In a world where post-conflict and postcolonial countries struggle to heal from the past and meet new challenges, peace education is often neglected and instrumentalized for political agendas. Drawing on case studies from Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burundi, Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay, this book shows that cultural and structural violence can, in turn, lead to direct violence. An effective program of peace education responds to these dynamics meeting our urgent problems and opening up new opportunities for peacebuilding. With this direction in mind, this book addresses the practices of peace education from around the world. The fundamental question answered here is: can peace be taught, especially where the scars of war and legacies of colonialism are entrenched in society? Peace education is foundational to a more equitable future where global citizens share a planet in justice, equity, with human security, and all the elements of sustainable, resilient peace. Foremost, it is an essential pillar for societies scarred by violence.

Academic disciplines perceive tranquility and a sense of contentment differently among themselves and therefore contribute to peace-building initiatives differently. Peace is not merely a function of education or a tool that produces amicable systems, but rather a concept that educational contributions can help societies progress to a more peaceful existence. The Handbook of Research on Promoting Peace Through Practice, Academia, and the Arts aims to provide readers with a concise overview of proactive positive peace models and practices to counter the overemphasis on merely ending wars as a solution. While approaching peace-building through multiple vantage points and academic fields such as the humanities, arts, social sciences, and theology, this valuable resource promotes peace-building as a cooperative effort. This publication is a vital reference work for humanitarian workers, leaders, educators, policymakers, academicians, undergraduate and graduate-level students, and researchers.

This collection of peace education efforts in conflict and post-conflict societies brings together an international group of scholars to offer the very latest theoretical and pedagogical developments. Rather than focus on ad hoc peace education efforts this book investigates the need for long term, systemic approaches and innovative pedagogies.

Forward-thinking pedagogues as well as peace researchers have, in recent decades, cast a critical eye over teaching content and methodology with the aim of promulgating notions of peace and sustainability in education. This volume gives voice to the reflections of educational theorists and practitioners who have taken on the task of articulating a ‘curriculum of difference’ that gives positive voice to these key concepts in the pedagogical arena. Here, contributors from around the world engage with paradigm-shifting discourses that reexamine questions of ontology and human subjectivity—discourses that advocate interdisciplinarity as well as the reformulation of epistemological boundaries. Deconstructing the origins and limits of human knowledge and learning, the book affords educators the opportunity to identify and express common elements of the subjects taught and studied in educational institutions, elements that facilitate students’ apprehension of peace and sustainability. With penetrating analysis of contemporary issues in the field, this volume introduces a range of fresh theoretical approaches that extend the boundaries of peace education, which is broadly defined as promoting the responsible, equitable and sustainable co-existence of differing human communities. In doing so, the chapters show how we can improve our lives as well as our chances of survival as a species by acknowledging the importance of shared human aspirations that cut across borders, of genuinely listening to alternative voices and opinions, of challenging the ubiquitous, socially constructed historical narratives that define human relations only in terms of power. Charged with vitality and originality, this new publication is a critical examination of issues central to the development and utility of global education.

In recent years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided funding to the New York-based Sesame Workshop. Its goal is to create international versions of Sesame Street that teach tolerance and democratic values, with the hopes of decreasing conflict and preventing terrorism. This book takes an in-depth look at the Nigerian version, Sesame Square, started in 2011 in an attempt to build peaceful coexistence and counter the extremist messages of Boko Haram. It offers rare insights into the complexities inherent in attempts to "teach" cosmopolitan ideals of democracy and tolerance and the ways in which such efforts can compromise peacebuilding in countries suffering from internal conflicts.

Peacebuilding is explained by combining interpretive frameworks (paradigms) that have evolved from the subfields of international relations and comparative politics.

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism is a comprehensive treatment of a relatively new form of scholarship-one of the most compelling and contested theories to emerge in recent times, and a topic that actively seeks to expand the ways in which the Bible can be studied, interpreted, and applied. Generally speaking, postcolonialism aims to critique and dismantle hegemonic worldviews and power structures, while giving voice to previously marginalized peoples and systems of thought. This approach, often varied in form, has inevitably engaged with the text and reception of the Bible, a scripture that Western colonizers introduced to-and often imposed upon-their colonial subjects. With a globally diverse list of contributors, the Handbook aims to cover the perspective and context of the authors of the Bible, as well as the modern experiences of imperialism, resistance, decolonization, and nationalism. Moreover, the volume includes both a theoretical overview and an exploration of how the field intersects with related areas, such as gender studies, race, postmodernism, and liberation theology.