Chapter 16: Toward Mainstreaming Critical Peace Education in U.S. Teacher Education

Critical peace education engages scholarship steeped in critical social theory (Delgado & Stefacic, 2001; Habermas, 1984; Hill-Collins, 1990; Haraway, 1985; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) with peace education approaches by both Reardon (1999) and Harris (2007); it aims to generate conscious preservice and in-service teachers who engage in socially transformative efforts to curb indirectly violent, oppressive attitudes, behaviors, knowledge paradigms, and social structures in U.S. public schools. Rather than status quo reproduction, critical peace education aims to empower educators as transformative change agents (Freire, 1972) who critically analyze race, class, and gender oppression alongside their students and who provide culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally inclusive curriculum, and fair assessment for diverse learners. Critical peace education assumes that schools are not politically and culturally neutral enterprises. The challenges of mainstreaming critical peace education are many: a history of peace as politically suspect (Stomfay-Stitz, 1993) and a current out-come based policy climate that de-centers power and control away from teachers and classrooms represent two challenges. The author relays challenges and possibilities for infusing critical peace education in schools of education. Additive (Banks, 2001), integrative, and transformative approaches to critical peace education in teacher education will be analyzed.