Peacebuilding Citizenship Education: A Framework

To create durable peace, people (whose identities, needs, values and concerns differ) need to become able to understand and to handle together the social conflicts that cause un-peace.  Conflict means disagreement, competing interests (needs/desires/ concerns), broken social relationships, enmity and negative bias, or misunderstanding between groups or individuals. 

To facilitate education and problem-solving for durable peace, it is important to distinguish harmful action (violence) from the problems that may cause it (conflict).  Conflict is inevitable in life, but it can be handled peacefully—creating positive opportunities for learning, problem-solving and transformation.  Social identity differences themselves are not conflicts, because they may be accepted and treated fairly.  Violence—conflicts that have escalated into harmful action by one group or individual toward another—is unfortunately common, but it is not inevitable:  violence can be avoided, prevented or mended, when people handle (non-violently and fairly) the causes and needs arising from the conflicts that caused or escalated into the violence problem. Handling conflicts peacefully can be challenging, because conflicts occur within real-life contexts of unjust social relationships: hierarchies of status and resource inequality, and cultures of Othering (enmity, social exclusion, negative bias, distrust). 

Conflicts, whether they are handled non-violently or violently, have three main causes or dimensions. What justice conflicts are about —represented by the base of the triangle in the diagram below— are core human needs: cultural inclusion (acceptance of people’s diverse identities) and resource equity (fair distribution of resources, status and power) (Fraser, 2005). When some set of people’s core needs to be persistently unmet, this social injustice may be called indirect systemic (cultural and/or social-structural) violence (Curle et al., 1974; Galtung, 1990; Galtung & Fischer, 2013; Novelli et al., 2017; Ross, 2000, 2010).  The other key dimension of just peace is how conflict situations are handled: Participation (represented by the top of the triangle in the diagram below) means that (all)people are involved or represented in decision-making and problem-solving processes, being heard, able to influence the resolution and transformation of the problems that affect them. Inclusive, fair, and peaceful processes for handling social conflicts cause peace.  Processes that reinforce direct or indirect harm and injustice are violence. Handling conflicts (including injustice problems) constructively and democratically is what transforms the social foundations of a (large or small) community, from systemic violence toward durable systemic peace. Peacebuilding citizenship education means giving all people(learners) opportunities to understand the causes and consequences of violent and nonviolent conflicts and to participate in fair, inclusive individual and collective processes for mitigating, resolving and transforming conflicts to build peace.