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Peace
education cannot be clearly severed from neighboring disciplines such as
education in democracy, human rights, third world or the environment. This
is the subject of the following excerpt from Günther Gugel and Uli Jäger.
It is also dedicated to the new concept of 'global learning' which is
sketched out on a separate
page. A further short excerpt
postulates
that the north-south divide is the key peace-political task of the
contemporary age. |
"The
Immediacy of Environment, Third World and Human Rights Education.
"(...)
It is insufficient to relate the object of peace education to the problem of
arms and security alone. Hans Nicklas and Änne Ostermann who address the topic
at the Hessen Foundation
for Peace and Conflict Research
suggest
including at least those aspects of environment and third world problems which
imply or give rise to violence within the object of peace education under
systematic view points.
In peace education, one special method of gaining access to the north-south
problem is through the example of the consequences of arms exports by industrial
states to the countries of the third world. Even the causes of migration and
defensive reaction in Europe or the new and expanding image of the evil of Islam
are topics which can be used to gain access to the north-south problem using
personal references and experiences. The example of addressing conflicts that
result from ecological problems (conflict concerning essential resources such as
water, for example) provides an ecological dimension to peace education.
In educational practice, their is much crosslinking between peace education and
the other disciplines in what is often referred to as 'survival education', both
in relation to the contents addressed and the methods and didactic models
proposed: environment and third world education. Cross-linking and cooperation
will intensify in future, because the contextual complexity of global problems
and hence the dramatics of this are increasing.
For this reason, controversial discussion has been going on for many years on
the extent to which various educational methods and experiences can be merged in
order to support or reorganize learning and activity in the face of global
problems and the growing internationalization of the world in which we live (for
instance, due to worldwide communication technologies). What also needs to be
added however, is that the resources available for educational and political
counter measures are diminishing all the time, and that extended cooperation
would not only be fruitful, but is also imperative in practical political terms.
Human
rights education also takes a similar approach to peace education, and is mainly
supported by international human rights organizations like Amnesty
International.
The
main concern here is the communication of knowledge concerning the causes of
human rights violations, and also more recently, support in dealing with the
question of whether (and which) human rights can claim universal acceptance, or
the extent to which intervention can be justified in making reference to human
rights violations.
Another concern is the question of how this knowledge can be transformed into
concrete action. "As a consequence, effective human rights education can be
measured by the extent to which addressing human rights violations is successful
in expanding objective knowledge into subjective affect. (...) The encounter
with human rights as a 'principle of knowing and learning' should communicate to
everyone that human rights, as a political criteria for action and universal
moral in one's own country (for each individual), are closely linked to their materialization
in every other country (for every other individual)" (Hildegard Karig).
(...) Development
education deals with the question on what and how learning concerning the 'third
world' and 'north-south relations' takes place in the industrial states and
provides suggestions for educational practice. In the past, an important key
element of development education centered around the development of learning
models for primary schools, an area which has been keenly ignored by peace
education.
If one follows the discussion in development education, it is possible to see
that it is plagued by similar problems to peace education. Despite considerable
theoretical advances, a great deal of educational material (more than two and a
half thousand publications dealing with development policy teaching and work
have appeared in the last thirty years!), and relatively extensive promotional
opportunities, a 'crisis in development education' is being spoken of today.
This theory is founded on four observations: Development education has primarily
lost its focus, because it is no longer possible to speak of the 'third world'
per se due to increasing differentiation. The large volume of didactic material
and the variety of methods in practice are leading to insecurity in the
application of methods and a 'cultivation of the educational coincidence'.
Thirdly, no tradition of theory has been created and finally, the institutionalization
of development education in the whole context of educationally relevant social
systems remains marginal (...).
Examples of all four problems can be found in peace education. The abdication of
the ‘third world’ as the main focus corresponds to the abdication of the
'east-west conflict' in peace education, towards which a great deal of energy
was focused over the past decades. However, one ought to talk of a comparable
crisis at a different level, since both the development of theory and the degree
of institutionalization in development education is further advanced than that
of peace education
[Günther
Gugel / Uli Jäger: Gewalt muss nicht sein. Eine Einführung in friedenspädagogisches
Denken und Handeln. 3. Aufl., Tübingen 1997; Internetversion: http://www.friedenspaedagogik.de/themen/f_erzieh/fe3.htm]
 |
Another
text is dedicated to the current challenges encountered by peace education
since the end of the east-west conflict which is also linked to globalization
or global learning as keywords [... Go
to the text on Challenges]. |
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