ABSTRACT
Peace education is a field that serves a much broader constituency than the narrow confines of academia. Its origins are deeply set as a grassroots movement of organizations, faith-based communities, professional groups, and concerned citizens that questioned the rationale and decisions made by their country’s leadership, refused to be satisfied with the status quo policies when they no longer stood for principles of democracy, justice, equality, and freedoms in the interest, health, and well-being of individual societies or the world as a whole, nor stood against the fear rousing rhetoric of political, institutional, social, and economic manufactures of war and violence. The target population for peace educators has literally come to include all persons at home and around the globe who are caught in or struggling to overcome personal and social injustices, oppressive conditions, and/or destructive forces that prevent them from experiencing peace, happiness, human rights, and human dignity. Peace educators found education to be a means for raising consciousness and conscience about the causes of these negative conditions that are created intentionally and unintentionally by individuals and collectives.
