Iram, Yaacov. (Ed.) (2006). Educating Toward a Culture of
Peace. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc.
Pp. 380
$69.95 (hardcover) ISBN 1593114842
$34.95 (papercover) ISBN 1593114834
Reviewed by Brian J. Trautman
Fielding Graduate University
December 6, 2006
How can a culture of peace be attained within a society and
between societies? What is involved in “educating”
toward a culture of peace? What is contemporary “peace
education,” and in what ways can peace education be used as
a tool for enhancing the capacity of peace? What educational
strategies can be employed to foster intercultural and
interreligious dialogue on tolerance and peace? Why is peace
education as a means of peace building and dialogue of particular
importance in the era of globalization? These questions, among
others, are examined in the timely volume, Educating Toward a
Culture of Peace, edited by Yaacov Iram.
This book draws
together lectures (revised and updated) presented by prominent
international scholars and educationalists in the field of peace
studies at the global conference, “Education Toward a
Culture of Peace,” convened in December 2003 at Bar Ilan
University, Israel. This volume examines contemporary peace
education theory, research, and practice, and outlines the
complex strategies and practical implications of educating toward
a culture of peace.
The author's main contentions are that to move toward the
complex and challenging task of achieving a culture of peace,
societies must first establish “positive values.”
Positive values in the context of societies include beliefs and
actions which support and uphold tolerance and pluralism.
Positive values “enable different cultures and nations to
coexist harmoniously” (p. ix). Positive values are
important to establishing a pluralistic society. Pluralistic
societies provide the environment for nonviolent conflict
resolution. Constructing a pluralistic society, Iram argues,
requires a profound understanding of both the collective and
individual values held by different people and cultures—an
understanding of diversity. It also requires an understanding of
tolerance, human rights, and multiculturalism. “Educating
Toward a Culture of Peace” reveals education research and
theoretical and analytical peace building frameworks focused on
ending the ongoing intercultural and interreligious conflict and
violence in the Middle East, particularly among Israelis and
Palestinians. The text offers strategies for education for peace,
tolerance, and pluralism.
“Educating Toward a Culture of Peace” consists of
an introduction and five sections: “Peace Education
Paradigms,” Globalization and Peace,” “Culture
of Peace Perceptions,” “Religiosity and Culture of
Peace,” and “Peace Education Initiatives.” Each
of the essays and case studies offered over the text’s five
sections are designed to help readers develop a more cultivated
understanding of contemporary peace education theory, research,
and practice. The purpose of this volume is to enhance the
reader’s knowledge about, and appreciation of, peace
education initiatives, the dynamics affecting peace education,
and the tools and strategies for peace building within and
between societies.
The Introduction to this text, authored by Yaacov Iram,
provides a summary of what the reader can expect in the
book’s several sections. The three historically significant
theoretical examples of how to achieve peace are presented and
demarcated: “peacekeeping, “peacemaking,” and
“peace building,” with the latter credited as being
the most important result of educating toward peace. Iram
emphasizes that contemporary peace education initiatives and
strategies are intended for the purposes of peace building. This
book, therefore, is primarily concerned with peace building
initiatives, including the tools and strategies for educating
toward a peaceful coexistence within and between societies.
The first section of the book, “Peace Education
Paradigms,” contains four essays. The first essay,
“Culture of Peace: Definition, Scope, and
Application,” is written by the editor, Yaacov Iram. Iram
emphasizes three terms—referred to as the
“prerequisites”—for peace education: tolerance,
pluralism, and peace. Iram presents a formal definition of a
culture of peace. The scope and application of peace education
are described in this opening section. In citing a teacher
education program developed by “Education for Europe as
Peace Education” (EURED) from 2002, Iram explains that
“peace education,” broadly speaking, is about
“promoting knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills
conducive to peace and non-violence, and to an active commitment
to the building of a cooperative and caring democratic
society” (p. 7). According to Iram, “the overarching
aim of peace education is to help a new generation build a
tolerant society by respecting the rights of individuals and
groups, and thus contributing to the greater good of all”
(p. 10). This essay set the tone for the book.
In the book’s second section, “Globalization and
Peace,” four essays focus on the issue of globalization and
its potential impact on peace education. The second essay,
“Echoes from the Periphery: Challenges to Building a
Culture of Peace Through Education in Marginalized
Communities,” written by Erwin H. Epstein, discusses the
impact and implications of the resocialization of children in
schools through education efforts not focused on reality but
rather wrought with teachings about cultural and societal myths:
“Myth teaching, however necessary to promote national
unity, is an education of deception” (p. 88). Children are
often indoctrinated to embrace their own culture without
question, place their own culture at the center, and repudiate
other cultures or place them at the periphery. Globalization and
peace building require children to become more conscious of the
true nature of their reality, as well as the reality of others.
Epstein emphasizes the importance of myth deconstruction about
one’s own history and contemporary policies and national
behavior as key in this process of building a framework by which
a multicultural education and awareness can spur and profoundly
impact intercultural and interreligious communication.
Epstein’s contentions speak to the pedagogical methods for
peace building. This essay is important because it addresses the
need for children to receive an education based on knowledge
inquiry and truth seeking outside the dominant, mainstream
center, particularly on displaced and marginalized indigenous
cultures, worldviews, and practices. A culture of peace can not
be achieved through education based on nationalistic propaganda,
ethnocentric myth teaching, and the filtering of information as
part of a broader plan of national isolationism.
The book’s third section, “Culture of Peace
Perceptions,” contains five essays, each of which examines
peace perceptions as they relate to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflicts. This section is very timely in terms of addressing
possible resolutions based on peace education for the highly
visible and tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. The fifth
essay, “The Role of Emotions in Peace-Building
Activities,” authored by Yaacov B. Yablon, speaks to the
role human emotions play in conflict. Yablon investigates the
relationship between positive and negative emotions and
individuals and intergroup behavior. Some of these emotions
involve perceptions about other groups. Yablon calls for more
emphasis to be placed on the varied emotive aspects of peace
relations as compared to the cognitive aspects. The findings of
this study reveal that “emotions have positive effects on
the willingness to interact with members of a conflict
group” (p. 217), and contribute to the development of
positive attitudes about another group. The results of this study
also suggest that “emotions should be seen as a core
component and a main strategy of peace intervention
programs” (p. 218). This is an important essay because it
offers a different framework from which to cultivate a culture of
peace—from strictly focusing on the underlying cognitive
processes of conflict and conflict resolution toward
understanding and focusing on the emotive factors which trigger,
and which can ameliorate, conflict.
The fourth section of the book is entitled “Religiosity
and Culture of Peace.” The general theme of each the three
essays offered here is the positive and negative implications of
religion and religiosity within the context of peace education.
The second essay, “Arab and Jewish Women’s
Interreligious Dialogue Evaluated,” written by Ben Mollov
and Chaim Lavie, takes a mixed methods approach to researching
the impact of religiosity and interreligious dialogue on the
dynamics of conflict and on peace building between the diverse
citizenry of the State of Israel: Israelis and Palestinians and
Arabs and Jews. A gender analysis of attitudinal beliefs and
trends is an important aspect of this study. Among the several
conclusions reached in this study, it was found that
interreligious encounters can produce positive contributions
toward moderating Arab-Jewish tensions. The findings also reveal
that, contrary to prevalent assumptions, the introduction and
analysis of different religious beliefs and traditions into
conflict management and resolution dialogues does not always
result in an escalation of interethnic tensions. This essay
contributes to the text because it adds to the book’s
diversity with regard to suggesting different approaches to peace
building through communication and education.
In the book’s fifth and concluding section, “Peace
Education Initiatives,” a collection of four case studies
are offered to demonstrate the complexities of applying peace
initiatives. This section provides a window into the different
challenges faced by peace educators and offers several conceptual
frameworks that have been put into practice within the context of
peace education to facilitate change. The second essay,
“Tolerance Education and Human Rights Education in Times of
Fear: A Comparative Perspective,” written by K. Peter
Fritzsche, dissects and reports on a series of case studies
resulting from the project “Tolerance Matters”
(1998-2003). There is also a discussion offered on how education
can be used to promote tolerance, human rights, democracy, and a
peaceful coexistence. Fritzsche reports that information and the
effort of educating toward peace is a function of the social,
political, and economic processes of a society. The following
excerpt is a good example of the significance of this essay and
of the important contribution it makes to the theme of this text:
“Tolerance and human rights are not only a consequence of
individual competencies, but also a result of social and
political molding of the political, social, and religious culture
of a society” (p. 306).
An assessment of the book's major strengths and weaknesses
reveals that the overall strengths of this text include its
tackling of contemporary global issues related to intercultural
and interreligious conflict, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian
conflicts in the Middle East. The book addresses these issues by
presenting different peace education strategies, which the book
argues might help current and future generations develop a
values-based “knowledge of the common and
understanding of the differences” (p. 10). For
individuals new to the concept of peace education, the
text’s first chapter outlines and explains the fundamental
concepts of peace education. The definitions and background
provided in this chapter make it a piece worth reading and
reflecting on several times over. My one criticism of the text is
that it might have benefited from the addition of a piece devoted
to debate on the influence U.S. foreign policy has on peace
education efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere. An in-depth
analysis and critique of the different historical and
contemporary U.S. foreign policy decisions in the Middle East
would have contributed to the scope of this text. I would have
liked to see at least one essay, if not one section, devoted to
the positive and negative implications of U.S. foreign policy on
the peace process.
Research on the book's place in the literature reveals that
“Educating Toward a Culture of Peace” contributes
significantly to the recently published literature on the subject
of peace education and peace studies. Included among the
previously published texts on the subject are, “Peace
education,” (2003) written by Ian M. Harris and Mary Lee
Morrison, “Education of Minorities and Peace Education in
Pluralistic Societies,” (2003) edited by Yaacov Iram, and
“Peace Education: The Concept, Principles, and Practices
Around the World,” (2002) edited by Gavriel Salomon and
Baruch Nevo.
“Educating Toward a Culture of Peace” achieves its
goal of showcasing comprehensive practitioner-based research on
the different educational strategies which foster a culture of
peace within a society and between societies. The book provides
an effective tool for engendering social and political change.
This text is an appropriate resource for anyone who wants to
develop a better understanding of the ideology and practice of
peace building through peace education, particularly as it
regards and applies to the conflict in the Middle East.
In conclusion, “Educating Toward a Culture of
Peace” is a timely and deeply insightful and absorbing
text. Through its analysis of the inherent causes of
intercultural and interreligious animosity and conflict, this
text puts forward different practical and contemporary
educational tools for ending the violence. This volume is an
excellent guide for discerning different education strategies for
increasing dialogue on intergroup conflict. The book offers
numerous ideas and solutions for the effective undertaking and
facilitation of nonviolent peace negotiations. It clearly
addresses the critical need for tolerance, pluralism, and peace
as prerequisites for peace education. “Educating Toward a
Culture of Peace” identifies and explains why it is the
responsibility of individuals and groups to understand and
embrace these concepts for a long-term culture of peace to exist
within a society and between societies.
Brian J. Trautman
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About the Reviewer
Brian is a doctoral student and student leader in the
Educational Leadership and Change (ELC) program at
Fielding Graduate University. Brian’s academic
expertise and areas of interest include leadership of
higher education systems, critical and feminist pedagogy,
structural inequality and diversity, cultural studies,
and Indigenous knowledge systems and practices.
Brian's professional experience includes student
services administration and adjunct teaching.
Copyright is retained by the first or sole author,
who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.
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