ABSTRACT
Peace education activities that attempt to end violence and hostilities can be carried out informally in communities or formally within institutional places of learning, like schools or colleges. Peace education has been practiced informally by generations of humans who want to resolve con icts in ways that don’t use deadly force. Anthropologists have located on this planet at least 47 relatively peaceful societies (Banta, 1993). Indigenous peoples have traditions they have passed down through millennia that help promote peace with their communities (Gregor, 1996). Within tribes, procedures exist to settle disagreements. Unfortunately, these mechanisms cannot handle intertribal disputes. A sample of how such con ict resolution mechanisms work is provided here:
Informal peace education maintains con ict resolution traditions that people adopt to provide security for a tribe or a group of people. Rather than killing each other over their disputes, they employ nonviolent dispute mechanisms that they hand down from generation to generation through informal peace education activities. Although there are no written records, human beings throughout history have employed community-based peace education strategies to preserve their knowledge of con ict resolution tactics that promote their security. More formal peace education relies on the written word or instruction through schooling institutions.
