Chapter 7 - Education for Peace-making

In Chapter 7 of the book, we move from a focus on keeping the peace towards making peace. The three dimensions of school life that we explore here are restorative approaches, peer mediation and peace-making circles.

"Where peace-keeping refers to the ways in which peace is created around the person and around the school in the form of systems of security and discipline, peace-making refers to making peace between people in the aftermath of incidents of conflict. This is of course not limited to schools in settings affected by armed conflict. While peace education is increasingly associated with societies “recovering from high-level conflicts such as war” (Ashton, 2007: 40), it is worth reasserting at this point the need for peace education in apparently stable, democratic states such as the UK. Young people everywhere need to learn how to respond non-violently to conflict and how to work towards the reduction of destructive conflict and violence. The fundamental fact that the purpose of school is to educate is the main philosophical reason why peace-making is central for addressing conflict and violence in schools. Peace-making is an essentially educative approach to conflict resolution. The role of school staff and of schools is not the same as that of police officers or other professionals in the legal or criminal justice sector. The role of schools is to teach, and peace-making provides the ideal mechanisms for teaching young people many lessons from those moments when they get it wrong."