Betty A. Reardon's groundbreaking work, originally authored in 1988, provides one of the first and clearest articulations of the field of peace education in theory and practice. Through reflection on her own experiences, Reardon assesses the state of peace education and offers a new comprehensive approach. She addresses the need to help educators and citizens alike understand what peace education is, why it is needed, and how it is and should be pursued. She investigates the root causes of the violent conditions facing society so that we can better understand how education can be used to interrupt the cycles of violence and create the conditions for sustainable peace and justice. Comprehensive peace education, for the author, takes place at every level, and in every subject area, of both formal and non-formal education. In this special 2021 Edition, Reardon provides a new, reflective introduction on the emerging needs and challenges to the field for the 21st century. Formal and non-formal educators, theorists, students and activists will find practical and transformative wisdom immediately applicable to diverse conditions and contexts in Comprehensive Peace Education. Betty A. Reardon is acknowledged around the world as one of the founders of the field of peace education. She has been extensively involved in the international peace education movement and has been published widely in the field. She is a co-founder of both the International Institute on Peace Education and the Global Campaign for Peace Education.

In 1999 the UN instituted the Program of Action on a Culture of Peace, leading to the Declaration of the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World 2001-2010. This represented a paradigm shift away from the prevailing conceptualization of peace as ‘the absence of war’ to one of ‘creating cultures of peace’, and indicated a significant opening for peace educators and the expansion of their mission and field in peace research and scholarship. This book seeks to address several questions about the emergence, present state, and future of the field of peace education, and to ground the definition of the discipline in its origins – origins deeply set in informal grassroots movements of concerned citizens, faith-based communities, and professional organizations who work for peace, as well as those working in formal institutions. These origins are vital in imparting identity, and in nurturing the current growing collective consciousness that combines the academic discipline and the worldwide peace movement – a collective that can unify, fuel, and inspire dialogue among scholars, researchers, activists, educators, government leaders, and the myriad of individuals committed to creating cultures of peace throughout the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Peace Education.

In Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education: Re-Engaging the Heart of Peace Studies, scholar-teachers across a variety of humanities fields explore the content, methods, and pedagogies that are unique to their respective disciplines in contributing to the study of peace and justice. In recent decades, even as peace scholarship has burgeoned, many peace studies texts—including those that purport to be interdisciplinary in nature—have emphasized social science perspectives and, in some cases, have foregone exploration of the role of the humanities altogether in comprehensive peace education. While humanities scholars continue to stake out space for peace scholarship within their fields, no volume has attempted to collect the wisdom of multiple humanities disciplines in order to make the case for their critical role in authentic peace education. Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education addresses that shortcoming in the field of peace studies by exploring the ways in which the humanities are uniquely situated to contribute particular content, knowledge, skills, and values required of comprehensive peace education, scholarship, and activism. These include the development of empathy and understanding, creative vision and imagination, personal and communal transformation toward “the good” in society (such as the pursuit of justice, nonviolence, freedom, and human thriving), and field-specific analytical lenses of their own, among other contributions. Both teachers and students of peace will find value in this interdisciplinary humanities volume. Each chapter of Humanities Perspectives in Peace Education offers a deep-dive into a particular humanities field—including philosophy, literature, language and culture studies, rhetoric, religion, history, and music—to mine the field’s unique contributions to peace and justice studies. Scholars ask: “What are we missing in peace education if we fail to include this academic discipline?” Chapters include suggestions for peace pedagogies within the humanities field as well as bibliographies and suggestions for further reading.

Betty A. Reardon is a world-renowned leader in the fields of peace education and human rights; her pioneering work has laid the foundation for a new cross-disciplinary integration of peace education and international human rights from a gender-conscious, global perspective. This collection of reflective inquiry and ongoing research gathers essential works on peace education and human rights (1967-2014) and provides access to Reardon’s key works. These texts have been foundational to the field of peace education during the past five decades of her practical experience. The unique conceptualization of a holistic framework for organizing content and the practical and specific descriptions of pedagogies for the practice of critical peace education in schools and universities, have made them essential resources for peace educators around the world; several have already become standard texts for basic courses in the field. The book also includes an overview of Reardon’s career and a bibliography of her publications.

Ultimately concerned with how citizenship education for peace can be enriched through interdisciplinary learning, this edited volume reveals the role of peace education in global citizenship by illuminating instruction for comprehensive citizenship. A truly international collection, this volume offers timely insights from countries including Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Bangaldesh, Korea, Zimbabwe, and Timor Leste as it provides critical, in-depth analyses of peace-oriented instruction in formal and informal settings. The text illustrates how citizenship can be effectively developed on both a global and a local level, and discusses the practical learning opportunities that can enact change through schools, nongovernmental organizations, and community-wide civic actions with children, youth, adults, and families. This text will appeal to academics and researchers involved in the field of international and comparative education and will be of interest to educators and school leaders concerned with the role citizenship plays in the context of teaching and learning.