The Concept of Peace Education and Its Skills and Values

A new way of thinking about peace is so important today. The power of our own understanding and views of peace both as a condition and as a value cannot be underestimated. It is because our ideas shape our feelings and our actions, as well as how we live and how we relate with others.

According to Federico Mayer, “Peace is possible for life at all stages and it is up to man to choose his destiny or to suffer from the horrors of wars. Today mankind is at the crossroad where he has to choose with courage, determination and imagination”.

Over the past many years, peace workers have increasingly challenged this conventional view of peace and have declared that “peace is not simply a lack of war or nonviolence; peace means the eradication of all facets of injustice” (Cheng & Kurtz, 1998). There is a consensus that we need to have a comprehensive view of peace if we are to move toward a genuine peace culture.

Peace researchers and educators now seem satisfied to split the concept of peace in two, stating that the meaning of peace can be captured by the idea of a negative peace and the idea of positive peace. Peace is defined as a figure….