A national peace education program in Lebanon: Exploring the possibilities from the leaders' perspectives.

摘要

This document reports the findings of a doctoral project regarding peace education in Lebanon. The emergence of Lebanon from a long civil war necessitates the existence of a peace program that will educate the new generations for a culture of peace. In this study, we tried to explore the potential of the development of a unified peace program among schools belonging to different political and religious affiliations. From a review of literature, the project team identified common perceptions of peace and peace education from different school principals. The project team was guided by the following questions: To what extent is peace education implemented in schools in Lebanon? What are the various challenges and opportunities of introducing peace education into our schools? What are the different perceptions of peace and peace education within the diverse population of the Lebanese people as represented by the school leaders, who belong to the public and private sectors from different political and religious affiliations? What guidelines could be implemented to ensure success for educational leaders for considering a unified peace curriculum, which has the potential to serve as a proposal to the Lebanese Ministry of Education for a national peace program? Interviews were conducted with ten school principals representing the major different educational families in Lebanon. Responses to the interview questions provided the team with those school principals' perceptions of peace in general and peace education in particular. Findings revealed the major peace components, in order of priority, that are to be seriously taken into consideration in developing a unified peace program for Lebanese schools. The team discovered that all school principals expressed motivation and willingness to develop and implement such a program. With most respondents for a unified peace program, the project team developed recommendations to assist school principals, who are willing to collaborate in order to develop and implement such a program.