Education for Peace in Northern Ireland and the USA

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24 Winter 2004 Winter 2004 25

Theory and Research in Social EducationWinter 2004, Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 24-38© College and University Faculty Assemblyof National Council for the Social Studies

Education for Peace in Northern Ireland and the USA

Candice CarterUniversity of North Florida

AbstractReviewed here are approaches to peacebuilding citizenship education in Northern Ireland and the USA, where social education has been responding to intergroup and structural violence. Strategies for peacebuilding have been developed and implemented in response to societal conflicts, government mandates, and available funding. Government support for peace initiatives in Northern Ireland is greater than in the USA, although they both are em-phasizing the importance of citizenship education. In recognition of the pivotal position they have as model peacebuilders while educating children, this paper considers teachers’ own citizenship training and experiences. Recommenda-tions for teacher preparation and instructional guidelines follow the review of peace-oriented social education, as well as research on training educators and their students for proactive citizenship and democracy in contexts of multifaceted violence.

Education for Peace in Northern Ireland and the USA

Educators in Northern Ireland and the United States of America have recognized the crucial role that schools play in fostering social harmony within and between groups in their societies (Gladden, 2002; Kadel & Haller, 1999). Learning about, resolving, and prevent-ing violent outcomes of conflict is an instructional goal that educators accomplish through more than teaching behavior management. Social studies curriculum and instruction provide opportunities for learning about peace, especially when peace development is set forth as an of-ficial goal. Beyond the goals of learning about and practicing nonviolent conflict resolution, students learn through social studies the multiple ways people live, work, and take democratic action for peace (Banks & Banks, 1999; Carter, 2004; Sunal & Haas; 2002). Teachers need training and support for instruction that engenders social harmony, cross-cul-

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tural understanding, proactive citizenship, and constructive conflict resolution. Reviewed here are methods designed to facilitate develop-ment of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that may help citizens build peace in their societies and beyond. Additionally considered is teacher preparation for such instruction.

This discussion of education designed for peacebuilding citi-zenship is an outcome of my ongoing examination of social education in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Jacksonville, Florida. In recognition of the similar challenges teachers and teacher educators face in Northern Ireland (NI) and the United States of America (the USA), I conducted a case study of peace education initiatives in both nation-states between 2000 and 2003 (Merriam, 1998). Study data include individual interviews of teachers, administrators, social studies curriculum officers, teacher educators of undergraduate and graduate courses in social education, staff members of community projects in peacebuilding, and students’ parents. All participants were asked to describe social education that was designed for or contributed to peace through education. They were further asked about challenges they perceived in developing or conducting such programs. In addition to planned categories for data collection, new ones emerged, particularly in teacher preparation. For example, cultural divisions across teacher education programs within a university were cogent in teacher training and practice.

Data collected in Jacksonville, derived from interviews of edu-cators and their associates regarding social education, were compared to similar constructs of peace-oriented education in Belfast. During the study, educators in Florida and throughout the USA lacked an official peace curriculum. In contrast, the education board of NI adopted one for use across all schools. The NI national curriculum and many commu-nity-based peace programs that were funded by the British government provided a rich context for this study. In 2003 my academic assignment included supervision of teacher interns in Florida schools as well as two integrated primary schools in Belfast. This allowed me to observe instruction across a wide range of classes and to informally interview the teachers. The integrated schools of NI are an ongoing peace intervention, in which Protestant and Catholic students and their teachers join together in the same school. In such settings students see sustained peacebuilding processes. Bridging the denominational and secular polarities of school-ing in NI, integrated schools were one of the first violence-reduction education methods to be implemented there (Smith, 2001).

Divided Societies

The goals of learning about and practicing peacebuilding citizenship are currently crucial due to a lack of peaceful conflict resolution across NI, the USA, and the world (Astor, Behre, Fravil &

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Wallace, 1997). Destructive conflict is pervasive, especially where social injustice and economic disparity between groups is evident, as in NI and the USA. Sectarianism —a preference for insulation in one’s own identity group— continues to be an antecedent of destructive social and political conflict. Another antecedent is injustice reflected in unequally protected rights of different cultural groups. Responses to sectarianism and unequal rights in NI have ranged from widespread intergroup and structural violence to physical destruction of places and people. Cognizant of the struggle for equal rights of dominated peoples in the USA, which escalated during the 1960’s, dominated peoples in NI began fighting anew their own battle against unfair discrimination in their nation. In 1969 ‘the troubles’ began, with armed conflict among clash-ing groups including Catholics, Protestants, unionists loyal to Britain, and nationalists who wanted freedom from British rule of NI. Polariza-tion of cultural and political groups in NI continues to be evident in divided school systems. For example, two teacher education programs within the same university separately attract Catholic and Protestant students. Since ‘the troubles,’ cross-cultural integration in NI and the USA has been limited, mainly seen within interest groups and schools that purposefully combine populations (Smith, 2001). The divisions in all levels of education replicate social and political group separations in NI. Many teachers are trained through and work only in the contexts of their own cultural communities, which are geographically separated from those with different cultural and political identities.

A key place to address sectarianism is through education of both teachers and their students. Teacher education in the USA also reflects its nation’s social, political, and economic divisions. For ex-ample, in both NI and the USA, dominated cultural groups face more challenges in obtaining higher education and equal career opportuni-ties. Standardization of curriculum and assessment is a current trend in both NI and the USA. In the context of this standardization in NI, the British government, due to its interest in settling conflicts in NI, continues to provide more resources than the USA for development and distribution of curricula, as well as school and community programs, for peacebuilding.

Understanding and managing normal emotions as well as traumas are among the foundations for peacebuilding. In NI, some teenaged students have become armed rebels and paramilitaries in response to their perceived enemies. In the USA, some adolescents have also been arming themselves and carrying out violence against others as well as themselves. The widespread loss of human life dur-ing ‘the troubles’ and continued violence between contesting groups in NI have necessitated therapeutic and other forms of psychological aid (Errante, 1997). However, recognition of the psychological needs of students who are victimized by discrimination and verbal or physical

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abuse is rarely included in teacher education in either country. Rather, school psychologists receive training for trauma relief and resources for accomplishing it (Gernstein & Moeschberger, 2003). Classroom instruction emphasizing social emotional literacy in the USA has re-sulted in positive effects on student well being and on instructional time that is less disrupted by interpersonal conflicts (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2003; Greenberg, Kusché, Cook, & Quamma, 1995).

Citizenship Education

Citizenship responsibility includes more than nonviolent prob-lem solving. Ending political violence is a crucial task. Additionally, students need to know how peace can be built through social, economic, environmental, and political actions that provide all members of a com-munity with equal opportunities and venues for cooperative interac-tion. The development of peace incorporates a comprehensive vision of, and work toward, a fair society and a commitment to maintaining as well as building it.

Citizenship education, like peace education, varies as a result of differing notions of democratic citizenship (Basile, White & Robinson, 2000; Boulding, 1988; Engle & Ochoa, 1988; Hahn, 1998; Limage, 2001; Preuss, Everson, Koenig-Archibugi & Lefebvre, 2003). Citizenship cur-ricula often may include citizens’ and states’ official rights and respon-sibilities and a range of actions for responding to current conflicts. In most nation-states, dominated citizens (typically marginalized cultural groups, females, and children) have been officially or unofficially rep-resented in citizenship curriculum and in hidden curriculum as second class, whether they have been politically passive or active (Carpenter, 2001, Kerber, 1998; Lentin, 1999; Pak, 2002). Differences in citizenship education reflect contextual factors, including governmental and inter-est-group influences in each nation. Violence in NI and the USA have spurred peacebuilding initiatives in schools and community programs, with a range of government support. Currently, social education guide-lines and government policies in NI and the USA have similar goals for fostering democratic citizenship, including an emphasis on developing peaceful cooperation among all citizens.

Education for peace augments the basic goal of cooperative citizenship with a vision of social justice for all people, in and beyond their own societies. Peacebuilding citizenship education aims to in-still global and local knowledge, skills, and dispositions to recognize diverse perspectives and cultures and to help members of a society cooperate for the good of all, not just for the needs of its privileged and dominant members (Ausberger, 1992; Lantieri & Patti, 1996). Such education can expand students’ capacity to understand human

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interdependence and to identify the antecedents of social conflicts that— when the needs of all involved are not addressed— can escalate to violence (Carter, 1999; Nader, 1992).

Societies of NI and the USA suffer social divisions stemming from cultural, economic, and political differences. For example, the native Travelers of NI and migrant farm laborers in the USA are often ostracized and pushed to the fringes of their societies. Peacebuilding instruction teaches students to recognize such social injustice, degrada-tion, and exclusion. Other lessons may focus on the needs of foreign populations on whom students’ societies are dependent for resources or production of goods. Thus, education for peacebuilding citizenship is responsive to injustice as well as diversity and facilitates integration through multiple means.

Multifaceted Integration

Teaching toward peacebuilding in NI and the USA has included various forms of social and curriculum integration (Stomfay-Stitz, 1993). Integration as an instructional approach to peacebuilding combines topics, skills, and experience with addressing community problems (Carter, 2003; Colby, 2003; Galston, 2003.) For example, although teach-ing students to ask “What can I do for my country?” is not new, orienting them towards service beyond military training is now an official goal in the USA. Students’ service and problem solving in their communities is intended to facilitate learning about community members and their needs. When such learning involves cross-cultural integration, it has potential to build peace by increasing young citizens’ and their teachers’ knowledge about people whom they might otherwise not encounter.

Contact with ‘the other’ was an early integration interven-tion in the USA: In official desegregation, students from a mixture of ethnicities matriculated together on the same campus. However, peacebuilding on these integrated campuses was generally under-fa-cilitated in the USA; self-segregation of students within an integrated campus became commonplace. In NI, early peacebuilding initiatives involved contact between denominational and secular school mem-bers, often for only a few hours or a day. It has become apparent that mere contact is insufficient for developing dispositions that facilitate social change (Cairns & Hewstone, 2002). Although contact between divided peoples sometimes has resulted in their cooperation with each other on campus, such interventions have been insufficient for broader peacebuilding. Strategies that have been more helpful involve sustained positive contact with ‘the other’ in long-term cooperative projects that teach social skills such as compassionate communication, knowledge of diverse perspectives, and recognition and acceptance of cultural diversity (Cairns & Hewstone, 2002; Rosenberg, 2000).

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Sustained interaction in projects that support positive experi-ences and in-depth communication are occurring in NI through youth-development programs such as the Youth Council. Here, youth have continual peacebuilding interactions through activities supported by government funding. Some initiatives combine youth from divided and often conflicting communities, outside of their homelands, for weeks or even months of sustained relationship development as well as learning. Similar instruction has been occurring in NI integrated schools, which keep students in mixed cohorts that foster relationship development and collaborative learning. In such settings, students’ views of each other are augmented by new perspectives that facilitate understand-ing and dispositional changes. In her examination of the outcomes of integrated schooling, McGlynn (2003) surveyed and interviewed 112 former students and their administrators. The majority of students (96%, especially those with limited prior cross-cultural experiences) reported positive outcomes such as comfort with cross-cultural encounters, friendship, and integrated perspectives on social issues.

Teaching about and fostering positive attitudes towards human diversity are peacebuilding goals in NI and the USA. Whereas multi-cultural curriculum has been integrated in social studies programs in the USA, it is a newer strand of citizenship education in NI. Due to a lower rate of immigration in NI during the later 1900’s, social educa-tion mainly addressed appreciating religious diversity between ‘Irish Catholics’ and ‘British Protestants’ in NI. Subsequent to the Belfast Agreement in 1998 that officially affirmed peace dialogues between political factions as well as with their British government, a curriculum integrating peace themes was adopted. The original program, “Edu-cation for Diversity,” and the revised edition, “Education for Mutual Understanding,” were developed for teaching about peace thematically throughout subject areas (Smith & Robinson, 1996).

Implementation

As in the USA, the distribution of new curricula in NI without teacher training and ongoing support for its the use results in limited implementation. My interviews of NI educators in children’s schools and teacher education programs revealed a common perception of the need for both instruction and support for use of Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU). One education professor in NI explained that another constraint in the use of EMU was time. He observed that time to fit in lessons on EMU was not a top priority for most professors in his graduate teacher preparation program. As in the USA, there was no accountability in NI for implementing peacebuilding curriculum. However, the importance of EMU was legitimated more, because of its government sponsorship, than multicultural education curricula in the

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USA, which have usually lacked such support. Interviews with educa-tors of other teacher preparation programs in NI revealed another con-straint — teachers’ and teacher educators’ need for comfort with EMU instruction. School administrators likewise expressed frustration with the failure of their schools’ teachers to increase their use of peacebuild-ing curriculum, particularly EMU. Observations in classrooms did not make clear whether teachers shared this frustration about inadequate implementation of EMU. Researchers at one university explained that teachers who felt uncomfortable with one or more parts of EMU had lower usage levels. Facilitating discussions of intergroup conflict and past violence can be challenging for teachers who live in segregated societies. The need to support teachers’ skills and efforts to conduct intercultural and conflictual discussions has been recognized.

Peacebuilding Skills

The skills and dispositions for using nonviolent communica-tion are developed in and beyond schools, through lessons and conflict resolution activities. NI schools build student capacities for dialogue in Circle Time, a class meeting in which all students take turns to talk. After a short Circle Time ‘warm-up’ activity, students express their thoughts and work through problems. In both NI and the USA, peer conflict mediation is also used in schools to help students peacefully discuss and resolve interpersonal problems at school. In discussion-based ac-tivities like Circle Time and mediation, students have the opportunity to learn to express in words their feelings and needs, to listen to those of another, and to plan solutions to their mutual problems. The goal is to teach problem solving through civil discourse, rather than verbal or physical violence. In history lessons and analyses of current societal or global conflicts, students learn about how citizens have used dialogue and mediation to peacefully work through difficult problems.

Key to finding a mutually acceptable resolution to a conflict is seeing it from the viewpoints of all who are involved. Perspective taking requires dialogue. In NI, and to a lesser degree in the USA, community or special-interest dialogue groups are helping peoples in conflict to build discourse bridges across their cultural divides. Social studies lessons that provide information from different sources and perspectives about past or current conflicts show students the value of multiple resources and broad viewpoints for understanding prob-lems. Curricula in the USA, and more recently in NI, have expanded to include information about the lives of some diverse peoples. Nev-ertheless, educators in NI and the USA typically need to supplement literature and media provided by their school boards with information from other sources. With sufficient information from a broad range of perspectives, students can learn the skills of critical analysis, which is

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a foundation of peacebuilding. Careful analysis of text, literature, and media authors’ perspectives and goals, as well as missing information, helps citizens to recognize and respond to diverse stakeholders’ agendas in addressing local or global community problems.

Peacebuilding education prepares students for proactive citi-zenship, which includes working to nonviolently resolve conflicts for the well-being of others as well as themselves. While peacebuilding education for young children may attempt to foster community involve-ment through caring activities that build capacities such as empathy and kindness, curriculum for older students typically prepares them to exercise various forms of democratic citizenship without violence. Lessons on political rights and responsibilities are common in curricula of both nations. Less commonly provided by school boards in NI and the USA are curricula about how people have responded to conflict in proactive ways. Where standards and guidelines for action-based learning are lacking, school boards and administrators are less likely to support use of curriculum and instruction that activates students in community-based problem solving (National Council for the Social Studies, 1994). For example, the National Council for the Social Studies in the USA recommends that a standard for developing students’ civic participation through problem solving and intergroup collaboration be added to the national guidelines for social studies. Although there have been controversies over use of curricula that include multicul-tural- and/or gender- equity issues, administrators and teachers have recognized its value (Symcox, 2002; Berman, 1999; Dunn & Morgan, 1999; Harris, 2000).

Issue-based instruction, which enhances relevance of lessons and stimulates motivation for citizen action, has been successfully implemented in social studies classrooms in the USA and beyond (Evans & Saxe, 1996; Zaff, Malanchuk, Michehlsen & Eccles, 2003). Citizenship curricula currently sponsored by the British government include guidelines for facilitating students’ study and actual experience of democratic peacebuilding problem solving (Hicks, 2002). Citizenship education with the goal of peacebuilding enables students to learn and make decisions about, then take action to address, real problems in their local to global community. For example, Key Stage 3 of the new “Local and Global Citizenship” curriculum, provided throughout NI, recommends that students:

ß Express informed opinions about human rights ß Participate in democratic processes and methods of con-

flict management, and explore alternatives to violenceß Demonstrate an awareness of the role and influence of

the media (Arlow, 2003, p. 5).

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An additional standard for evaluating the outcome and process used for addressing social issues might promote the reflective process that sup-ports skill development (Le Métais, 2003). School use of curricula that is socially inclusive and action oriented is controversial. Consequently, teachers who promote peace through inclusion and social justice must be prepared for engagement in political processes, as well as instruc-tion about them.

Like their students, teachers can be empowered by experience with citizenship action, which can augment their instruction and their legitimacy as role models. Because white, middle class females are the majority of teacher candidates training to work in childhood education, research is especially needed on this population’s knowledge, skills, dispositions, and behavior as citizens. While examining this phenom-ena with teacher candidates, including both traditional day students and night students, Ginsburg (2001) found that they had a range of knowledge of economic, political, or social problems and possible teach-ing-for-change strategies. The night students in his sample tended to be older, employed, and showing a higher propensity for political citi-zenship than the day students. For example, 9 out of 31 day students, and 2 out of 20 night students, claimed they did not plan to vote. Based on his four-year analysis of male and female student discourse and responses on a survey, Ginsburg contended that “…girls and women tend to be socialized away from involvement in the public sphere, and their…private sphere responsibilities make such participation more difficult (2001, p. 181). Ginsburg also pointed out that biased media presentations that highlight possible or real corruption by government were another factor that could affect citizenship motivation for politi-cal participation. His research highlights the importance of teaching critical media literacy (Cortés, 2000) and expanding the knowledge and experiences of teacher candidates in order to change their apathetic dispositions. Based on her observations of social studies teachers in training, Ukpokodu (2003) reinforces the contention that “…preservice teachers’ lack of interest in global concerns is a result of their lack of awareness” (p. 79). Ukpokodu describes her own challenges in training teacher candidates, who often expressed pessimism about their abil-ity to make a difference. Her transformative social studies instruction includes modeling and examples of social activism.

Transformation of Citizenship Characteristics

Transforming students’ knowledge base and dispositions, the key tasks of social education for peace, must begin with teacher candidates (Day & Leitch, 2001). For becoming peacebuilding role models and instructors, prospective teachers need knowledge, skills, and dispositions for proactive economic, multicultural, political, and

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environmental citizenship (Howard, 1999; Smylie, Bay & Tozer, 1999; Basile, White & Robinson, 2000). Teacher knowledge and beliefs, es-pecially their conceptions of citizenship, influence their pedagogy and curriculum selection (Anderson, Avery, Pederson, Smith, & Sullivan, 1997; Coughlin, 2002; Pang & Gibson, 2001). In his qualitative study of eight teachers training for, and subsequent implementation of, the curriculum Facing History and Ourselves, Lowenstein (2003) found that teacher identity and corresponding life experiences filtered their pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987), while their percep-tions of student need, instructional environment, and historical moment influenced their curricular purpose. For example, one of the teachers in Lowenstein’s study was a Muslim Pakistani-American whose experi-ences with social discrimination in the USA after the crises of September 11, 2001, enhanced her motivation and capacity for teaching multicul-tural citizenship and the effects of social exclusion. Another teacher in Lowenstein’s study described how his duties upon becoming a new father sensitized him to challenges many parents face in balancing individual, family, and citizenship responsibilities.

The influence of national culture and identities as a source of teachers’ conceptions of citizenship has been documented in a compara-tive study across Great Britain, Greece, Portugal, and Spain (Ivinson, Arnot, Araújo, Deliyanni & Tomé, 2000). Because NI is governed by Great Britain, the characteristics of citizenship that British student teachers discussed in these research interviews are especially relevant here. British teacher candidates’ conceptions of citizenship included a more global concept of public space for citizenship, an individualist more than collective sense of citizenship, less action orientation, and engagement in social exchange via mass media communication and consumerism. The researchers found that “social exclusion [in Britain] was associated with race, ethnicity, colour, gender, sexual orientation and, unique to British data, having an Irish nationality” (Ivinson, Arnot, Araujo, Deliyanni, & Tome, 2000, p. 144). Other British research further documents this problem of social exclusion, expressed in racially dif-ferential treatment in instruction and discipline (Callender & Wright, 2000). Teacher educators need to examine how they are transforming or perpetuating antecedents of social injustice exhibited by their stu-dents (Phelan, 2001; Writer & Chávez, 2002). Teachers need to recognize how their dominant or discriminated backgrounds with their variable privileges affect their pedagogy (King, 1997; Macintosh, 1992; McLaren & Giroux, 1997).

In his model of multicultural education, Banks (1997) argues that social action experience is the most comprehensive and advanced level of learning about differences; this argument would apply to teach-er candidates as well as to their students. Student interest, confidence, and knowledge tend to increase where students have opportunities

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to discuss controversial public issues in inclusive classroom contexts (Hahn, 1996). This finding, too, would apply to teacher candidates as well as students. Louise Diamond (2000) articulates three crucial ele-ments needed for peacebuilding social education. First is an ideal of peace, in which peaceful futures are comprehensively envisioned and planned (also Grady, 2003; Hutchinson, 1996). The second element of peacebuilding is commitment to work for peace in the face of any con-flict. One’s stated commitment can be actualized through self-fulfilling prophecy. Finally, Diamond describes action for peace, supported by vision and commitment, which can increase one’s efficacy as a proac-tive citizen and teacher.

Conclusion

Education for nonviolent conflict resolution and proactive citizenship is variably supported in NI and the USA. Curriculum and instruction currently implemented for skill development, amelioration of social problems, and active citizenship have variations that reveal local responses to violence in NI and the USA, as well as different lev-els of commitment to improving humans’ interaction with each other and with the environment through education. Consistent government support and peacebuilding criteria included in citizenship education guidelines provide a necessary foundation for transformative social education. When support and guidelines for all levels of citizenship education in NI and the USA more comprehensively include peace-building experience criteria, teachers and teacher educators should be better able to facilitate transformative social studies education that develops students’ capacities for nonviolent living across its many dimensions. While this paper has focused on education in NI and the USA, many of the challenges described here exist in several countries that are also refining education for peacebuilding citizenship. The field of social education needs additional research on the effects of current strategies and recommendations for building peace through citizenship instruction within and across democracies.

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CANDICE C. CARTER is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Services at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL 32224.

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Documents

Education for Peace in Northern Ireland and the USA