Chapter 7: From the Bottom Up: Educating for Peace and Justice in America’s Nuclear Age

Nationally the peace education movement is growing—some say surging— because of the continued failure of military solutions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the belief that alternatives to violence do exist.

—McCarthy, 2011, p. 21

The purpose of this chapter is to trace the historical development of peace education from the Cold War to the present. The development of peace education and peace studies as we know it today actually began after World War II, and its influence and respectability as a serious academic discipline continues to grow. Prior to World War II, private citizens, both on their own and through international non-government organizations (INGOs) like the Women’s League for International Peace and Freedom, used educational means—speeches, pamphlets, rallies, and books—to educate citizens about the dangers of war (see Howlett, 2003; Howlett & Lieberman, 2008; Howlett & Zeitzer, 1985). Such efforts on the part of citizen activists were the predominant mode of peace education. Toward the end of the twentieth century, some of these activists and professional educators started to initiate the study of how to achieve peace in schools and colleges.