Peace education is the process of acquiring values, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony with oneself, others, and the natural environment.
On the basis of this presumptive prohibition, he outlines several philosophical values, including pacifism, relevant to the nonviolent resolution of international conflicts.
[13][14] Since the early 20th century, "peace education" programs around the world have represented a spectrum of focal themes, including anti-nuclearism, international understanding, environmental responsibility, communication skills, nonviolence, conflict resolution techniques, democracy, human rights awareness, tolerance of diversity, coexistence, and gender equality.
The main elements of these programs include: learning to manage anger, "fighting fair"; improving communication through skills such as listening, turn-taking, identifying needs, and separating facts from emotions.
At the same time, "A democratic society needs the commitment of citizens who accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance" (U.S. Department of State, The Culture of Democracy, emphasis added).
[citation needed] Approaches of this type train participants in critical thinking, debate, and coalition-building; they promote the values of freedom of speech, individuality, tolerance of diversity, compromise and conscientious objection.
[21] Making the RoL and a culture of lawfulness a priority is not just about transmitting knowledge, but also about values and behaviours that are modelled and enforced daily through the 'hidden curriculum'.
‘The ‘hidden curriculum’ of the classroom and school transmits norms, values and beliefs to learners in ways other than formal teaching and learning processes.
The aim is to engender a commitment among participants to a vision of structural peace in which all individual members of the human race can exercise personal freedoms and enjoy legal protection from violence, oppression and indignity.
Surveying a mass of material, Danesh argues that the majority of people and societies in the world hold conflict-based worldviews, which express themselves in conflicted intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and international relationships.
Acquiring a more integrative, Unity-Based Worldview increases human capacity to mitigate conflict, create unity in the context of diversity, and establish sustainable cultures of peace - at home, at school, at work, or in the international community.
"Salomon (2002) has described how the challenges, goals, and methods of peace education differ substantially between areas characterized by intractable conflict, interethnic tension, or relative tranquility".
First, too many profoundly different kinds of activities taking place in an exceedingly wide array of contexts are all lumped under the same category label of "peace education" as if they belong together.