Transforming Education for Peace - Peace Education Book Series Overview
Currently, peace education remains marginalized in our education system, however, a united front can be formed and powerful paradigms can empower educators to play a critical role in peace building through scholarship, practice and activism. Indeed, educators around the world are developing effective strategies to transform education as a powerful force for global peace. The diverse array of contributors in the book demonstrate that educators as peace makers can be and have been instrumental in transforming social forces, the self and others for the construction of global peace.
The book aims to broaden the educational discourse in order to make room for new visions to educate future generations for peace. Local and global efforts to build a long-lasting peace are presented through the lens of education.
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‘Speak Our Language…Abide by Our Philosophy’: Language & Cultural Assimilation at a U.S. Midwestern High School
Based on an approximate eight month critical ethnographic action research project at a U.S. Midwestern high school in 2004-2005, this article presents data related to the linguistic ideology and associated cultural assimilationist attitudes and practices at Junction High School. During an intercultural peace curricula development project, members of a teacher inquiry group identified lack of empathy about non-English language use at school as "non-peaceful" and in need of change. This article links linguistic normative monitoring practices with cultural assimilationist orientations enacted by several members of the local dominant Euro-American population. How social inequality and unequal power relationships are reproduced via restrictive practices on how students speak and on what languages they use when speaking in schools are important questions considered. Discussion focuses on the intersection of language, cultural power, and national identity. Broader ties to conservative ideological movements in the United States that focus on linguistic and cultural assimilation are explored.
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Everyday Understandings of Peace and non-Peace:
Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding at a US Midwestern High School
This article reports findings from a critical ethnographic action research project at a US Midwestern high school in the 2004-2005 academic year. The project engaged seven teacher inquirers in an intercultural peace curricula development process. Data collected from participant observation, from personal interviews and from focus group meetings are examined within the conceptual framework of micro-peacekeeping, micro-peacebuilding and intercultural peace. Implications for action research that is responsive to local conceptions of peace and non-peace are discussed. The author calls for more vigorous and nuanced peace theory for guiding peace education efforts in multicultural contexts.
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Connecting Inner and Outer Peace: Buddhist Meditation Integrated with Peace Education
This article describes major types of Buddhist meditation and elucidates the connections among Buddhist meditative practices and a missing dimension of contemporary peace education—the cultivation of inner peace. In laying the groundwork for integrating aspects of Buddhist meditation within peace education efforts, definitions of peace education are critiqued. The specific techniques of loving-kindness mediation and emptiness meditation are explored through the eyes of scholars of Buddhism and through the eyes of the author who has been a student of Buddhism for twelve years. Rooting insight into the radical interconnectedness of all life in Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions, the author reiterates the power of this insight in regards to transforming individual dispositions and actions for nonviolent social change. The secularization of Buddhist and other contemplative practices for use in U.S. public schools is problemitized given the history of the separation of church and state in the United States.
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Winstead, T., Lawrence, A., Brantmeier, E.J., & Frey, C. (2008) Language, Sovereignty, Cultural Contestation and American Indian Schools: No Child Left Behind & a Navajo Test Case.
Journal of American Indian Education. 47 (1), 19-37.
In this interpretive analysis elucidating fundamental tensions of the implementation of the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act within Native American schools, we point to ways in which NCLB further limits the already contested sovereignty tribes exercise over how, and in what language their children are instructed. We discuss issues related to the self-determination exercised by schools, some problematic cultural assumptions inherent in the NCLB law, and the legal tension between NCLB and the 1990/1992 Native American Languages Act. Finally, we examine the detrimental effects that NCLB accountability measures could have on Navajo communities, and look at how the Navajo Nation has addressed sovereignty over tribal education in recent years vis-à-vis NCLB.
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Globalization, education and cultural change in Navajoland: Snapshots of situated appropriation and adaptive intelligence in the U.S. Southwest.
In Hopson, R.K., Yeakey, C.C., Boakari, F. M. (eds). (2008). Power, Voice and the Public Good: Schooling and Education in Global Societies. United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp 373-396.
The situated appropriation of the content of globalization by Navajo people and institutions in their unique U.S. Southwest context is the focus of this chapter. The local is transforming the content of the global for local ends; this conversation narrative posits situated cultural exchange rather than a conversion narrative that implies a uni-directional mode of cultural assimilation. Reflections on cultural change in both formal and non-formal educational contexts based on the author’s years of experience in the Navajo Nation provide data to freshly examine a conceptual framework for explaining cultural change amid contemporary globalization. The concepts of situated appropriation, adaptive intelligence, and mutual appropriation are employed in the analysis of cultural conflict and change in this chapter.
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Stachowski, L. L. & Brantmeier, E. J. (2002) Understanding self through the other: Changes in student teacher perceptions of home culture from immersion in Navajoland and overseas.
International Education. 32: 5-18.
Student teachers from Indiana University's Cultural Immersion Projects, who had been placed in K-12 schools on the Navajo reservation and in seven foreign countries, critically reflected on their home cultures, identifying key elements that defined who they were and shifts in their perceptions about home based on their experiences in culturally different schools. Before their immersion experiences, they underwent extensive preparation to introduce them to local cultural values, beliefs, lifestyles, and educational practices. During their placements, they engaged in all teacher-related school functions, fostered friendships with members of host groups, performed at least one service learning project, and submitted reflective reports. Respondents addressed such areas as government policies, schooling, institutions, human relationships, customs, social structures, and cultural values when describing how their views were altered through living and working in culturally different settings. They reported enhanced appreciation of U.S. mainstream education and renewed appreciation for the many conveniences, environmental and recycling policies, and stronger presence of human and cultural diversity at home. They expressed a strong desire to learn more about the host culture. Students visiting the Navajo Reservation noted new appreciation for the U.S. mainstream communication style. Overseas participants reported changes in their perceptions of family and mainstream culture. (SM)
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