Elise M. Boulding (/ˈboʊldɪŋ/; July 6, 1920 – June 24, 2010) was a Norwegian-born American Quaker sociologist and author, seen as a major contributor to creating the academic discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies.

[citation needed] Her written works span several decades and range from discussion of family as a foundation for peace, to Quaker spirituality, to reinventing the international "global culture".

It was at a Quaker meeting in May 1941 that she met her future husband, Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993), a respected English economist who would collaborate extensively with Elise on her peace work.

[citation needed] Boulding held many leadership positions in peace- and social justice-related groups, from chairing the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to creating the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) to work with the United Nations through UNESCO and the University of the United Nations.

Her father would read the story of Jesus from the Bible on Christmas Eve, and she knew the Lord's Prayer in Norwegian all her life.

Despite the lack of structured religion in her youth, she claims she felt the presence of God as a young child, and when she was 9 years old she began attending a local Protestant church on her own.

She also was strongly influenced by her mother, who in Norway had been involved in peace parades and was a social worker for girls who worked in Norwegian factories.

Elise shared her mother's nostalgia for Norway, and always thought of her homeland as a "safe place" until her last year of college when the Nazis invaded it.

He was an accomplished academic economist, international peace researcher, and poet when the couple met, and Elise names him as her strongest influence throughout her life.

This peace theory involved shaping and reshaping understandings and behaviors to adapt to a constantly changing world and sustain well-being for all.

Struggles and conflicts over politics and religion have always been a part of society but the world's expanding interdependence makes it necessary to promote openness and flexibility for the sake of coexistence.

By reviewing the history of conflict, Boulding noticed that two groups in society were underrepresented who could address this new perspective on peace, especially beginning on the micro level of the family unit.

... We're never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet- and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water – if very young children don't begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools.

Boulding likened modern women's roles to that of inmates: the household imprisons them and expects them to be "on call" at all times to provide for their husbands and children.

Women, on the other hand, provided the other 80% of the food through gathering and capturing small game near their campsites; they were also what Boulding calls the 'breeder-feeders,' producing and feeding the family.

However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these roles disappeared because they were often seen as threats to a male-dominated society (as in the case of hermitesses accused of witchcraft and murdered).

The Renaissance and Enlightenment furthered male domination through discoveries about the nature of man and men's organizations, creating individualism and less concentration of the family.

Boulding considers the foundation for peace to be empowering women to deconstruct a history of patriarchy and devaluation and reconstruct truly equality, appreciating certain differences between the sexes.

(See below) From her own experience as a mother, as well as the knowledge she acquired through research, Boulding developed an ideology that places importance on the influence children have on the greater society.

We can see how child rearing patterns produce nurturing adult behaviors.Boulding offers "Building a Global Civic Culture" as a holistic first step towards solving international conflicts.

The book enforces the idea of thinking globally on a microcosmic level to facilitate solving problems in a peaceful international order.