International Day of Peace 2024

International Day of Peace

September 21 marks the International Day of Peace.

Introduction

In Shape: A Strategic Plan of Impact, The University of Alberta commits to engaging in the kinds of teaching, learning, and research that will make a transformative impact on the world. In particular, we aspire to be globally recognized as a “university of change-makers, community builders, and world shapers.” Because we are not separate from the world beyond our classrooms and campuses but rather an integral part of it, we are responsible for nurturing and embodying the critical work of building collaborations, communities, and capacities toward peace and justice. On September 21, we encourage you to take a moment to reflect on this important day and to consider what it means for your teaching praxis.

Background

In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. This landmark resolution recognizes that peace represents not merely the absence of conflict but also a commitment to participatory processes that support ongoing dialogue, mutual understanding, and cooperation. The declaration also advocates for the elimination of discrimination and violence based on intersectional positionalities¹, including racism, ableism, and sexism.²

Twenty-five years after the adoption of the declaration, we must contend with the urgent reality of multiple ongoing crises, including genocides, health emergencies, and the climate crisis. These factors have inequitable and widely distributed impacts on members of our campus community. As the declaration does, it is important to acknowledge and reaffirm that educators and educational institutions play a pivotal role in promoting, modeling, and embodying the values and principles of peace work.

Key values articulated in the UN Declaration of 1999 include:

• respect for life, human rights and fundamental freedoms
• the promotion of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation
• commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts
• adherence to freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations

¹_{Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to identify a framework that considers “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to an individual or group,” which create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Even before Crenshaw coined the term, there was a long history of Black feminists, including Sojourner Truth, the Combahee River Collective, Angela Davis, Gloria Wekker, Patricia Hill-Collins, Roxane Gay, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and others speaking out about how their experiences differed from both White women and Black men.}

²_{For a list of International Days and weeks that align with movements for intersectional justice, including the Week of Solidarity with the Peoples Struggling against Racism and Racial Discrimination, please visit the United Nations website.}

Cultivating a Culture of Peace in Teaching and Learning

This year’s International Day of Peace theme is “Cultivating a Culture of Peace.” Those of us who work in post-secondary spaces and communities are tasked with balancing the tension between the dreams and aspirations of peace work alongside the material conditions of conflict and crisis that are antithetical to peace.

Instructors and students bring their social locations, values, passions, goals, experiences, and traumas to our campus communities. These must be carefully held and considered to mitigate or eliminate barriers to engagement, critical thinking, and growth.

To achieve this, we should engage with each other through a trauma-aware lens, recognizing the varied personal and systemic stressors and traumas that people carry with them at all times. Navigating these deep-rooted and often conflicting differences can be uncomfortable. Yet, within this discomfort, we find the most significant potential: to connect and collaborate authentically, disrupt cycles of violence, and build capacity for more sustainable and life-affirming futures.

To honour the International Day for Peace, some pedagogical practices that support equitable, transformative, critical, and accountable teaching and learning are offered below. Included also are curated resources and readings that align with the values articulated in the 1999 United Nations resolution. Our hope is that, together, we can commit to the kinds of frameworks, practices, and relationships that offer possibilities towards shared and sustained dialogue and peace.

Pedagogical practices

Teaching and learning practices that support peace-building, conflict resolution, participatory processes, and respectful and careful dialogue:

1. Mitigating and eliminating systemic barriers along intersectional positionalities, such as racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.
   • reflecting on your social location and considering how it impacts your teaching
   • inviting students to reflect on their social locations and how this affects their learning and professional practice
   • centering the voices and experiences of those most directly impacted by global and geopolitical violence
   • sharing the histories of your discipline with students: Whose voices have been included and excluded?
   • offering students anonymous opportunities to provide feedback on your teaching: What is working, and what is not? How might you make the classroom more equitable and justice-oriented?
   • engaging in learning opportunities on justice-oriented teaching through the Office of the Vice Provost, EDI and the Centre for Teaching and Learning
     
     
2. Cultivating accountable and caring teaching and learning communities
   • co-developing community engagement guidelines with your students to identify the values, goals, and actions that support engaging, equitable, and accountable conversations and collaborations
   • acknowledging moments of societal disruption or violence and their impacts on students
   • planning how you will facilitate challenging or tense moments in the classroom
   • inviting students to reflect on their responsibilities to each other and their learning and growth
   • reframing accountability from a system of surveillance and discipline to one of mutual and caring responsibility to and for each other
     
     
3. Building capacity for collaboration, generative and respectful communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution in and beyond the classroom
   • incorporating problem-based learning into your classes to encourage broad connections between the material and society, creativity, and collaboration
   • designing opportunities for students to reflect individually and collectively on their learning successes, challenges, and growth
   • supporting interpersonal dynamics during group work by identifying and sharing characteristics of respectful and generative conversation, clarifying expectations and roles, and offering strategies and frameworks for resolving differences or challenges
     
     
4. Moving through challenging and uncomfortable conversations carefully, transparently, and with accountability. Plan for difficult or uncomfortable conversations in advance by:
   • anticipating possible moments when difficult conversations might arise
   • scripting and practicing responses for classroom disruptions before they occur
   • identifying times when you might refer students back to community engagement guidelines
   • sharing on- and off-campus resources for students requiring additional wellness supports
     
     
5. Nurturing communities of practice and care to reflect on the work of coalition building, capacity building, and deep reflection and transformation in and beyond the classroom.
   • co-building classroom relationships by recognizing, validating, and celebrating students as whole people
   • building flexibility, agency, and choice into your courses and inviting students to help shape their learning experiences when possible
   • sharing the pedagogical values, goals, and purposes of course design, activities, readings, and assessments with students to model transparency and growth
   • articulating the value of the multiplicity of students’ lived experiences and viewpoints

Resources

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. Responding to difficult moments. University of Michigan.

Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning. Identity and intersectionality in the classroom. American University.

Center for Teaching and Learning. Creating community agreements with your students. Boston University.

Centre for Teaching and Learning, Office of the Vice Provost (EDI), and the Office of the Dean of Students. (2023). Public-facing resource: Teaching during global and geopolitical crisis. University of Alberta.

Centre for Teaching and Learning. Teamwork and group work. Western University.

Centre for Teaching Excellence. Conflict management for instructors. University of Waterloo.

Clarke-Habibi, S. (17 June 2024). How to advance a peace-building agenda in your institution. University World News.

Kasumagic-Kafedzic, L. (2022). Universities and peace: The role of higher education and peace pedagogies in peacebuilding, resistance, and citizenship. [Lecture]. Perspectives in Global Development, Cornell University.

Knight, W.A. (2024). Black Canadians: History, Presence, and Anti-Racist Futures. University of Alberta / Coursera.

Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum. (2023). Equity. HiddenCurriculum.ca.

University of Toronto – Scarborough. Positioning as a point of departure. UTSC Campus Curriculum Review.

Readings

Bajaj, M. (2015). “Pedagogies of resistance” and critical peace education praxis. Journal of Peace Education 12(2): pp. 154 – 166. DOI: 10.1080.

Groarke, M., & Welty, E., Eds. (2019). Peace and Justice Studies: Critical Pedagogy. Routledge.

Knight, W.A. (2022). New thinking about global governance in an intermestic world. Fundamental Challenges to Global Peace and Security: The Future of Humanity. Eds. Mahmoudi, H., Allen, M.H., Seaman, K. Palgrave Macmillan.

Millican, J., Kasumagić-Kafedžić, L., Masabo, F. et al. (2021). Pedagogies for peacebuilding in higher education: How and why should higher education institutions get involved in teaching for peace?. International Review of Education 67. DOI: 10.1007/s11159-021-09907-9

Schmidt, S. (2022). A conceptual framework for Critical Peace Pedagogy. The Peace Chronicle: The Magazine of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.