Introduction

What is the meaning of peace, why should we study it, and how should we achieve it? This fundamental question, with three separate but integrated parts, forms the basis of this book. Although there are an increasing number of manuscripts (see Finley, 2011; Galtung & Udayakumar, 2011; McGlynn, Bekerman, Zembylas, & Gallagher, 2009; Page, 2008; Shapiro, 2010), studies, reports, curricula, and initiatives that grapple with some strand of peace education, there is, nonetheless, a dearth of critical, crossdisciplinary, international projects/books that examine peace education in conjunction with war and conflict. We are highly cognizant of this gap in the literature (two recent books address the militarization of schools but are not focused on peace; see Monahan & Torres, 2009, and Saltman & Gabbard, 2011), and understand it to exist for the following reasons: (1) it is difficult to conceptualize peace along with war because it raises complex and controversial questions about ourselves, our governments, and our societies; (2) schools, traditionally speaking, have been ill-equipped to elaborate on critical pedagogical themes; (3) educational funders, institutions, and associations are so fixated in implementing neoliberal reforms, such as creating high-stakes exams, producing test-prep materials, and generating online programs, that there is little energy spent on addressing issues related to war, conflict, and peace education; (4) linking peace with war, especially in the post-9/11 period, has been considered provocative, militant and even doctrinaire; (5) addressing peace and war calls upon us to critically dissect our own implications in why conflict exists, which runs counter to the corporatist school agenda of making education a functionalist venture aimed at primarily obtaining a job; (6) delving into peace and war can be tantamount to opening a Pandora’s box with no control over the end outcome, something that has been considered nefarious to positivistic conceptions of “truth” and “objectivity”; and (7) as is the case with related areas such as antiracism, feminism, democracy, and other topics that are enmeshed in inequitable power relations and divergent epistemological interpretations, the content of peace and war is not universally accepted, which some may exploit because of a lack of clarity in relation to the content of what to teach. For these reasons, as a backdrop, we believe that this book is needed, and, we hope, will contribute positively to the debate about what peace education is, why we should study it, and, importantly, how we can participate in the process of achieving peace.