Honoring Difference: Onto-Epistemological Challenges for Peace, Education, and Philosophy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Conceptualizing Peace Education Within a Framework of Ethics, Culture, and Conflict

Abstract

The idea of difference poses critical questions for peace and education in institutions of higher learning in the new millennium. These onto-epistemological questions on peace education challenge the fundamental construction of knowledge and learning as it is represented, and understood in and through the Western Academy. Field research employing mixed methods in design, implementation, and analysis included ethnography, in-depth personal interviews, and surveys used to explore questions regarding conceptualization(s) of peace in Northern Ireland. The results indicate individual/group identity reinforce the opposition to the other and limit the reach of contemporary efforts to educate for peace. A concomitant paradigmatic shift within higher education and the field of Peace Education towards transdisciplinarity affords greater strides towards a more peaceable future.

Author

• Bryan Wright, OISE/University of Toronto