Cyprus, Michalinos Zembylas and Zvi Bekerman explored the meanings and implications of dangerous memories. From South Africa, Ana Ferreira and Hilary Janks described ways of teaching reconciliation in post-apartheid high school classrooms where students shifted from personal notions of ‘reconciliation’ to political notions of ‘reconciliation’. In a second paper session on global perspectives, Tom Cavanagh reported on safe schools in the US and New Zealand, where a shift was made from punishing students for behavior problems to exploring a culture of care. In Northern Ireland, Claire McGlynn described improvements in practice through integrated education in communities divided by protracted conflict. From Canada, Kathy Bickmore and Angela MacDonald reported on new peacekeeping, peacemaking and peace-building programs in urban schools through the use of monitors (enforcing rules), bullying prevention agents (de-escalating aggression), peer mediators (facilitating dispute resolution), student voice representatives (engaging in democratic consultation) and equity advocates (supporting self-determination and resisting bias against marginalized people). Finally, drawing on input from scholars on peace education from several countries, William Timpson, Edward J. Brantmeier, Nathalie Kees, Stephanie Moyers