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Peace Education Resources

A great deal of exciting educational reform and just generally good teaching falls under the heading of Peace Education. According to one international authority on this, “Peace education is a participatory holistic process that includes teaching for and about democracy and human rights, nonviolence, social and economic justice, gender equality, environmental sustainability, disarmament, traditional peace practices, international law, and human security” (Hague Appeal for Peace, 2005)

Conflict Resolution Education is typically understood to focus on the local/domestic level while the focus of Peace Education is generally more global in perspective. Peace Education also “has a stronger emphasis on social justice orientations and larger systemic issues of violence than conflict education programs” (Jones, 2004).

A portion of the growing collection of free Peace Education print resources found in our catalog is displayed at the bottom of this page. You can also choose to directly browse the full list of items categorized under peace education in our catalog. Other especially relevant materials include

all of which are hosted by our site. Lots of good content!

If you are interested in a broader bibliography of Peace Education readings, check out this Peace Education resource collection from Ian Harris and Mary Lee Morrison.

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Sample Catalog Resources

Below you'll find a randomized listing of up to 20 related items (we may have more...) drawn from our Resource Catalog.

Resource Title Description Links
Participatory Theatre for Conflict Transformation Training Manual Participatory Theatre for Conflict Transformation is a way for artists to apply their creative energy to the cause of lasting peace. This 50-page manual, developed by Search for Common Ground while working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, provides background information on the use of participatory theatre as well as workshop and presentation strategies honed in more than 600 performances in front of more than 500,000 spectators.
Eight Ways to Celebrate the International Day of Peace with Your Family A 3-page pdf prepared by PeaceFirst providing creative and fun ways for families to celebrate the International Day of Peace. Provides links to materials in the PeaceFirst Digital Activity Center.
Learning Skills of Peace through Every Day Conflicts Practical Activities and Resources for Families, Teachers and Other Caregivers. Noting that the conflicts arising daily for young children provide an opportunity for adults to model and teach skills for handling conflict peacefully, this guide provides tips for preventing unnecessary conflict, offers "first aid" for conflict moments, and provides resources for addressing common situations that can cause conflict. Developed cooperatively by Ohio's Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, Head Start Association, and Department of Education Division of Early Childhood, with implementation facilitated by many Ohio public libraries, the guide is comprised of 40 thematic units of instruction for the early childhood setting, with most units accompanied by home cards providing tips for preventing conflict and suggested activities. Each unit contains information on the importance of the topic for conflict management and its link to peace, suggested books, activities, and copies of home cards. The 40 units cover: (1) anger and aggression; (2) art; (3) bad day; (4) bad language; (5) bathtime; (6) bedtime; (7) behavior; (8) big and little; (9) big brother, big sister; (10) biting; (11) conflict; (12) cultural diversity; (13) death; (14) disabilities; (15) divorce; (16) dressing; (17) family; (18) fears; (19) feelings and emotions; (20) free choice; (21) lying; (22) mealtime at school; (23) mistakes; (24) nap time at school; (25) new baby; (26) teaching the problem-solving process; (27) safety; (28) school; (29) security objects; (30) self-esteem; (31) sharing; (32) siblings; (33) sickness; (34) stealing; (35) stress; (36) tantrums; (37) time out; (38) transitions; (39) whining and nagging; and (40) work. Also included in the guide are additional resources, such as a list of books for each unit, information on child development and child needs from birth to five years, and suggested readings for teachers and parents.
Opening the door to nonviolence: Peace education manual for primary school children Electronic version of the second edition of a teacher's guide for teaching peace education to primary school students. "Part I is designed as a training in affirmation, cooperation and communication. Part II deals with the healing of trauma; Part III is about bias and prejudices. Part IV introduces peaceful problem solving and nonviolent conflict resolving and Part V is about peaceful living. There are 20 chapters/sessions in the book, each session developed through step-by-step activities."
Peace Education Online Learning Module - UNESCO Education Server This modular online learning unit on Peace Education is available via the international UNESCO education server D@dalos dedicated to civic and peace education. The content was developed by the Institute for Peace Education in Tübingen, Germany. Main sections include: What is Peace Education?; What does Peace mean?; Why do we need Peace Education?; What do Peace Educators do?; and Peace Education and Fair Play. Includes a section on conflict analysis that provides 10 models for how to approach this task.
Human Total: A Violence Prevention Learning Resource Human Total is a 303-page pdf manual created by Human Rights Education Association (HREA), the International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP) and the Instituto Mexicano de Investigación Familia y de Población (IMIFAP). Targeted towards young people between the ages of 10 and 14, the manual helps learners understand attitudes that promote violent behavior (often brought about by the misuse of alcohol) by males and cultivates methods to minimise these behaviors' harms and prevent their perpetuation. Human Total contains 32 adaptable lesson plans, including ways to recognise and understand violence in social contexts and techniques for minimising violence through education about human rights and active participation in the community. The manual also features a note for facilitators on how to use it, tools for outreach to parents and guardians, recommendations for additional resources, and eight annexes with supplemental information. The resource was piloted in El Salvador and Kenya. Human Total: A Violence Prevention Learning Resource is currently (July 2013) available in English and will soon be available in Spanish.
Gandhi's Nonviolent Values and Skills This 295-page guidebook, subtitled "A Violence Prevention Guidebook for High Schools", is available online as a series of pdfs. It provides a basic methodology for proceeding from "awareness" through "concern" to "action" building on the ideas of nonviolent activist Mohandas Gandhi. The units in the Guidebook are designed to help teachers nurture in their youth and in themselves: 1) a disciplined mind - awareness - there are other ways of thinking and acting, you can control your feelings and thoughts, you have an important role to play in the world; 2) a compassionate heart - concern - becoming empathetic and deepening the desire to act on behalf of others; 3) a courageous hand - action - putting compassion into practice by standing with others in service and against the forces and forms of oppression/domination (social change); 4) a committed will - perseverance - pledging to be a doer of peace and a teacher of peace. It provides a pledge of nonviolence as a key element of the program that can be used in various settings. The units include the following: Unit 1: Introducing Gandhi and His Principles Unit 2: Respect Unit 3: Anger Unit 4: Nonviolent Problem-Solving & Nonviolent Resistance Unit 5: Making Amends & Forgiveness Unit 6: Our Oneness with the Earth & Challenging Materialism Unit 7: Courage & Solidarity: Overcoming Our Fears & Standing with Others Who Are Treated Unfairly Unit 8: Courage: Challenging the -ISMS: Sexism, Racism, Nationalism & War
Tips for developing peace education curriculum: Some lessons from Vietnam 4-page tips document, the abstract states, "Teachers and schools around Australia are being asked to take responsibility for ensuring safe schools and promoting citizenship among students. This is part of an international movement to use school-based education to promote a global culture of peace. The International Conflict Resolution Centre at the University of Melbourne recently co-developed a national peace education curriculum for primary schools in Vietnam with Vietnamese educators. This experience highlighted three important peace education tools that can also be used within an Australian context: The UNESCO "peace keys," physical games and reflective material."
Teach Peace Pack Elementary (updated edition) In Teach Peace you will find a set of ten lesson plans for use as assemblies or workshops aimed at 5-12 year olds. The pack also contains follow-up activities and resources, prayers, and reflections on peace. The original pack was so popular that we decided to produce an updated edition with three new lesson plans, providing educators with further resources to champion peace education.
Workshop on peace education for educators in Southeast Asia: January 19 to 23, 2009 2-page Word report on a workshop for peace educators which "sought to train a core of formal and community educators on the knowledge base, attitudes, and skills that comprise peace education; encourage them to generate doable action plans that they can implement in their schools, organizations and/or communities; encourage them to serve as a beginning core team for the promotion of peace education in their country."
Collaboration across fields: Implementation and sustainability of SEL, CRE, PE and CE 73-page PDF conference reader from the two-day summit, "Collaboration across Fields: Implementation and Sustainability of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Conflict Resolution Education (CRE), Peace Education (PE), and Citizenship Education (CE), held in Cleveland, Ohio on June 19th and 20th, 2009. The conference "brought together government representatives from among the 50 states and invited countries (Ghana, Kenya, Montenegro, Philippines) and their non-governmental organization partners. Organizations were invited because of their interest in developing legislation and policy in peace education, social and emotional learning, conflict resolution education, and/or civics education and their interest in securing ways to strengthen implementation and achieve sustainability of these efforts ... this capacity building summit offered a dynamic opportunity to develop a global infrastructure to advance the work in the fields of conflict resolution education, peace education, social and emotional learning, and citizenship education. The summit brought together policymakers, researchers and educators representing regions across the United States and select member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict GPPAC). These national and international guests exchanged successful macro level policy design and implementation models at the state-wide or national level, and macro level evaluation methodology and tools for states and countries. Specific areas of focus included: Teacher education, research and evaluation, and policy implementation options for primary, elementary and secondary education at the national or state levels."
Manual for Colleges and Universities Developing Programs in Peace and Conflict Studies
A Social Justice Lens: A Teaching Resource Guide This 12-page guide provides a lens that applies social justice and critical theory to all aspects of an educators professional life. The tool provides a framework for unions and schools to help guide policy, plan actions, and evaluate resources for social change. Social justice theory focuses on equity for all and critical theory requires action and systemic change. These two concepts form the basis of the British Columbia Teachers Federation social justice lens. The lens has four distinct interconnecting filters -- access, agency, advocacy, and solidarity action. Each represents an aspect of social justice work, and, while we may focus on one filter at a time, the true potential of these filters lies in engaging with all four simultaneously. Participatory democracy, civil society, transformative practice, and systemic change found on the rotating outer ring of the lens are necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of equity found at the centre of the lens.
Uniting children during war: Sawa - UNICEF in Lebanon Fourth online chapter from, "Education That Makes a Difference: Success Stories for Conflict Resolution Educators." This chapter discusses two programs started by UNICEF in Lebanon, SAWA (which means "together" in Arabic) an educational and entertaining magazine for children and a peace camp program. Original Source: Chapter 11 from People Building Peace II: Successful Stories Of Civil Society (Project of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention) by Paul Van Tongeren, Malin Brenk, Marte Hellema, and Juliette Verhoeven (Eds), Lynne Rienner Publishers (2005)
Learning About Human Rights In 2008, the United Nations initiated a year of human rights learning to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the UK, UNA-UK teamed up with UNESCO Associated Schools to produce materials to help secondary school teachers and students explore human rights together. The resource, now posted to the web as a series of pdfs, contains a teacher's handbook with slide presentations and corresponding factsheets for students. The five topics covered are: - the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - child rights and armed conflict - child rights and climate change - human rights and international development
Encyclopedia of peace education Online resource which, "provides a comprehensive overview of the scholarly developments in the field to date as well as new insights from across the globe from the various actors involved in advancing peace education internationally. Thus, this online resource serves as a living reference guide that traces the history and emergence of the field, highlights foundational concepts, contextualizes peace education practice across international and disciplinary borders, and suggests new directions for peace educators."
Education for Peace: a resource guide for educators and the community This 16-page booklet, written by Arthur Romano with assistance from Laura Simms, offers and introduction to the field of peace education. Presented in conjunction with the Newark Peace Education Summit held in May of 2011.
The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: A synthesis report of findings This 40-page report by UNICEF provides evidence that education can be a catalyst for peace and highlights the need for education sectors to integrate a peacebuilding perspective. The report has 2 main parts: a literature review, and three case studies focusing on Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone. The report is part of the knowledge generation component of the Education and Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme – a partnership between UNICEF, the Government of the Netherlands and the European Commission.
Youth4Peace Training Toolkit The Youth4Peace Training Toolkit that will guide you through the concepts and practice of delivering educational activities on conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and the creation of peaceful narratives. This toolkit has been developed for beginners and intermediate youth trainers and educators in the field of peacebuilding and we hope that this is going to be a useful tool for you to start or further implement educational programmes on peace and transforming conflicts and narratives targeting youth through non-formal education.
Will you listen?: Young voices from conflict zones 28-page pdf report which accompanies "the official 10 year Graca Machel Strategic Review report ... submitted to the UN General Assembly on October 17, 2007. It compiles the views and recommendations from more than 1,700 young people from 92 countries through focus group discussions ... [which] included children and young people who have experienced conflict themselves, with many of the participants speaking about how their own lives have been affected. Facilitators tried to ensure a safe environment, to use the local language where appropriate and to create a certain 'comfort level' for the participants despite the unique challenges in each country."