The peace education imperative: a democratic rationale for peace education as a civic duty

ABSTRACT

This paper articulates a normative philosophical justification for Peace Education as a civic duty understood from within the imperatives of democratic political legitimacy. A normative philosophical rationale is present that outlines how and in what ways valid public justification is the source of political legitimacy in a democracy, which in turn gives citizens a justified claim to political rights (including a right to justification) and an education that develops the knowledge and capacity to participate in public justification and critique. From this perspective, political education is a civic duty. It is also argued that democracy faces in two directions, inward toward the basic structure of society and outward toward relations with other nations and peoples. Given this dual nature of democracy it is argued that a basic civic duty to provide peace education as a form of democratic, global, political education to all future citizens is morally imperative. It is argued that we need to educate future citizens as global agents of justice, building a formidable bulwark against arbitrary power and constituting the means for the realization of a just peace. Peace education should be affirmed as a civic duty at the heart of democracy in an interdependent world.

KEYWORDS:

• Peace education
• justice
• normative political philosophy
• democratic political education
• democratic legitimacy
• civic duty

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dale T. Snauwaert

Dale T. Snauwaert, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Peace Studies, Co-Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in the Foundations of Peace Education and the Undergraduate Minor in Peace Studies in the Department of Educational Studies, Judith Herb College of Education, The University of Toledo, USA. He is the Founding Editor of In Factis Pax: Online Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice. He is widely published in such academic journals as the Journal of Peace Education, Educational Theory, Educational Studies, Peace Studies Journal,and Philosophical Studies in Education on such topics as democratic theory, theories of social justice, the ethics of war and peace, and the philosophy of peace education. He is the author of Democracy, Education, and Governance: A Developmental Conception (SUNY Press, 1993), the editor of two volumes of Betty Reardon's work: Betty A. Reardon: A Pioneer in Education for Peace and Human Rights  and Betty A. Reardon: Key Texts in Gender and Peace (SpringerPress [Vols. 26 and 27], 2015 and 2015), as well as, an edited book on Reardon Exploring Betty A. Reardon’s Perspective on Peace Education (Springer Press, 2019), a collection of commentaries by a leading international group of peace education scholars and practitioners concerning Reardon’s peace education theory and intellectual legacy, and with Fuad Al-Daraweesh, the co-author of Human Rights Education Beyond Universalism and Relativism: A Relational Hermeneutic for Global Justice (Palgrave McMillan, 2015). His core interests and expertise lie within the following topics: peace education, democratic education, human rights education, democratic theory, theories of justice, human rights theory, the philosophy of nonviolence, teaching through reflective inquiry.