Peace Education and Empathy

In this experimental study, the effect of the peace education program on empathy tendencies of fourth-grade students was examined. The research was designed in an experimental design. In the 2016-2017 academic year, all of the fourth grades (eight classes) of Şirinköy Elementary School in Gölcük province of Kocaeli were determined as the experimental group, and all of the fourth grades (seven classes) of Barbaros Elementary School were determined as the control group. The sample of the study included 275 fourth grade students. One hundred thirty-nine of these students are in the experimental group where the program is applied, and 136 students are in the control group where the program is not implemented. The peace education program was implemented for a period of 14 weeks, one lesson per week. SPSS 21.0 program was used to analyze the quantitative data. The analysis of the data was based on .05 significance level. When the findings obtained in the study are examined, it is seen that peace education is an effective program in increasing the empathy tendencies of fourth-grade students.

What Do Teachers Need to Become a Peace Educator?

In the recent era, the borders among countries have become more accessible. This fact makes cultural differences an important issue to be taken into consideration. It is a well-known fact that all of these differences can easily be seen in many communities. Thus, building and keeping peace are very important for any type of communities. In order to manage that, individuals should learn how to be peacemakers. This process is called peace education. This fact brings the importance of the factor of “teacher” to the forefront. Considering these, the qualities of teachers who are peace educators have become an important issue to be discussed. Thus, the aim of this chapter will be identifying what kind of characteristics a teacher should have during peace education process. The “White Pigeon Model” is presented for a peace educator's characteristics. This model includes knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics of a peace educator. They are discussed in detail.

Diversity Beyond Disability

The effective delivery of special education relies heavily upon the type of family collaboration beyond the students' disability, an area that is commonly overlooked in education. Hence, based on the schema presented here, the students' unique cultural and familial needs become paramount in boosting student achievement. The author contends that inclusive practices, coupled with a peacemaking curricula that is culturally responsive, has the potential to provide the ripe amount of programming to enable students to become change agents. Additionally, peacemaking coupled with diversity, tiered interventions, and family collaborations enlarge the floor of opportunity for students with special needs. Students with identified special and other needs and who come from diverse backgrounds benefit not only from rigorous and goal-centered instruction, but also from culturally responsive teaching and pedagogy beyond their disability, embedded with culturally-responsive family collaboration.

Prejudice, Discrimination, and Alienation in Educational Environments

In today's societies where cultural singularity is almost destroyed, diversity can be an important richness, thanks to individuals displaying peace-based approaches. Schools are affected by this diversity and will continue to be cultivated as small but highly effective stakeholders of the social structure. It can be said that it is important for educational organizations to gain human values before teaching theoretical lessons to their students and that the necessary studies should be carried out both for school administrators and teachers and for students. First of all, raising awareness on this issue is a great need during the construction of the peace society. Therefore, in addition to contributing to the literature with this study, it is aimed to present different and diverse perspectives of prejudice, discrimination, and alienation of students and teachers, giving examples of cause and effect relationships. It is also aimed to make suggestions to reduce negative impacts and thus to raise awareness on the subject.

Multicultural Structure of Schools and Intercultural Education

Multiculturalism and interculturalism have become important in recent years together with development in technology and transportation. These two concepts affect many different organizations in daily life, and educational organizations are among them. While multiculturalism and interculturalism have become so important, it is important to understand them in terms of educational organizations. Thus, this chapter aims to analyse the concept of culture, multiculturalism, intercultural education, and peace education. At the end of the chapter, the author suggests a new model for diversity.

Creating a Peaceful World

Although peace is one of the foundations of prosperity, even in the 21st century, people in some countries still have to live in conflict. Is it possible to live individually in peace in such a world? This chapter focuses on drawing attention to the vital importance of living peacefully in the world and to discuss on the desire for peace. Firstly, the meaning of peace is reviewed in this chapter. Then, the difference between positive and negative peace is expressed, and the importance of having positive peace is emphasized. Secondly, the need of a peaceful life is discussed. Afterwards, the difference between “peace education” and “education for peace” is examined and integration of these two types of education is suggested. In the context of building a culture of peace, potential contributions of peace museums for world peace are mentioned, and peace-related metaphors of pre-service teachers are also specified. Finally, the author asserts that there is still hope for a peaceful world although there are no indications yet.

Digital Games for Peace Education

Interactive, communicative, and participatory activities contribute to the effectiveness of peace education. The use of games in educational settings is expressed as educational games. From the Oregon Trail to today's highly interactive games, many games have been used to support learning in many subjects. To state it specifically about peace education, the history of digital games for peace education started with My City (1995), supported by UNICEF, continued with games aiming different learning subjects, such as Escape from Woomera (2003), Ayiti (2006), PeaceMaker (2007), Hush (2007) and This War of Mine (2014). The most important contribution of these games in terms of peace education is that individuals gain empathy and perspective. These gains at cognitive and affective domains will contribute to individuals to be more successful in conflict resolution. The games introduced in this chapter are detailed with their pros and cons within the scope of peace education. The researches based on these games are included, and the critical findings of these studies are discussed.

Peaceful Solution of Conflicts in Schools

Conflicts in schools can be settled amicably if certain variables become known such as probable circumstances under which schools might face conflicts, factors causing conflicts, and ways of effective conflict management. This chapter first introduces basic concepts related to conflict. The sections about interpersonal relations, communication, interpersonal relations, and listening as a part of communication are dedicated to communication and interpersonal relations as the root of conflict. The following sections of this chapter elaborate conflict as well as terms regarding reasons of conflict including what conflict is, the conflict theory, types of conflict, factors causing interpersonal conflicts, interpersonal conflicts in schools, and reasons of student-student conflicts in schools. In this scope, effective ways of conflict management are discussed. The sections about conflict management emphasize that conflicts can be overcome in a constructive manner.

The Role of Leaders in Peace Building

Since the existence of humanity, there have been various conflicts and wars. Conflict and war setting causes people to lose their lives and deteriorate their living spaces and sociological environment. In order to prevent this kind of negativity, it can be stated that the disputes between people or societies must be solved before they turn into conflict or war. Leadership is vital to the success of efforts to create peace by ending the conflict or war. In this regard, it is important to identify community leaders who take actions to create peace. In the literature, the concept of peace leadership emerged as a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, this chapter examines how leadership can be effective in creating and sustaining peace, the concept of peace leadership, and the characteristics, skills, and roles of peace leaders.

Restorative Instructional Practices

Recently a randomized study over two years within a large urban school system has confirmed that restorative practices can positively impact classroom and schoolwide socio-emotional attainments, as evidenced by reduced school suspensions and increased attendance. However, many of the teachers surveyed in this study overwhelmingly reported that having a “lack of time” was the biggest constraint to developing community through restorative practices as this “time” was considered distinctly separate from the “time” needed to deliver instruction. This perceived dichotomy revealed that restorative practices existed as a competing opposite to the design, delivery, and development of academic instruction, as the current routine of planning, preparing, organizing, and executing restorative practices happens either “TO” or “FOR” rather than “THROUGH” core academic content and “WITH” instructional delivery practices.