Peace Education: Comparison of Peace Education in Turkey and Texas

Turkey and the United States are active members of the United Nations and NATO, and they both join crucial military and humanitarian operations intended to bring peace in different regions of the world. The study presented here identifies and compares these countries' efforts for peace education in elementary schools. In particular, the researcher collected data on currently used curricula and textbooks to analyze how Turkish and Texan elementary school standards and textbooks frame peace education. In addition, interviews with Texan and Turkish teachers helped to contextualize how these standards are viewed and enacted by teachers. The results show that neither of the two elementary education systems includes peace education directly, but that both include peace related themes. In Texas, elementary education tends to address peace related themes by introducing historic figures who worked towards peace; in Turkey, the elementary education system focuses on characteristics and behaviors in teaching peace related themes.