Abstract:
This research explores the theories of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and their
possibilities for peace education in post-conflict societies. Peace education is often seen
as a key component of peacebuilding, but mainstream peace education stems from
epistemologies that reflect Western hegemony, and is thus limited in its potential to
benefit participants in the Global South. To address this limitation, a framework of
critical peace education has been posited by some scholars. This research further
develops the theoretical foundations of critical peace education with the pedagogy of
Paulo Freire. This research builds upon the call for a critical peace education by
exploring the applicability of Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy in societies that have
experienced conflict. A number of scholars have made persistent proposals to develop
the theory of critical peace education by exploring the linkages between critical
pedagogy and peace education. The most notable efforts include those of US scholars
Monisha Bajaj and Edward J. Brantmeier. Although this nascent approach to peace
education has great potential, its applicability to post-conflict contexts has not been
explored. This research begins to fill this gap using the theories of Paulo Freire and
identifies key theoretical possibilities for the further development of a critical peace
education. Drawing from Paulo Freire's consciousness-building pedagogy, an approach
is formulated that centers participants' local and first-hand experience with multiple
forms of violence. As participants examine their own location within structures of
violence, they engage in a praxis-based peacebuilding that allows for genuinely local
approaches to conflict reconciliation. By seeing themselves as located within structures
of violence, participants are empowered as historical actors. Such a critical peace
education would critically examine internationalized perspectives on peace and conflict
as potentially useful, but also as historically, geographically, and culturally located.
This research concludes by identifying relevant gaps in the theory of critical peace
education and potential directions for its further development.
