Lessons from Research on Peace Education in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

Despite the relative uniqueness of peace education in contexts of intractable conflict, research on peace education carried out in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be instructive, to a greater or lesser extent, in other contexts. Six research based lessons are presented: (1) The short life of peace educations positive effects and so the need for continuous reinforcement; (2) ways of restoring the eroded effects; (3) the benefits of learning about another conflict; (4) the differential effects of peace education on different groups of participants; (5) the limitations of peace education; and (6) joint projects with common important goals as an alternative approach to peace education. In addition, two common challenges facing peace education and other kinds of programs are presented: the challenge of maintaining the attained positive effects, and the challenge of spreading the effects to wider realms of society.