The Italian educator and physician Maria Montessori is best known for the teaching method that bears her name, but historian Erica Moretti reframes Montessori's work, showing that pacifism was the foundation of her pioneering efforts in psychiatry and pedagogy.

Peace education is now well recognized within international legal instruments and within critical educational literature as an important aspect of education. Despite this, little attention has been given in the critical literature to the philosophical foundations for peace education and the rationale for peace education thus remains substantially an assumed one. This investigation explores some possible ethico-philosophical foundations for peace education, through an examination of five specific ethical traditions: 1) virtue ethics, whereby peace may be interpreted as a virtue, and/or virtue is interpreted as peacefulness, and peace education as education in that virtue; 2) consequentialist ethics, whereby peace education may be interpreted as education regarding the consequences of our action and inaction, both as individuals and collectivities; 3) conservative political ethics, whereby peace education may be interpreted as emphasizing the importance of the evolution of social institutions and the importance of ordered and lawful social change; 4) aesthetic ethics, whereby peace may be interpreted as something beautiful and valuable in itself, and peace education as emphasizing the importance of that beauty and value; and 5) the ethics of care, whereby care may be interpreted as a core element in peace, and peace education as encouraging trust and engagement with the other. The study addresses major contributions to each of these ethical traditions, the strengths and weaknesses of the tradition, and the ways in which the tradition provides support for peace education. It is argued in the thesis that each tradition provides only a partial basis for peace education, and that ultimately a holistic and integrative understanding is required, one that encourages a culture of peace. " ... an important addition to the emerging literature on peace education and the culture of peace" (From the Foreword by Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO).

Exploring the field of peace education, the bulk of the book analyzes and critically evaluates contemporary schools and universities. Providing some successful and not-so-successful alternative school and university projects and experiments, the book proposes peace and development education as a life process and presents a whole array of non-conventional tools and approaches. The unique feature of the book is that instead of putting emphasis on teaching peace and development, it insists on being and becoming what we teach. It makes a great textbook for education courses and programs, and a good handbook for peace educators and peace researchers around the world. The authors of the book are two teachers who are not attached to any regular educational institution anywhere in the world and are qualified to say what they have said in the book. The two authors have played significant, instrumental roles in promoting peace studies.

There is a huge volume of work on war and its causes, most of which treats its political and economic roots. In Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War, Nel Noddings explores the psychological factors that support war: nationalism, hatred, delight in spectacles, masculinity, religious extremism and the search for existential meaning. She argues that while schools can do little to reduce the economic and political causes, they can do much to moderate the psychological factors that promote violence by helping students understand the forces that manipulate them.

The rise of peace education both in scholarship and in practice has yielded numerous documents, websites, and publications with often divergent perspectives on what the field is, does, and means. The Encyclopedia of Peace Education provides a comprehensive overview of the scholarly developments in the field to date, so as to provide a common denominator for the various actors involved in advancing peace education internationally. Thus, this edited volume serves as an essential reference guide that traces the history and emergence of the field, highlights foundational concepts, contextualizes peace education practice across international and disciplinary borders, and suggests new directions for peace educators. From core conceptual perspectives to the moral and spiritual foundations of the field to the role of the United Nations, the Encyclopedia grounds peace education in a solid theoretical and practical framework through the writings of the field’s most renowned scholars. This volume will target undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars and practitioners working in international and non-governmental organizations in the field of peace education.