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Abstract
This qualitative study, based on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews, depicts practices of seven peace educators in public elementary and secondary classrooms in the United States during the time of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 through the US engagement in war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Focusing on individual perceptions of practice and classroom experiences, the participants described how, despite teaching at a time in which terrorism and war had become national preoccupations, they taught a pedagogy of peace that included recognition and rejection of violence, understanding of differences through dialogue, critical awareness of injustice and social justice, and imaginative understanding of peace. The study discloses a multitude of examples of both peacemaking and peacebuilding in their teaching and development of classroom cultures but a lack of emphasis on anti‐war curriculum. It also reveals the teachers’ motivations for teaching peace education, theoretical influences on their practice, their identities as activists and examples of their curriculum leadership.