Overcoming the Obstacles of Peace Education through Wellbeing Practices

Abstract

A growing body of literature reports structural, cultural, social, and political barriers making it challenging and stressful to integrate peace education in teacher education and in-service teacher education programs. To support peace educators in achieving what they stand for, this study proposes integrating wellbeing practices and approaches into the curricula. Drawing from the fields of peace education, educational leadership and policy studies and higher education, this study examines wellbeing as a potentially promising scholarly field to support peace education scholarship. For happiness and life satisfaction, wellbeing links a person's physical, mental, emotional and social health factors not just to internal factors such as optimism, resilience and self-esteem but also external factors such as income, satisfaction at work and social networks. In order to explore the ways wellbeing can contribute to peace education, we first expand on peace education as a controversial and challenging practice especially for practitioners in the field. Next, we discuss wellbeing practices as they relate to educational settings. Finally, we discuss that peace educators can be supported by wellbeing practices to overcome the degrading and demotivating effects of their practices.