An international conference on peace education: What schools can contribute

Abstract

The welcome address by the president of the Turkish-German Education Foundation and by the mayor of Mannheim highlighted the fact that schools can play a better role in peace education in divided societies. The language of the conference was German but translation into English and Turkish was available. According to the conference website, peace education should highlight all the patterns and structures that stimulate violence at an early stage and transform them into conflict-solving behaviour. In other words, the main purpose of the conference was to identify and analyse what factors actually play an important role in peace education, and to visualise how teachers and parents could contribute to promoting values and different behaviors that might be relevant to peace education. In addition to these elements, the increasing level of cultural diversity at schools as a resource for social development and peacekeeping is and will remain a challenge to integrating societies in different parts of the world. The main reason for organizing this type of conference was therefore to see how the experts who are involved - typically locally or internationally-renowned academics and politicians - see and understand the paradigm of peace education. The conference lasted twodays and was attended by about two hundred participants from across the world including students, school teachers, heads of school, businessmen and academics and individuals from other walks of life.