Popis: |
In response to the seamless web of conflicts, international society has actively promoted peace education in conflict-affected countries together with a number of international commitments to peace education since the end of Cold War. However, the titles, purposes and methods of peace education have greatly diversified and have been criticized for not having undergone careful scrutiny. Taking this situation into consideration, this article aims to first offer a systematic review of various peace education methods, and then attempts to model peace education in Japan and Germany, which have experimented with peace education for half a century. Finally, it tries to analyse to what extent these models are relevant to peace education in the present day, given that the nature of conflict has changed since World War II. It does this by looking at peace education in Bosnia-i-Herzegovina, which contains all the major causes of today's conflicts. An analysis of the peace education experiences in these three countries provides a policy implication that peace education should proceed in a piecemeal but consistent manner, combining the strength of the Japanese knowledge-based pacifist model of peace education and the German skill-based critical model. The process seems to (i) start with abandoning a biased educational system and materials used during conflict, (ii) formulate the legal framework to shift education to more peace-oriented issues, (iii) introduce civic education as building a foundation of social capital such as common basic values and norms, (iv) equip children with critical-thinking and problem-solving skills throughout the curriculum, and finally, (v) teach them mutual/multicultural understanding as well as a knowledge of war through various subjects such as history, geography and literature. |