The brutal attack on Ukraine and the violence against the civilian population we have witnessed in the last few months calls not only for immediate action to provide support for the affected population and prevent further conflict escalation, but also for careful reconsideration of the way peace education could create dialogue spaces that foster human rights and democracy.
Research on peace education helps understand the multiple connections between human actions and structures and forms of violence (Bajaj & Hantzopoulos, 2016; Galtung, 2008; Zembylas et al., 2016). Accordingly, it analyses social inequality and power imbalance as the conditions for abuse and neglect on a global scale, as well as in the local contexts (Carter, 2015; Johnson, 2021). In turn, this implies developing active and in-depth reflection supported by questions that help critically examine concepts such as conflict, (in)dignity, (in)justice, (in)security, (non-)violence and peacebuilding (Bekerman & Zembylas, 2012; Charalambous et al., 2020; Brantmeier, 2011; Snauwaert, 2019). Through this, peace education also sheds light on the opportunities to prevent and tackle violence by using formal and informal educational environments as sites of transformation, both at the individual and collective levels.

Research on peace education is an investigation area that transcends disciplinary boundaries and perspectives (Ferrándiz & Robben, 2007). Therefore, the workshop welcomes contributions from all EERA Networks.

The workshop will provide a space for exploring the following questions:

• What can be the role of peace education in preventing and managing global and local conflicts?#
• What can be the contribution from EERA and, more specifically, our networks in promoting investigation and reflection on peace education?
• How can we ensure that our contribution will be developed in close connection with practitioners and stakeholders working in the education area?

This workshop is held as the kick-off meeting of the EERA special interest group on peace education, which engages in peace education as a cross-cutting theme of European educational research. The workshop is organised as an interactive session with brief presentations, followed by facilitated group discussions and reflections. It will conclude with a discussion of what are the general and specific challenges across these different contexts and areas, what we can learn from each other and what further steps we can take within the framework of the special interest group on peace education (e.g. developing network special calls for papers for ECER 2023 etc.).

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Bajaj, M., & Hantzopoulos, M. (Eds.) (2016). Peace education: International perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing. Bekerman, Z. & Zembylas, M. (2012). Teaching Contested Narratives: Identity, Memory and Reconciliation in Peace Education and Beyond. Cambridge University Press. Brantmeier, E. J. (2011). “Toward Mainstreaming Critical Peace Education in U.S. Teacher Education”. In Malott, C.S. & Porfilio, B. (eds.), Critical Pedagogy in the 21st Century: A New Generation of Scholars. Information Age Publishing. Carter, C. (2015). Social education for peace: Foundations, teaching, and curriculum for visionary learning. Springer. Charalambous, C., Charalambous, P., Zembylas, M. & Theodorou, E. (2020). 'Translanguaging, (in)security and social justice education'. In Panagiotopoulou, J.A., Rosen, L., & Strzykala, J. (eds.): Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging: How to Promote Social Justice in (Teacher) Education? (pp. 105-123). Springer. Ferrándiz, F., & Robben, Antonius C.G.M (eds.) (2007): Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Peace and Conflict Research. A view from Europe. Bilbao. Galtung, J. (2008). “Form and Content in Peace Education”. In Bajaj, M. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Peace Education, 49–58, Information Age Publishing. Johnson, N. L. (Ed.). (2021). Humanities perspectives in peace education: Re-engaging the heart of peace studies. Information Age Publishing. Snauwaert, D. T. (Ed.). (2019). Exploring Betty A. Reardon’s perspective on peace education: Looking back, looking forward (Vol. 20). Springer. Zembylas, M., Charalambous, C., & Charalambous, P. (2016). Peace education in a conflict-affected society. Cambridge University Press.