Civic Education and Global Citizenship: A Deweyan Perspective
by Moses Chikwe

The Applicability of the Strategic Killing Model to the Case of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
by Shavkat Kasymov

Designing Teacher Education Programs for Human Rights
by Joshua C. Francis

Culture as the Cause of Conflict. A Case study in west Pokot District, Kenya
by Daniel Nganga

Outsourcing War and Peace
A review of Laura A. Dickinson, Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011).
by Sam R. Snyder

Youth as Actors in Peace and Human Rights Education
By Marloes van Houten and Vera Santner

Unidades Móviles como estrategia para prevenir la violencia y educar para la paz: la experiencia de Antioquia, Colombia
By Juan Carlos Rivillas and Olga Espinosa Henao

Participatory Artistic Quiltmaking for Peacebuilding and Peace Education: Reflections on a Workshop in the International Institute for Peace Education 2010 and on a Research Study
By Roselynn Verwoord

In addition, in this issue two poems by Andrew Moss and five articles concerning various philosophical and pedagogical aspects of peace education and environmental education are presented. The poems and articles include the following:

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
By Andrew Moss

Homage to Gandhi
By Andrew Moss

Maria Montessori: Education for Peace
By Barbara Thayer-Bacon

Contextualizing Peace in Islamic Traditions: Challenging Cultural Hegemony
By Candice Marie Nasir

A Cultural Approach to Peace Education
By Carl Templin and Jing Sun

Consumption in Environmental Education: Developing curriculum that Addresses Cradle to Cradle Principles
By Helen Kopnina

Applying The New Ecological Paradigm Scale in the Case of Environmental Education: Qualitative Analysis of the Ecological Worldview of Dutch Children
By Helen Kopnina

On Wrestling with Alienation and Producing More Progressive Mental Conceptions that Remake our World: Doing Democracy
By Adam Renner, Nancye E. McCrary, and Doug Selwyn

Fostering Social, Emotional, Ethical, Civic and Academic Learning (SEECAL) Through Constructive Controversy: What are the Implications for the Professional Development of High School Teachers? by Deborah Donahue-Keegan

Perceptions of Citizenship in Preservice Elementary Social Studies Education by Hilary Harms Logan

The Dialogic Classroom As Pedagogy: Teaching The Civic Mission Of Schools by Andrea M. Hyde

Emotion, Reflection, and Activism: Educating for Peace in and for Democracy by Eric C. Sheffield, Yolanda Medina, and Jeffrey Cornelius-White

The Search for Balance: Understanding and Implementing Yoga, Peace, and Democratic Education by Joy L. Wiggins

Teacher Development as Deliberative Democratic Practice:
A Precursor to Educating for Democratic Citizenship by Diane R.Wood, Elizabeth K. DeMulder, and Stacia M. Stribling.

Please find the articles on our journal page above.

Under this conceptual umbrella, a call for contributions to a special issue went out to the fields of peace and democratic education seeking manuscripts from educators, practitioners, and researchers to explore questions, such as: What is the nature of the skills, values, and beliefs necessary for democratic participation, and in what situations do they occur and matter? What role does (citizenship) education play in addressing such skills, values, knowledge, and beliefs? What pedagogical methods best develop these democratic capacities? Do current educational frameworks account for the demands of today’s democratic citizenship?

The following articles comprise this issue:

Reflective Pedagogy, Cosmopolitanism, and Critical Peace Education for Political Efficacy: A Discussion of Betty A. Reardon’s Assessment of the Field By Betty A. Reardon and Dale T. Snauwaert
In a recent publication entitled ”Concerns, Cautions and Possibilities for Peace Education for Political Efficacy”, Betty Reardon reflects on the state of peace education and offers a brilliant reaffirmation and further elaboration of the central importance and nature of a pedagogy of reflective inquiry for a comprehensive/critical peace education. Betty Reardon is an internationally renowned peace scholar and peace educator. She has been instrumental in the establishment of peace education institutions and programs around the world. Her work has defined the fields of peace studies and peace education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss her recent assessment and elaboration. In particular, the connection between cosmopolitanism and reflective pedagogy will be explored in greater detail, in addition to the posing of further questions for inquiry related to the relationship between dialogue, conceptual clarity, philosophical frameworks, diversity and reflective pedagogy.

In Learning to Trust Our Teachers Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon and Scott Ellison argue, based upon the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière, that teachers can be trusted and treated as professionals, and that Americans examine their lack of trust for teachers in the U.S. They argue for a of model democracy in schools that will produce liberated democratic citizens. They maintain that “It is through teachers trusting that students want to learn that students are emancipated and obliged to use their own intelligence, rather than stultified by their teachers. It is through administrators, legislators, and citizens trusting that teachers want to be the best teachers they can be, and are capable of being intelligent, ethical professionals, that teachers are emancipated too. Modeling democracy in our schools means learning to trust our teachers and our students.” For this essay our attention will be on teachers.

In her article Democratic Citizenship, Critical Multiculturalism, and the Case of Muslims Since September 11, Liz Jackson maintains that at the core of democratic citizenship is the understanding of other people and groups in society. She explores aspects of the “challenges public school educators face in constructively and accurately teaching about controversial groups in their classrooms by exploring the case of educating about Muslims since September 11 (9/11).” She argues that the capability of multicultural educators to provide “accurate, balanced understandings” of others is impeded by “limitations internal to the traditional approaches to multicultural education in the United States, as well as by expectations set by current educational standards and related constraints set by typical teacher education programs.” She critically explores common multicultural education theories and practices, and proposes a strategy of “critical multiculturalism.”

In Habitat for Humanity and the Support of Civic Participation, Todd Junkins and Darcia Narvaez pose the question: “What is the best way for individuals to develop skills for civic participation?” They argue that “The Integrative Ethical Education model” is a potent method to develop civic skill, for it offers “a comprehensive approach to ethical education that focuses on skill development within context.” In this article they use this model to “assess Habitat for Humanity’s systematic attempt to bring disenfranchised members of society into the community as full participating members.” They also explore ways to assist Habitat in achieving success as an agent of civic change.

In her article Society’s Response to Environmental Challenges: Citizenship and the Role of Knowledge, Cecilia Lundholm explores the aims and purposes of environmental education and learning, including learning and citizenship. She argues that different social ‘actors’ are dependent on each other in responding to environmental challenges in particular the interactions of government, business and the individual (as citizen, voter and consumer). The paper addresses what the critically important question of the knowledge needed for citizens to understand environmental problems and society’s responses to those problems.

A vital aspect of democracy is the ability of individual citizens to engage in knowledge creation and evaluation in a critical manner. In today’s controversy - and information-rich society developing one’s own beliefs and values, evaluating a constantly growing body of new knowledge, and having an understanding of current politics is becoming an increasingly complex and demanding challenge. In this context, education for citizenship is an important undertaking to provide individuals with skills, values, knowledge, and beliefs needed to successfully participate in democratic processes and to foster a culture of active civic engagement.
Under this conceptual umbrella, a call for contributions to a special issue went out to the fields of peace and democratic education seeking manuscripts from educators, practitioners, and researchers to explore questions, such as: What is the nature of the skills, values, and beliefs necessary for democratic participation, and in what situations do they occur and matter? What role does (citizenship) education play in addressing such skills, values, knowledge, and beliefs? What pedagogical methods best develop these democratic capacities? Do current educational frameworks account for the demands of today’s democratic citizenship? In response to this call, a large amount of quality manuscripts was received from a diversity of disciplines ranging from psychology to teacher training and development, to democracy, health and environmental education, and to philosophical foundations of education. Due to the quality and diversity of the submissions, the decision was made to publish not one special issue, but a sequence of three, a trilogy entitled “Skills, Values, and Beliefs for Today’s Democratic Citizenship” – with the first issue subtitled “Psychological Competencies”, the second “Teacher Training and Development”, and the third “Philosophical Foundations of Education”. Because these three categories are fairly broad, some articles roam in their overlaps. Furthermore, I would like to note that only the first issue entails discussions of its article contributions because it is much smaller in scope than the consecutive issues. The following articles comprise this special issue:

“Good” Americans and “Bad” Americans: Personal Epistemology, Moral Reasoning, and Citizenship. By Lori Olafson

Conflict, Affect and the Political: On Disagreement as Democratic Capacity. By Claudia Ruitenberg

Epistemic Understanding and Sound Reasoning Skills that Underlie Effective Democratic Engagement. By Michael Weinstock

Teachers’ Epistemological Stances and Citizenship Education. By Gregory Schraw, Lori Olafson, Michelle Vander Veldt, & Jennifer Ponder

Argumentation, Anger, and Action: Citizenship Education In and Out of the Classroom. By Lisa Bendixen (Discussant)

Democracy as Public Deliberation and the Psychology of Epistemological World Views and Moral Reasoning: A Philosophical Reflection. By Dale Snauwaert (Discussant)

To download the articles, please click on ‘Journal’ above.

The current issue of In Factis Pax is comprised of eleven articles that were originally presented at the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE), July 26 - August 2, 2009 Budapest, Hungary. In addition, this issues includes two review essays of books of particular importance to Peace Education (see below).

The institute was co-organized by the IIPE secretariat and the EJBO Foundation with the support and sponsorship of UNESCO, the Center for Nonviolence and Democratic Education of the University of Toledo, Ohio and the Biosophical Institute.

“IIPE 2009 explored the theme of “Human Rights Learning as Peace Education: Pursuing Democracy in a Time of Crisis.”  Human rights learning, as facilitated by peace educators is critical, participatory and learner centered.  It is intended to prepare learners to work toward the transformation of the existing order of violence and injustice into a world social system based upon the principle of universal human dignity. This principle of human dignity underlies all human rights concepts and norms and is at the core of human rights learning (HRL).  HRL emphasizes modes of critical thinking and self reflection that are necessary for internalizing the essential principles of human rights, enabling individuals and communities to become agents of change (http://www.i-i-p-e.org/iipe/2009.html).” In turn, human rights learning is essential for democracy.

The following articles explore the various theoretical and practical dimensions of human rights learning and democracy from a variety of perspectives and within a variety of social and cultural contexts.

This special issue creates the continuation of a historical scholarly record of IIPE as well as making its rich discourse available to the general public and academic community. We invite you to contemplate the rich reflections of the authors and to engage with us in further dialogue. Comments on the Blog section of this site are invited.

To download the following articles, please click on ‘Journal’ above.

Action Ideas in Educating for Human Rights and Towards a Culture of Peace in Puerto Rico
By Anita Yudkin Suliveres and Anaida Pascual Morán

On The Power(s) of Writing: What Writing Studies Can
Offer to Peace and Human Rights Educators
By Andrew Moss

Human Rights, Popoki and Bare Life
By Ronni Alexander

International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education:
An Exploration of Differences and Complementarity
Josefine Scherling

Spiritualiy: An Approach to Freedom and Democracy
By Jalka

Poetry and Peace: Explorations of Language and “Unlanguage” as
Transformative Pedagogy
By Mary Lee Morrison

Broadening Horizons: Is There a Place for Peace Education in the American Legal System and More Specifically in Family Law?
By: MiaLisa McFarland

Anti-discrimination Education in Japan: Buraku Sabetsu Simulation
By Daisuke Nojima

Peace Playground
By Éva Blénesi

Doing What We Teach
By Jasmin Nario-Galace

Peace Channel: A channel for human rights education and peace in Nagaland.
By Fr. Rev. C.P. Anto

Book Review Essays

Recasting Classical and Contemporary Philosophies to Ground Peace
Education: A Review Essay of James Page, Peace Education: Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press, 2008)
By David Ragland

Reclaiming a Democratic Political Community: A Review of Paul Theobald, Education Now: How Rethinking America’s Past Can Change Its Future (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2009).
By Dale T. Snauwaert

The current issue of In Factis Pax is comprised of thirteen articles (and one poem) that were originally presented at the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE), at the University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel (July 28 - August 4, 2008).

The Institute was sponsored and organized by the following organizations and individuals:

PEACE EDUCATION CENTER, TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, GLOBAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATES
Tony Jenkins, IIPE Global Coordinator (Co-Director, PEC; Program Coordinator, GEA)
Janet Gerson, IIPE Education Director (Co-Director, Peace Education Center)
Marielle Amhrein, PEC Intern
Sarah Bou Ajram, GEA Intern
Luellen Kazan, GEA Intern
Kinneret Kohn, PEC/GEA Volunteer
UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA: JEWISH-ARAB CENTER
Faisal Azaiza, JAC Director
Patrick Maestracci, JAC Adminstrator
Nurit Gadir, JAC Administrative Coordinator
Rimah Farah, JAC Assistant
Emily Singer, JAC Intern
Marguy Ansher, School of Social Work
CENTER OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY, KIBBUTZIM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Haggith Gor Ziv, Co-Director
Galia Zalmonson Levi, Co-Director
Gal Harmat, Co-Director
Natali Gidens, Intern
UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA: CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON PEACE EDUCATION
Gavriel Solomon, Co-Director

The theme of IIPE 2008 was “Critical Pedagogy: Educating for Justice and Peace.” The focus of the discourse centered on the nature and practice of dialogical education for social change and the interrelationship between peace education and critical pedagogy. The core inquiry examined education for a culture of peace interconnected with the dynamics and imperatives of social transformation. The articles published in this issue instantiate and develop this inquiry.

This issue is logically divided into three main areas: the theory of critical pedagogy and peace education, its practice, and its theorizing and implementation in regional contexts, including the issues of conflict resolution, sex trafficking, nuclear proliferation, and political and cross-cultural understanding in Israel, Palestine, the Middle East in general, Ireland, and Nigeria.

Regarding the theory of critical pedagogy and peace education, in his article, The International Institute on Peace Education: Twenty-six Years Modeling Critical, Participatory Peace Pedagogy, Tony Jenkins articulates the philosophy of IIPE as a unique form of critical peace pedagogy. In Persistence of Vision: Hegemony and Counter-hegemony in the Everyday, Robert E. Bahruth explores “persistence of vision,” the capacity to perceive a continuous flow of movement, as integral to resisting conformity to the pressures of hegemony. In Hans-Peter Dürr’s Thought as a Source for Peace Work, Francesco Pistolato articulates a holistic epistemology and world-view based upon the physicist Peter Dürr’s interpretation of quantum physics and its implications for the theory and practice of peace education.

The next three articles articulate various pedagogical approaches to peace education. In Popoki, What Color is Peace? Exploring critical approaches to thinking, imagining and expressing peace with the cat, Popoki, Ronni Alexander explores the Popoki Peace Project as a dynamic socially relational educational approach intended to negate all forms of violence, as well as cultivating the imagination and creation of peaceful expression. Stan F. Steiner, in Teaching About Peace Through Children’s Literature, articulates and demonstrates approaches to the use of literature to teach children about peace and related social justice issues, including cross-cultural understanding. In her article, The UNESCO Schools Cooperation Network Health Education Programme, Nicoletta Mantziara presents and analyzes the implementation of the UNESCO schools cooperation network health education programme as an approach to human rights education.

Within the regional context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Udi Adiv, in his article Political Pedagogy Vs Coexistance Education: The Case of Israel\Palestine, analyzes the Israeli education system as a case study for examining and suggesting political perspectives of education. He examines the implications of the radical political approach vs. the critical and coexistence education, as challenges to the ideology of Zionist. He argues for the value of the political idea of republicanism. David Netzer in Painful Past in the Service of Israeli Jewish-Arab Dialogue: The Work of the Center for Humanistic Education at the Ghetto Fighters House in Israel demonstrates the fundamental importance of narrative-based dialogue and the personalization of identities as a process of psychological and social healing between Israeli Jews and Arabs.

In her article Youth Initiatives in Conflict Zones: Focus Northern Ireland Fran Russell Banks analyzes the role of Youth Work in the conflict zone of Northern Ireland. She provides an overview of the historical relationship between the jurisdictions and discusses the origins and processes of youth work development within the conflict zone. She demonstrates the fundamental importance of Youth Work as form of peace education.
In Peace Education in Marginalized Communities in Nigeria: The ‘Protect Our Future’ Project Imoh Colins Edozie explores the conflict in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria and the effect of the ‘Protect our Future’ Project, a peace education initiative, in reducing conflict in Nigeria.

In Thailand’s Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act B.E. 2551 (2008): A New Development in Human Rights Protection and Justice Son Ninsri offers a comparative analysis of anti-trafficking in persons legislation in Thailand. He offers a critical analysis of the evolution of legal action against human trafficking as a key human rights issue.

In her important article on nonproliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Challenges Towards Nonproliferation in the Middle East, Nilsu Goren develops a fundamental understanding of the theoretical background of nonproliferation; as well as defining the role of culture in shaping security culture and thus approaches to nonproliferation. She argues that nonproliferation regimes are faced, acutely in the Middle East, with significant political, economic, cultural and strategic challenges that need to be addressed through regional and global security arrangements.

Lastly, Rinah Sheleff captures the spirit of IIPE 2008 in poetic form in her poem The Origins of Critical Pedagogy, or the Freirization of Paolo.

This special issue creates the beginning of a historical scholarly record of IIPE as well as making its rich discourse available to the general public and academic community. We invite you to contemplate the rich reflections of the authors and to engage with us in further dialogue. Comments on the Blog section of this site are invited.

The current issue of In Factis Pax focuses on the philosophy of The Earth Charter as an ethical, ecological, and pedagogical framework for the transformation of society. The articles in this issue reflect on, analyze, illustrate, and educate about the philosophical foundations of the Earth Charter and its pedagogical and curricular implications. The authors call for and begin to articulate a new social and educational vision, a vision for a more just, peaceful, and ecologically sustainable world. The Earth Charter is “a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st Century.” What is of particular significance is The Earth Charter is the product of a global civil society. It offers a cosmopolitan, planetary ethic that can serve as a moral, political, and educational paradigm for the transformation of both our local and global communities in the direction of an integrated peace.

In addition the current issue offers insightful reflections on Naomi Klein’s provocative book The Shock Doctrine and its implications for an education for peace by Betty Reardon and Mark Porter Webb. They both call for a critical examination of our current social and political paradigm and concomitant modes of thinking. This examination points in the direction of envisioning social and pedagogical alternatives.

We invite you to contemplate the rich reflections on the possibilities of a new social and educational paradigm of integrated peace offered by Abelardo Brenes, Karen Huggins and Kevin Kester, Dale Snauwaert, Sean Blenkinsop, Chris Beeman, Betty Reardon, and Mark Porter Webb and to engage with us in further dialogue.

David Ragland
The University of Toledo
Center for Nonviolence and Democratic Education

The tragic events that occurred at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and the most recent shooting in a Cleveland high school, can and should be put in context. That context arguably includes the violence in U.S. society in general, as manifest in high levels of gun possession (legal and illegal), police violence, and the nation’s predisposition toward solving the majority of its international conflicts by violent means rather than diplomatic ones.

Violence, direct or indirect, is pervasive and often difficult to identify because it is so ingrained in our culture. Many teachers do not recognize that their teaching practices, — whether they be simply didactic, authoritarian, disciplinary, or sometimes culturally insensitive, or even prejudicial — contribute to violence in schools. Similarly, corporations, policy makers and military strategists do not necessarily see their practices toward the communities, other nations and natural environments in which they exist and do business as violent. Educators know that a violent or abusive home life for students can lead to problems in school. Yet, the aforementioned entities and teachers rarely relate violence in schools to corporate, governmental, or bureaucratic violence at work in our society. Rosemarie Stallworth-Clark, (2007), similarly suggest that teachers, scholars and practitioners have not made the psychological connections to these social ills that are “underlying causes of school violence” (p. 15).

Ignoring this connection can be attributed to “cognitive blindness”: an inability to see what is openly present, but is obscured for some particular reason – especially as it is manifest close to home. An example is cognitive blindness in terms of race in America. Many Americans believe that because there is opportunity, that it is available to all Americans and find it hard to believe that some do not have access. This may be one of the underlying reasons for the legislation that ended affirmative action in Public Universities in Michigan. NPR’s Jack Lessenberry (2007) attributed the failure of students like Jennifer Gratz to challenge affirmative action for the rich, to cognitive blindness. To be sure, schools are a microcosm of society; conflicts in society tend to be reproduced in schools.

Leaders of governments may encourage nonviolence in schools but the lessons learned have more to do with what they do, i. e., large military expenditures as opposed to funding to improve education and other social and domestic infrastructure. Politicians rarely make the connections between their actions and the violence in schools, if they do, the outcome does not reflect this awareness. Tony Jenkins (2007) suggests that the failure to think in ways that are critical have to do with a “lack of imagination” (p.23). This lack of imagination is a failure to look deeper and is in essence part of the cognitive blindness. As a result, cognitive blindness, allows the separation of the domains of school and society and, in fact, seals them off from each other.

John Dewey was engaged in the project of dissolving separations between school and society, suggesting that democracy and education ought to be a unified project. Similarly, Peace Education scholars are engaged in bridging the gulf between theory and research on violence with their innovative practices of education for peace in schools.
Betty Reardon in Comprehensive Peace Education (1988) suggests that traditional forms of education are dualistic, dividing pedagogy from society, and are assumed to be value free. Reardon describes how education is never value free, which entails an obligation for educators to explore the ways in which hidden value systems and suppressed political agendas at the macroscopic level may contribute to violence at the local level.

Moreover, Reardon articulates how such a critical approach, including an understanding of the complexity of history and socio-cultural context, can result in beneficial transformations of conflict. Understanding the roots of violence can help students, teachers, policy makers and larger social institutions see and act in the world from a perspective that identifies and deals with conflicts critically, thereby transforming them and the parties engaged in them. Peace education theory and practices embody values that help students develop capacities to participate in such social, group, and interpersonal changes. It is therefore a necessary component of teacher education, thereby eventually becoming integrated organically with school curricula.

To be sure, curricula must be student centered giving voice to the experience as well as the hopes and dreams of students, which implies that teachers need to take the time to learn about student interests. This is particularly true for urban schools, where such interests typically are not included in the standard curriculum. Curriculum in urban schools must do several things – attend to and help describe the environment students live in, empower students so that they become alert and vigilant, and offer culturally sensitive perspectives of hope so that students become interested in achievement, for the right reasons.

According to Maxine Greene, in Variations on a Blue Guitar (1980) any aesthetic education is potentially transformative, signifying “an initiation into new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling and moving”(p.7). Greene continues that this kind of education signifies “ a special kind of reflectiveness and expressiveness” in students, as opposed to the “anesthetic” orientation that is void of critical thinking and characteristic of the standardized testing environment. As we have learned from recent school shootings, when teachers fail to recognize their own violence in teaching practices, or violence received from students’ environment and students fail to perceive and reflect on situations that hold the potential for violent conflict, the result tends to be overt violence. Democratic, multicultural and aesthetic education, which is synonymous with peace education, on the other hand, has the possibility to draw students into an orientation that stresses expanded, sensitized awareness and a thoughtful reflectiveness openness to possibilities of seeing and knowing.

From the perspective of Reardon, Dewey and Greene, a hybridized conception of education for peace that makes connections, and has the content to dissolve dualisms, can help students and educators see past cognitive blindness. The perspective advocates for student-centeredness, where teachers and administrators listen to students to create safe schools and inform the curriculum, as Pedro Noguera (2007) suggests. This re-articulated aesthetic education for peace uses art to spark critical consciousness, suggests unlimited possibilities that not only increase student success, but reduce violence and help students to become wide-awake (Green, 1978) to their global and local responsibility. The creation of a peace education curriculum using art has the possibility to teach students peace in a way that will empower them to transform their orientation into one that is less violent, not only behaviorally but also in terms of their caring vigilance and ability to interpret volatile situations and their consequences.

References:

Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. (2004). Building bridges from school to home. Instructor. 114(1), 24-73.

Green, M. (1978). Wide awakeness and the moral life (Ch. 3). Landscapes of Learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Greene, M. (2001). Variations on a blue guitar. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Jenkins, T. (2007). Rethinking the unimaginable: The need for teacher education in peace education. Harvard Educational Review, 77(3), 15-17.

*Newman, M. (2007, October 10). Gunman Opens Fire at Cleveland High School. New York Times.

Noguera, P. (2007). How listening to students can help schools improve. Theory into Practice, 46(3), 205- 211.

Pennycook, A. (2007). Language, localization, and the real: Hip-hop and the global spread of authenticity. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 6(2), 101-115.

Reardon, B. (1988). Comprehensive peace education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Stallworth-Clark, R. (2007). The psychology of violence and peace. Harvard Educational Review, 77(3), 15-17.

*Websource: http://jackshow.blogs.com/jack/education/index.html: Retrieved 12/2/07

As we stand on the milestone of this inaugural issue of In Factis Pax, we are moved to remember the numerous atrocities being committed in the name of peace. The violence in Iraq, the global environmental crises, or the permissive assumption that the poor are voiceless and powerless are pivotal examples of how peaceful methods of resolving issues are ignored. In Factis Pax gives voice to those issues and individuals that are not often heard. The purpose of this journal is to provide an arena for ideas to be disseminated, where dissent and contestation can take place in a nurtured environment to grow and seek a means for positive peace within our communities. The history of peace education informs us that our citizenry is correlated to the factors that impact a democratic and global citizenship.

Democracy is not a gift delivered on a golden tray. Democracy is the historical growth that has to go through it evolutionary process. –Shirin Ebadi, Iranian Human Rights Activist

Ms. Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize “for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.”

Her work includes leading research projects for the UNICEF office in Tehran. She is cofounder and current president of the Human Rights Defense Center and has defended numerous cases regarding human rights. These include representing journalists who have been arrested for what they have chosen to publish as well as representing a mother whose daughter had been separated from her due to a custody law and was later found tortured to death at the hands of a stepparent.

We look to this kind of work as an example of the need for peace, what is being done to accomplish this as it is communicated through this journal.
Through a democratic approach, the editorial board members of In Factis Pax have stretched each other through discourse and debate. The use of a critical and reflective approach has made the premier issue of this scholarly journal possible. It’s important to note that we are not separate from the process that we are enticing others to engage in. We are not passive participants in the search for positive peace. We are dedicated to the examination of the epistemological relationship between peace, knowledge, and social justice. We invite you the reader to engage in the process for an authentic democratic social forum.

Working towards peace is a balancing act requiring trust, knowledge of ourselves as individuals and an ability to relinquish our attachment to our individualism and think more broadly about our mission as a whole. This is how peace is nurtured. Once this process is learned it can be spread to others and shared. That is why this experience is of such value to this editorial board. If we cannot nurture peace through our own experience then how can this journal be authentic in its approach? This is a daily struggle of reflection and consciousness. It requires that we think critically, actively dialogue and detach personally from the process.

Democracy often involves conflict, and when it involves the discussion of critical ideals, this conflict can be a constructive experience. Problems are inherent. The process of working through it is a relevant goal because that is the measure of real success. Our interpretation of democracy is an evolutionary process where conflicts are free to arise simply because they lead to greater understanding. Working through this is a salient process. The history of peace education informs us that our citizenry is correlated to the factors that impact global citizenship. It allows us to transcend nationwide boundaries. Through a democratic approach we were able to stretch ourselves into formulation of this issue.

We invite you to critically analyze issues of peace as they relate to education. We invite you to not only glean theoretical information but also to let it inform your practice. We invite you to join in the examination of methods of prevention of violence in the wake of political challenges to peace and how they are conducive to a more democratic existence.