United States 

Institute of Pe a c e

G rappling with

Peace Education

in Serbia

Ruzica Rosandic
Peaceworks No. 33. First published April 2000.

The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone.

They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace.

UN I T E D ST A T E S IN S T I T U T E O F PE A C E

1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20036-3011

Phone: 202-457-1700

Fax: 202-429-6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org
C o n t e n t s

S u m m a r y 5

A ck n ow l e d g m e n t s 7

Part I: Fa c t o rs Confronting Pe a c e

E d u c ation Efforts in Serbia

1. Introduction: Why Peace Education 9

2. The Ecology of Peace Education in Serbia 12

3. The Setting of a Closer Encounter:

The Serbian School System 15

Part II: A Look at Peace Educat i o n

P ro g rams in Serbia

4. An Overview of Peace Education Programs 23

5. Evaluations 33

6. Prospects for Continued Peace Education in Serbia 38

N o t e s 40

About the Au t h o r 45

About the Institute 46

S u m m a r y

Si n ce the vi o l ent breakup of the Federal Rep u blic of Yu go s l avia began in 1991,

the ch i l d ren of Serbia have su f fered the debi l i t a ting ef fects of w a rtime con d iti on s . These inclu de va rious forms and degrees of depriva ti on :s oc i a l , em o ti ona l ,m ora l , and intell ectu a l . A com m i t ted group of Serbian psych o l ogists and edu c a tors

s o u ght to amel i ora te the ef fects of war on ch i l d ren thro u gh initi a ting more or less system a tic and ex ten s ive pe ace edu c a ti on programs in 1992–98. Some of these were introdu ced into Serbian sch ools in 1996, with the approval of the Serbian Mi n i s try of

E du c a ti on , as part of a Un i ted Na ti ons In tern a ti onal Ch i l d ren’s Emer gency Fu n d

(UNICEF) proj ect on edu c a ti on for pe ace .

One of the progra m s ,“The Goodwi ll Cl a s s room :E l em en t a ry Sch ool Programs in

Con s tru ctive Con f l i ct Re s o luti on (1993–97),” was headed by the aut h or of this report ,

Ruzica Ro s a n d i c , and her co ll e a g u e , Tu n de Kovac - Cerovi c , both profe s s ors of edu c a ti on a l

p s ych o l ogy at the Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .Rosandic was a sen i or fell ow in the Jen n i n gs

Ra n do l ph Program for In tern a ti onal Pe ace at the Un i ted States In s ti tute of Pe ace in

1 9 9 7 – 9 8 , du ring wh i ch time she com p l eted the re s e a rch for this report .

The report pre s ents seven of the pe ace edu c a ti on programs in Serbi a , most for

pre s ch ool and el em en t a ry sch ool stu den t s , and shows how they fit into the field of pe ace

edu c a ti on more gen era lly. Rosandic discusses the met h odo l ogy and con tent of the programs and pre s ents eva lu a ti ons of the progra m s’ ef fect s .

She notes that pe ace edu c a ti on can be approach ed in two ways : a more narrow, f act -

ori en ted approach and a broader approach ori en ted to informal learning of a t ti tu de s ,

va lu e s , and beh avi or. The programs discussed here bel ong to the latter category.“Serbi a n

p s ych o l ogists and edu c a tors gave pri ori ty to programs that en co u ra ge and incorpora te

acti on ,d i a l og u e ,i nvo lvem en t , coopera ti on , and parti c i p a ti on ,”Rosandic wri te s . “This is

because su ch an approach is more con gru ent with the message of pe ace and nonvi o l en ce

and because it is, in itsel f , a way of te aching both abo ut pe ace and for pe ace .”

Because the social and po l i tical envi ron m ent has su ch an important impact on pe ace

edu c a ti on , Rosandic discusses the gen eral mise-en-scène of con tem pora ry Serbian soc i ety

as well as the ch a racteri s tics of the Serbian edu c a ti onal sys tem , before looking at the programs them s elve s .

Pa rt I,“ Factors Con f ron ting Pe ace Edu c a ti on Efforts in Serbi a ,”l ooks at the broad 

s ocial and po l i tical factors in Serbia affecting pe ace edu c a ti on progra m s . Ch a pter 1 ex a mines the trauma of recent wars on the pop u l a ti on ,e s pec i a lly ch i l d ren . Ch a pter 2 ex p l ore s

the envi ron m ent in wh i ch pe ace edu c a ti on was taugh t ,l ooking spec i f i c a lly at the soc i a l

and po l i tical tu rm oil in Serbia in the 1990s, a time wh en “the public sph ere was satu ra ted

by thre a t s , ru m ors , and poi s onous prop a ga n d a .”Rosandic de s c ri bes how state patern a li s m ,c ru de pop u l i s m , and a cl i en tist sys tem preva i l ed .E du c a tors had to gra pple with the 5
s t a te’s implicit argument that the dominant cultu re of vi o l en ce was som eh ow “n a tu ra l ”

and “u n avoi d a bl e .”

Ch a pter 3 examines the Serbian sch ool sys tem ,i n s tru cti on met h od s , and te ach er attitu des and ex pect a ti on s . Rosandic introdu ces the re ader to the sch oo l s’ trad i ti onal aut h orit a rian instru cti on met h od s ,l eft over from the days of com munist ru l e , in wh i ch the

te ach er transmits his or her special knowl ed ge , wh i ch the stu dents then repeat back by

ro te , a process that soc i a l i zes them to accept aut h ori ty, to con form , and to obey. Th i s

ch a pter also pre s ents the findings of a stu dy of Serbian tex tboo k s , wh i ch analy zed stra tegies taught for handling interpers onal and inter group con f l i ct s . The texts of fered an argum en t a tive stra tegy for dealing with out - gro u p s ,b acked up by vi o l en ce and arm ed

s tru ggl e . Retreat from a con f l i ct with out s i ders was not con s i dered . In deed ,n o te s

Ro s a n d i c ,h i s tory tex tbooks con t a i n ed on ly two explicit referen ces to a third - p a rty med ia ting ro l e .

A stu dy of the te ach ers them s elves showed an inabi l i ty to el a bora te on the natu re of

con f l i ct and an inabi l i ty to manage con f l i ct “due to a trad i ti onal (aggre s s ive - a r g u m en t ative) understanding of con f l i ct situ a ti ons and the use of wi t h d rawal and con f l i ct avoi da n ce as re s erve mech a n i s m s .”The social re a l i ty of the sch ool sys tem was found to be

e s s en ti a lly similar to that of the larger soc i ety,Rosandic con clu de s .

Pa rt II,“A Look at Pe ace Edu c a ti on Programs in Serbi a ,”pre s ents seven pe ace edu c ati on programs implem en ted pri m a ri ly in Serbian pre s ch ools and el em en t a ry sch oo l s . Th e

programs were devel oped based on insights from em p i rical studies seeking to assess the

i m p act of the war atm o s ph ere in Serbia on ch i l d ren ,i n cluding ref u gee s . Ch a pter 4 give s

an overvi ew of the progra m s ,i n cluding their goals and met h od . The met h od itsel f — a n

el i c i tive approach to te aching—was perhaps the most po tent aspect of the progra m s , add ressing the core probl ems of s oc i a l i z a ti on in the Serbian sch ool set ti n g, Rosandic note s .

Am ong other things , the met h od tra n s form ed the te ach er ’s role from a dom i n a ting to a

f ac i l i t a ting one and the stu den t’s role from a passive to an active on e . Ch a pter 4 also provi des an example of an el i c i tive exerc i s e ,i n ten ded to help participants ex pre s s ,i den ti f y,

and name feel i n gs .

Ch a pter 5 discusses the eva lu a ti ons of e ach of the progra m s . G en era lly, both te ach ers

and stu dents ex pre s s ed strong en t husiasm for the pe ace edu c a ti on programs because of

t h eir con tent and their active ,p a rti c i p a tory met h od s . The eva lu a ti ons found that in many

cases stu dents showed more po s i tive social beh avi or after parti c i p a ting in the progra m s ,

or at the least, less nega tive social beh avi or.

Ch a pter 6 looks at the pro s pects for con ti nu ed pe ace edu c a ti on in Serbi a . The recen t

war in Ko s ovo and the uncert a i n ty abo ut furt h er eru pti ons of vi o l en ce have re su l ted in a

ren ewed social crisis in Serbi a . The govern m ent con demns pac i f i s t s , wh i ch would cert a i n ly inclu de pe ace edu c a tors , as “u n p a tri o ti c” and stri ct ly con trols any devi a ti on from

the prom o ted patri o tic disco u rs e . However, Rosandic note s ,t h ere is some hope that participants in the pe ace edu c a ti on programs may find new ways to con ti nue the process of

s ocial ch a n ge by finding new venues for com mu n i c a ti on ,a m ong other measu re s . Fu rt h er,

Serbian te ach ers of pe ace edu c a ti on wi ll not likely give up their hopes for tra n s form i n g

t h eir soc i ety. Rosandic proposes an insti tuti onal re s ponse to the crisis in Serbia and in the

Balkans more gen era lly: c re a ti on of a Balkan In s ti tute for Tex tbook Re s e a rch , wh ere dif6 Summary
7

ferent ethnic groups might joi n t ly iden tify the differing vi ews of h i s tory and modera te

tales of vi cti m h ood , bl a m e , and gl ory. A more tem pera te telling of the regi on’s history

t h ro u gh tex tbooks would help upcoming gen era ti ons to deal with the traumas of the past

and for ge a more liva ble futu re .

Acknowledgments

I am deep ly indebted to the Un i ted States In s ti tute of Pe ace for en a bling me to work on

this proj ect du ring my fell owship in 1997–98. It was my great privi l ege to coopera te wi t h

the In s ti tute’s ex pert s , to parti c i p a te in lively discussions with the staff and other sen i or

fell ows of the Jen n i n gs Ra n do l ph progra m , and to ben efit from the In s ti tute’s servi ce s .

I owe mu ch to Sa lly Bl a i r, program of f i cer in the Jen n i n gs Ra n do l ph fell owship progra m ;

she ste ad f a s t ly provi ded en co u ra gem ent and astute com m en t a ry thro u gh o ut this proj ect’s ge s t a ti on . For their insigh tful and con s tru ctive com m ents on this manu s c ri pt I

would also like to thank Lauren Van Metre , Un i ted States In s ti tute of Pe ace progra m

of f i cer; Th eodore Herm a n ,d i rector em eri tus of the pe ace stu dy program at Co l ga te

Un ivers i ty; Mi ch ael We s s ell s , profe s s or of p s ych o l ogy at Ra n do l ph - Macon Co ll ege ;a n d

G avri el So l om on , dean of the Sch ool of E du c a ti on at Haifa Un ivers i ty. Thanks also to

my re s e a rch assistants, Omar Ba rtos and Sa ra Si m on , who worked assidu o u s ly to move

this proj ect forw a rd .

Acknowledgments
8

A Telling A n e c d o t e

In 1994,Yu go s l av film director Zelimir Zilnik made a film that vivi dly illu s tra ted the extent to wh i ch some Serbians lost to u ch with re a l i ty under the autoc ra tic rule of Sl obod a n

Mi l o s evi c . The making of the film, Ti to: For the Second Time among the Serb s , was one of

the stra n gest events to have taken place in Bel grade . An actor dre s s ed up as Ma rshal Ti to,

who reu n i ted Yu go s l avia in 1945 and ru l ed the co u n try until his death in 1980. While the

actor wandered around Bel grade ,Zilnik filmed peop l e’s re acti on s .

Am a z i n gly, i n s te ad of s eeing the funny side of Zi l n i k’s pra n k , people re acted as though

the actor were the real Ti to. In the film,“Ti to”s ays he has come back to see “ wh a t’s goi n g

on .”He stro lls around the city greeted by both adoring and angry citi zen s ,who acc u s e

him of being re s pon s i ble for the misfortunes that befell the co u n try after his de a t h . As

“Ti to” to u rs Bel grade , wom en crowd around the de ad pre s i dent to give him flowers .O n e

tells him that she cri ed wh en he died , and he answers ,“So did I.”

“Ti to” is we a ring a military uniform and looks none the worse for his de a t h . Ma ny enga ge their form er leader in convers a ti on .“I am a Serb, and you are a Croa t ,” s ays one man,

“but I used to ad m i re yo u .”

An o t h er man says that after “Ti to’s” de a t h , the man had been part of the hon or guard .

“Ye s , I rem em ber yo u ,” replies “Ti to” en co u ra gi n gly. The man says ,“You have been everything to us.You used to warm us like the su n .”

An o t h er disagree s ,telling the form er com munist leader that he is “g u i l ty, a bandit,”a n d

accuses him of h a ting Serb s . “I used to be one of your soldiers ,”s ays yet another,“but now

t h ere is no bre ad in the shop s ! ”An o t h er says that du ring his time there was on ly one Ti to,

but “n ow there are fifty - f ive .”

The film’s wri ters thought it was a joke , but as one can see , it became ra t h er seri o u s . In

f ront of a Bel grade train stati on , a Gypsy accord i onist stri kes up a Ti to - era tune and the

c rowd grows so large that the po l i ce have to interven e . Th ey first tell the cameraman to

m ove ,t h en Zi l n i k .Wh en Zilnik asks them to tell “Ti to”the same, t h ey say,“ No, l e ave him

o ut of i t .”One man explains to “Ti to”t h a t ,n ow ad ays ,“everyone has a flag, a state , and a

coat of a rm s ; for on ly one hill ,t wo to three hu n d red boys must die.”An old man acc u s e s

“Ti to”of being pro - Am eri c a n .

In the most pathetic scene in the movi e ,“Ti to” finds himsel f by the monu m ent to his

com rade s . Th eir busts have been rem oved .“Who was bo t h ered by them ? ” asks “Ti to.”

“Those who don’t like order, those who don’t re s pect the past. . . . Those who are irres pon s i bl e ,” s ays an el derly man. He does not look up.“Ti to” asks wh ere he is from . Th e

man replies that he is a ref u gee from the war in Bo s n i a .

“Wh en wi ll it en d ? ”asks “Ti to.”The el derly man rep l i e s ,“Th ere is no en d , my fri en d .’ ”

— Ruzica Ro s a n d i c
9

O n e

I n t roduction: Why Peace Educat i o n ?

I

n Novem ber 1991, prom pted by feel i n gs of pers onal and profe s s i onal re s pon s i bi l i ty,

an informal group of p s ych o l ogists from Serbia sign ed a peti ti on they hoped wo u l d

a t tract the atten ti on of a ll the Yu go s l av governing bodies sti ll in power. Th eir peti ti on

poi n ted to the “ i n con te s t a ble fact that ch i l d h ood is sac ri f i ced in adva n ce in any war, e s pec i a lly a civil war, rega rdless of the purposes for wh i ch that war is waged .”1 In this appe a l ,

t h ey poi n ted out that Yu go s l avia had sign ed the Conven ti on on the Ri ghts of the Ch i l d ,

adopted by the Un i ted Na ti ons (UN) in 1989. Thu s , Yu go s l avia assu m ed certain com m i tm en t s , wh i ch are flagra n t ly vi o l a ted in warti m e . The psych o l ogists stre s s ed that “ch i l d ren

l iving in a co u n try torn by war are the most en d a n gered category of the pop u l a ti on .” Th e

group ex p l a i n ed that, in ad d i ti on to the fact that ch i l d ren’s lives are direct ly imperi l ed ,

“not a single vital aspect of t h eir devel opm ent is spared ; in war, ch i l d ren are ex po s ed to

va rious forms and degrees of depriva ti on :s oc i a l , em o ti on a l ,m ora l , and intell ectu a l .” Th e

a ppeal listed the fo ll owing anti c i p a ted con s equ en ce s :

D ra s ti c , vital depriva ti on caused by the death or wounding of pers ons close to the

ch i l d ,s ep a ra ti on from the family, ref u gee statu s , and other forced ch a n ges of environ m en t .

Less con s p i c u o u s — but just as seri o u s — depriva ti on inflicted by the su b s t a n ti a l

i m poveri s h m ent in the nece s s a ry daily con t acts bet ween ch i l d ren and adu l t s , re su l ting from the adu l t s’ constant preocc u p a ti on with war.

An adverse envi ron m ent for the ch i l d ’s normal em o ti onal devel opm ent re su l ti n g

f rom the nega tive em o ti ons adults ex peri en ce in a war situ a ti on , su ch as feel i n gs of

h el p l e s s n e s s , con cern , depre s s i on , gri ef , de s p a i r, a n x i ety, fe a r, p a n i c ,f u ry, h a tred ,a n d

rel a ted em o ti on s .

Im p a i red devel opm ent based on a thre a ten i n g, i m poveri s h ed , and high ly simplified

p i ctu re of the worl d , and the form a ti on of bell i geren t ,w a r- i n du ced va lues abo ut

c ivi l i z a ti on and hu m a n i ty prom o ted in the media and in adult com mu n i c a ti on .

Un fortu n a tely, these warn i n gs later became bi t ter re a l i ties that then requ i red profe s s i on a l

a t ten ti on .

2 Those psych o l ogists who had sign ed the appeal were of ten the ones implem en ting va rious postwar interven ti on s .

Helping ch i l d ren overcome the psych o s ocial ef fects of the trauma of war accom p l i s h e s

a kind of n ece s s a ry “s a n i ti z a ti on .” It is worth noting that some psych o l ogists and edu c aPart I: Factors Confronting Peace

Education Efforts in Serbia
1 0

tors took ad d i ti onal steps to introdu ce programs that would help lay the gro u n dwork for

s oc i ety to move from hatred to to l era n ce and retu rn to pe ace ,h a rm ony, and amicable rel a ti on s . Su ch tra n s form a ti ons are po s s i ble not on ly, and not pri m a ri ly, t h ro u gh indivi du a l

tre a tm ents but ra t h er thro u gh more or less sys tem a tic and ex ten s ive edu c a ti onal activi ti e s .

In their con tent and met h od s ,s ome of the edu c a ti onal programs edu c a ted for pe ace . My

i n ten ti on is to pre s ent these programs and show how they fit into the field of pe ace 

edu c a ti on .

L i ke the con cept of pe ace itsel f , the con cept of pe ace edu c a ti on is a con te s ted on e ,

whose meaning va ries thro u gh time and ac ross cultu re s .

3 E a rly ideas of pe ace edu c a ti on ,

wh i ch grew out of World War I, s pec u l a ted abo ut the ben eficial outcomes of “ i n tern ati onal co ll ege s ,”wh ere by being toget h er, form er en emies could learn how to live in harm ony and pe ace .

4 These ideas have been su pers eded by theories of pe ace edu c a ti on as

“p l a n et a ry, conscious edu c a ti on for gl obal re s pon s i bi l i ty,”5 t hus ref l ecting ch a n ges in the

world and warf a re , in the causes of vi o l en ce , and in te aching practi ce s .

The new con cept of an isolated insti tuti on as, in fact ,a “ web”of pe ace edu c a ti on has

ex p a n ded to gl obal dimen s i on s .“Th ere are no clear and precise limits to, n or standard s

for, what should be inclu ded in pe ace edu c a ti on ,” points out Bet ty Re a rdon , a lead i n g

Am erican pe ace edu c a tor.6 Nevert h el e s s ,she or ga n i zes the va s t , com p l ex field of pe ace 

edu c a ti on into topical are a s , su ch as con f l i ct re s o luti on , coopera ti on ,n onvi o l en ce , mu l ti -

c u l tu ral unders t a n d i n g, human ri gh t s ,s ocial ju s ti ce ,world re s o u rce s , and the gl obal environ m en t .

7

An analysis of these topical areas su ggests two underlying approach e s :(1) a more cogn i tive ,f act - ori en ted edu c a ti on a b ou t pe ace ; and (2) a broader approach found in the term

edu c a tion for pe a ce , ori en ted to informal learning of a t ti tu de s , va lu e s , and beh avi or. Th e

programs pre s en ted here bel ong predom i n a n t ly to the second gro u p. The re a s ons for that

a re twofo l d .

On the one hand, m ore formal learning of su bj ect matter requ i res radical ch a n ges in

the sch ool curri c u lu m , wh i ch were impo s s i ble to accomplish in Serbia at the ti m e .Alt h o u gh the Serbian Mi n i s try of E du c a ti on agreed to accept a Un i ted Na ti ons In tern ati onal Ch i l d ren’s Emer gency Fund (UNICEF) proj ect on edu c a ti on for pe ace in the

co u n try ’s sch oo l s ,

8 that did not mean the aut h ori ties were re ady for radical ch a n ges to the

s ys tem .

On the other hand, the aut h ors of these programs were convi n ced that a ch a n ge in the

very met h ods of te aching would be far- re ach i n g. As Bi r git Brock - Utne points out ,“ It is of

no help if the su bj ect matter taught is of a cri tical natu re sel ected to furt h er dem oc ra ti c

va lues and the ch a racter form a ti on of i n d ivi duals if the met h ods used to convey the su bj ect matter are aut h ori t a ri a n , do not en ga ge stu den t s , and do not appeal to their em oti on s .”9 Serbian psych o l ogists and edu c a tors gave pri ori ty to programs that en co u ra ge and

i n corpora te acti on ,d i a l og u e ,i nvo lvem en t , coopera ti on , and parti c i p a ti on . This is bec a u s e

su ch an approach is more con gru ent with the message of pe ace and nonvi o l en ce and because it is, in itsel f , a way of te aching both abo ut pe ace and for pe ace .

To gen era te altern a tive vi s i on s , it was assu m ed that the con cept of s el f , a pers onal sen s e

of s ec u ri ty, and the abi l i ty of an indivi dual to coopera te are essen tial ingred i ents in pe ace

edu c a ti on ,e s pec i a lly in the initial ph a s e s , and were needed to co u n ter the prevailing soc i a l

Introduction: Why Peace Education?
1 1

and po l i tical circ u m s t a n ce s . The aim was to ch a n ge the atti tu des not on ly of s tu dents but

of te ach ers as well . Thus it was import a n t , as Bi r git Brock - Utne note s , “to indu ce te ach ers

to strive to co u n teract the hidden messages deva luing the stu dents and giving them little

h ope for the futu re ,”and at the same ti m e , to give stu dents the “opportu n i ty to devel op

t h eir own interests and have these ack n owl ed ged in sch oo l .”1 0

Al s o, the specific social and cultu ral set ti n gs in wh i ch pe ace edu c a ti on programs are

i m p l em en ted shape the ways in wh i ch each topic area is taugh t ,s pecific issues are el a bora ted ,s tra tegies are fo ll owed , and target audien ces are ad d re s s ed .E ach specific pe ace educ a ti on program should be de s i gn ed for the envi ron m ent in wh i ch it is introdu ced .

Thu s ,the pe ace edu c a ti on programs discussed bel ow need to be eva lu a ted vi s - à - vi s :( 1 )

the gen eral mise-en-scène of con tem pora ry Serbian soc i ety, and (2) the ch a racteri s tics of

the Serbian edu c a ti onal sys tem , wh i ch is the set ting in wh i ch these programs were 

i m p l em en ted .

The many programs devel oped for pre s ch ools and el em en t a ry sch ools would have

been almost impo s s i ble wi t h o ut the su pport of U N I C E F.The edu c a ti onal sys tem in Serbia is high ly cen tra l i zed and con tro ll ed and not mu ch con cern ed with pacifist ide a s .

Va rious pe ace edu c a ti on programs devel oped for high sch ools and univers i ties have

u n fortu n a tely rem a i n ed marginal to the Serbian edu c a ti onal sys tem . Th ey con ti nue to be

of fered in yo uth clu b s1 1 or in informal sem i n a rs for under gradu a te or gradu a te stu den t s ,

te ach ers , or other edu c a ti on profe s s i onals wi lling to parti c i p a te .

1 2 These programs are not

i n clu ded in this report—not because they are inferi or in qu a l i ty or influ en ce but bec a u s e

t h ey were not sys tem a ti c a lly implem en ted or ob s erved , so direct com p a ri s ons are difficult.

In this report I discuss seven pe ace edu c a ti on progra m s . Fo ll owing a short pre s en t a ti on

of e ach progra m , my analysis focuses on two fe a tu re s — m et h odo l ogy and con ten t — a n d

i n clu des a discussion of the progra m s’ doc u m en ted ef fect s . Most programs inclu ded som e

type of eva lu a ti on . Some eva lu a ti ons foc u s ed pri m a ri ly on ef fects of the training on te achers and other adults working with sch ool ch i l d ren . However, most used ra t h er el a bora te

eva lu a ti on parad i gms to record the ef fects on ch i l d ren as the ulti m a te ben ef i c i a ries of t h e

tra i n i n g.

According to the ori ginal manu s c ri pt , the con cluding ch a pter of this report was to outline the pro s pects for pe ace edu c a ti on in Serbi a . At that ti m e , in the autumn of 1 9 9 7 ,t h o s e

pro s pects loo ked far different than they do now, in the wi n ter of 1 9 9 9 .The overa ll situ ati on in Serbian soc i ety has ch a n ged from what appe a red to be slow progress out of a severe cri s i s ,to a new decline tri ggered by the vi o l ent con f l i ct in Ko s ovo. The thoro u gh

deteri ora ti on of s ocial and cultu ral life in Serbia thre a tens to undo the accom p l i s h m en t s

of the previous pe ace edu c a ti on activi ti e s . What in the autumn of 1997 loo ked like

promising pro s pects now seem qu i te utop i a n . But ,i f not opti m i s t s , edu c a tors are at least

pers i s tent in their en de avors . The pro s pects for pe ace edu c a ti on in Serbia might best be

de s c ri bed as initi a tives that should be pursu ed ,i f not in the near futu re ,t h en at som e

m ore distant ti m e . It would be hel pful if re s o u rces were ava i l a ble to eva lu a te the impact

the pre s ent crisis is having on past pe ace edu c a ti on ef fort s . Su ch an en de avor would likely

yi eld the best grounds for determining not on ly the va l i d i ty of these specific ef fort s , but

perhaps the va l i d i ty of pe ace edu c a ti on itsel f .

Introduction: Why Peace Education?
1 2

Two

The Ecology of Peace Education in Serbia

The term e col o gy is derived from Urie Bron fen bren n er ’s eco l ogical theory of

human devel opm en t .

1 3 It is used here to stress the import a n ce of s ocial stru ctu res in defining the con texts in wh i ch human bei n gs devel op and act . Every

activi ty and set ti n g, i n cluding the work of pe ace edu c a ti on , is seen as gro u n ded in a set 

of a s su m pti ons abo ut appropri a te ro l e s , goa l s , and means used by the participants in that

s et ti n g.

It is difficult to ach i eve con ceptual cl a ri ty wi t h o ut first inqu i ring into what con s ti tute s

pe ace in specific cultu ral and social envi ron m en t s ,h ow it can be ach i eved , and how on e

can edu c a te stu dents to work for it. It seems insu f f i c i ent to rely on ly on Bet ty Re a rdon’s

h ope that “a sys tem a tic disco u rse abo ut def i n i ti ons wi ll lead us to a broader and cl e a rer

n o ti on of a ut h en tic processes and met h ods and the con ceptual tools needed to 

refine them .”1 4

Ra t h er, the incorpora ti on of gl obal ideas into the app l i ed progra m s ,m et h od s ,a n d

too l s , and their test in practi ce could con tri bute to the search for cl a ri ty. Th ro u gh sys tema tic disco u rs e , a con ceptual gap bet ween “actual minds” and “po s s i ble worl d s” can be el ega n t ly overa rch ed .

1 5 S ti ll , the practi ti on er is the one who must stagger and not fall , tryi n g

in specific set ti n gs and thro u gh practical acti ons to con tri bute to what is con ceived of as 

a cultu re of pe ace . Un i ted Na ti ons Edu c a ti on a l ,S c i en ti f i c , and Cu l tu ral Orga n i z a ti on’s

( U N E S C O’s) cultu re - of - pe ace program stresses the need for cultu ra lly sen s i tive models of

pe ace - building mech a n i s m s . The very ef forts to cultu ra lly con s tru ct the meaning of a

“c u l tu re of pe ace”a re in them s elves an essen tial part of building pe ace , as Mi ch ael We ss ells points out .

1 6 Pe ace edu c a ti on must ref l ect diverse valu e s ,a s su m pti on s , and worl dvi ews .

If , for what Paulo Frei re calls “the ped a gogy of the oppre s s ed ,”1 7 a proper set ting is on e

in wh i ch adult workers learn to re ad but do not have to pass ex a m s , what would be a

proper set ting for pe ace edu c a ti on? Or, p ut another way, h ow does one determine wh i ch

forms of pe ace edu c a ti on are appropri a te for specific social and cultu ral set ti n gs? Th ere is

a dynamic rel a ti onship bet ween the two, wh i ch makes practi ti on ers’ paths so difficult. It is

one kind of ch a ll en ge for pe ace edu c a tors to work in a set ting wh ere stu dents learn in order to be graded , being part of a com peti tive sys tem . Nevert h el e s s , that appe a rs to be a

u n iversal ch a ll en ge .Q u i te different and ad ded ch a ll en ges con f ront pe ace edu c a tors working in, for ex a m p l e , a cen tra l i zed , po l i ti c i zed sch ool sys tem that has an evi dent inve s tm en t

in perpetu a ting a cycle of vi o l en ce from one gen era ti on to the nex t . Un der su ch circ u ms t a n ce s ,h ow can pe ace edu c a tors devel op stra tegies and mechanisms to make pe ace educ a ti on as sys temic and mu l ti d i m en s i onal as vi o l en ce itsel f ?

Again according to Bet ty Re a rdon , a nu m ber of basic top i c s ,f u n d a m ental assu m pti on s , and com m on el em ents remain to be def i n ed . Al s o, el a bora ti on of U N E S C O’s cul-
Ecology of Peace Education 1 3

tu re - of - pe ace program is sti ll in its early stage s , as is the work of Mi ch ael We s s ell s1 8 a n d

Ma lvern Lu m s den ,

1 9 who are defining some basic pri n c i p l e s20 and core mech a n i s m s2 1 of

the te aching proce s s .

Mise-en-Scène 

What was it like for a practi ti on er trying to de s i gn a pe ace edu c a ti on program in Serbia in

the early 1990s? Serbia was a con f l i ct - ri d den soc i ety, torn apart by po l i tical vi o l en ce . Un ti l

recen t ly, no war was actu a lly waged on Serbian terri tory. However, the con s equ en ces of

the wars in Croa tia and Bosnia were evi dent in the everyd ay lives of Serbian citi zen s .

Ma ny of the con f l i cts rava ging the form er Yu go s l av soc i ety re su l ted direct ly from state

vi o l en ce and rel a ted gross human ri ghts vi o l a ti ons against citi zen s . Even tu a lly some of

these con f l i cts devel oped into clashes bet ween ethnic groups over access to state power. At

the same ti m e , as the form er Yu go s l av state was under going unavoi d a ble social and econ omic tra n s form a ti ons in the po s t - com munist ye a rs , it lacked the strength and legi ti m ac y

to en su re a minimum level of order and rule of l aw.

Th i s , of co u rs e , is not to say that et h n i c i ty was unimportant in the devel opm ent of t h e

Yu go s l av con f l i ct s . The mere fact that et h n i c i ty plays a part in a con f l i ct makes that conf l i ct espec i a lly difficult to re s o lve . Because et h n i c i ty defines on e’s iden ti ty and rel a ti on to

o t h ers , it tends to influ en ce a pers on’s or gro u p’s whole way of bei n g. In ad d i ti on , con f l i ct s

wh ere people are mobi l i zed along ethnic lines soon cease to be clashes limited to parti c ular interests con cern i n g, for ex a m p l e , po l i tical power. The people invo lved qu i ck ly bel i eve

that their very ex i s ten ce is thre a ten ed .

The form er Yu go s l av govern m ent had nei t h er the power nor the aut h ori ty to med i a te

or intervene in these con f l i ct s . Nor could it sec u re an impartial public space essen tial for

the em er gen ce of c ivil soc i ety—a space wh ere different groups could freely ex press thei r

i n terests and op i n i on s ,discuss different altern a tives in order to solve their probl em s ,n ego ti a te , and seek com prom i s e s .As a re su l t ,the “p u blic space s” were satu ra ted by thre a t s ,

ru m ors , poi s onous prop a ga n d a ,c a lls for unity and hom ogen i z a ti on ,m i su n ders t a n d i n gs ,

and fe a rs , re su l ting in the ex trem ely vi o l ent disintegra ti on of the state . A pe ace edu c a tor in

the form er Yu go s l avia had to ad d ress at least some of the con s equ en ces of these proce s s e s

wh en they came to be ex pre s s ed in the sch oo l - a ge pop u l a ti on .

The natu re of power rel a ti ons in the co u n try furt h er com p l i c a ted the pictu re . No t h i n g

in con tem pora ry Serbia is more va lu ed than state power. Com peti ti on for power is pervas ive . The con cen tra ti on of power cre a tes an almost warl i ke situ a ti on .With state power as

s trong and unch ecked as it evi den t ly is, com peti tors cannot afford to lose. Th ey do everything both lawful and unlawful to wi n . Nothing looks worse than losing; nothing loo k s

bet ter than wi n n i n g. This is the dominant model of con f l i ct managem ent in Serbia tod ay.

The con tem pora ry Serbian state does not legi ti m i ze its power as a dem oc racy wo u l d ,

n a m ely, t h ro u gh public parti c i p a ti on in po l i tical dialog u e . Fu rt h er, no mechanisms ex i s t

for power- s h a ring or for ch ecking the state’s power. Po l i tical leaders coopt po ten tial oppon ents thro u gh patron - cl i ent rel a ti onships or thro u gh repre s s i on and reven ge .

2 2 A po l i ti c a l

l e ader ’s family and “f ri en d s”occ u py stra tegic po s i ti ons in the power hiera rchy. O ut s i de of

this gro u p, the leader buys the “f ri en d s h i p” of o t h ers who hold important po s i ti ons in soc i ety. By the same to ken ,p u blic acco u n t a bi l i ty, ri gh t s , and re s pon s i bi l i ties are exch a n ged
1 4

for material ben ef i t s ,f avori tism of d i f ferent kinds, and obed i en ce tow a rds patron s . Su ch

m odes of beh avi or bear little rel a ti on to pers onal auton omy and acco u n t a bi l i ty and furt h er del ay the devel opm ent of dem oc ra tic proce s s e s .

Pa ternalism and pers onal rule have less to do with Serbian trad i ti ons than with the

c u rrent ruling el i te’s app a rent need to con s o l i d a te state power after com munist ru l e . In

the con text of h i gh ly cen tra l i zed state power, l e adership is parti c u l a rly sign i f i c a n t . Peop l e

a re mobi l i zed by their abi l i ty to trust and iden tify with po l i tical leaders inste ad of by thei r

pers onal and group intere s t s . Po l i tical or ga n i z a ti ons are usu a lly form ed around pers on a l ities ra t h er than po l i tical progra m s . Needless to say, pers onal iden ti f i c a ti on with leaders

and re su l ting feel i n gs of pers onal loya l ty can most easily en co u ra ge ethnic attach m en t s .

Cru de populism and insults against other parties are com m on . Su ch beh avi or incre a s e s

s ocial into l era n ce .This beh avi or also increases po l i ti c i z a ti on of ethnic iden ti ti e s , wh i ch ,i n

the set ting of a repre s s ive state ,e a s i ly leads to new kinds of a n t a gon i s m s . Serbian leaders

con s i der the state to be their pers onal property and use it for pers onal intere s t s . The state

is govern ed thro u gh a cl i en tist sys tem : As noted above , the po l i tical el i te builds su pport by

d i s tri buting re s o u rces on a pers onal basis to fo ll owers .E con omic and financial managem ent is ge a red tow a rd this en d . Thu s , corru pti on and kleptoc ra tic practi ces become an 

almost legi ti m a te fe a tu re of govern a n ce .

Against this back ground of c risis in govern a n ce , an out s i der may con clu de that the 

on going social and ethnic con f l i cts are irra ti onal and sen s el e s s ,s temming from pri m i tive

forces within the nati on . Serbian leaders them s elves are keen to prom o te su ch an interpret a ti on . Butsu ch ex p l a n a ti ons imply that ethnic con f l i cts are som eh ow natu ral and 

u n avoi d a bl e , and that cultu ral iden ti ty is essen tial and du ra bl e , ra t h er than a 

con tex t - depen dent fe a tu re of the social sys tem . The govern m en t - con tro ll ed Serbian 

m edia also use, and thus prom o te , su ch overly simplistic and determ i n i s tic images of et hnic iden ti f i c a ti on . Con f ron ted with this cl i m a te , pe ace edu c a ti on programs must gra pp l e

with the argument that the dominant cultu re of vi o l en ce is som eh ow “n a tu ra l ”and 

“u n avoi d a bl e .”

Ecology of Peace Education
1 5

Th re e

The Setting of a Closer Encounter:

The Serbian School System

Pre s en t ly Serbia has abo ut 1,800 el em en t a ry sch ools em p l oying approx i m a tely

53,000 pri m a ry sch ool te ach ers and more than 2,000 ex pert assoc i a te s ,i n clu ding psych o l ogi s t s ,l i bra ri a n s , and ped a gog u e s .( In Serbi a , a ped a gogue su pervi ses te ach ers and en su res that instru cti ons from the Mi n i s try of E du c a ti on and the ru l i n g

po l i tical party are implem en ted.) Approx i m a tely 100,000 pupils en ro ll in first grade every

year (although this nu m ber has been falling in the past few ye a rs ) . An esti m a ted 900,000

s tu dents are en ro ll ed in pri m a ry sch ools in the co u n try.

Abo ut 4 percent of the gross nati onal produ ct (GNP) has been earm a rked for edu c ati on annu a lly in recent ye a rs .

2 3 However, because of the sharp decline in nati onal incom e ,

edu c a ti on funds are in absolute terms very small (approx i m a tely $60 to $65 per

re s i den t ) .

2 4 Su ch econ omic con d i ti ons are ref l ected ac ross all aspects of the sch ool sys tem ,

f rom depre s s i n gly low te ach ers’ s a l a ries to the deteri ora ti on of s ch ool bu i l d i n gs and

equ i pm en t . For ex a m p l e , less than half of the sch ools have libra ri e s .O n ly one third have

s pec i a lly equ i pped cl a s s room s ,with cabi n ets and labs. On avera ge ,s ch ools have fewer

than one com p uter. Am ong te ach ers , su ch con d i ti ons lead to insen s i tivi ty and apathy, a

l ack of profe s s i onal motiva ti on , and frequ ent stri ke s .

The form er com munist trad i ti on — n a m ely, to use the sch ool sys tem as a powerful ins tru m ent of prop a ganda to keep the sys tem high ly cen tra l i zed—did not end with the formal tra n s i ti on to a mu l ti p a rty sys tem in Serbi a . On the con tra ry, the same party is sti ll in

power, governing the sch ool sys tem in the same manner but less smoo t h ly and skill f u lly.

The new Serbian sch ool sys tem has taken the aut h ori ty to make even minor dec i s i on s

aw ay from sch oo l s . It focuses almost exclu s ively on implem en ting ex ten s ive , pre s c ri bed

c u rri c u l a ,l e aving te ach ers and stu dents with little time for innova ti on or ex trac u rri c u l a r

activi ti e s .

Fu rt h er, no formal sys tem is in place to ad d ress the edu c a ti onal needs of the adult popu l a ti on . Ro u gh ly 33 percent of adults have not finished el em en t a ry sch oo l . Th o u gh most

a re el derly, 25 percent are in their fifti e s .L a r ge proporti ons of u n edu c a ted adults are

found in ru ral and undevel oped regi on s ,a m ong fem a l e s , and among non profe s s i on a l

workers .

G en eral pauperi z a ti on cre a tes new probl em s ,i n cluding an increase in the sch oo l

d ropo ut ra te ,u n derach i evem en t , depre s s i on , and poor social integra ti on .( E con om i c

a n a lyses show that abo ut 40 percent of u rban families with ch i l d ren fall within the impoveri s h ed category.) This nati onal crisis con tri butes to gre a ter social pathology among ch i ld ren ,s pec i f i c a lly, a l cohol and drug abu s e ,i n c re a s ed aggre s s iven e s s , and juven i l e

del i n qu en c y.2 5
The high ly po l i ti c i zed qu e s ti on of edu c a ting ethnic Albanian ch i l d ren in Ko s ovo may

h ave to be ad d re s s ed in bet ter ti m e s . Me a nwh i l e , the very serious probl em of edu c a ti n g

ethnic Roma (Gypsy) ch i l d ren rem a i n s . These ch i l d ren frequ en t ly drop out in the firs t

four grade s ,a re underach i evers , and su f fer from social sti gma and margi n a l i z a ti on . Al s o,

m ore than 45,000 ref u gee ch i l d ren sch oo l ed in Yu go s l avia dem on s tra te severe social and

edu c a ti onal ad ju s tm ent probl em s ,i n cluding low ach i evem ent and psych o l ogical distre s s .

2 6

Instruction Methods 

The Serbian sch ool sys tem em p l oys ex trem ely trad i ti onal instru cti on met h od s , with the

predominant form being “te aching by tra n s m i s s i on .” In this mode of i n s tru cti on ,the ans wer to the Ba k h tinian qu e s ti on ,“Who is doing the talking?”, is more than evi den t : It’s the

te ach er.“Tra n s m i s s i on”i n s tru cti on all ows for no dialog u e . The ped a gogical outcome is

well - k n own :S tu dents taught by “tra n s m i s s i on” h ave an inadequ a te understanding of t h e

m ed i a ted materi a l , wh i ch is mem ori zed as inform a ti on to be reprodu ced in a manner vi rtu a lly iden tical to the form in wh i ch it was received . Kn owl ed ge acqu i red in this way is

for go t ten as soon as the demand to reprodu ce it disappe a rs .

Soc i a l i z a ti on ef fects of this kind of i n s tru cti on have not been adequ a tely discussed :

Su ch instru cti on con tri butes to the hom ogen i z a ti on of s tu den t s’ minds and deprive s

t h em of re s pon s i bi l i ty for their acti on s . Su ch soc i a l i z a ti on establishes a clear power differen ce bet ween te ach ers’ voi ces and stu den t s’ voi ce s : The te ach ers’ ut tera n ces functi on as

“d i rective s” that stu dents are ex pected to fo ll ow.2 7 O f co u rs e , su ch directives are de s i gn ed

to get the stu dent to think and act in the “ri gh t”w ay. S tu dents are thus soc i a l i zed to accept

con form i ty as a vi rtu e , fo ll ow directives unqu e s ti on i n gly, and accept aut h ori ty obed i en t ly.

An o t h er fe a tu re of this instru cti on rel a tes to opportu n i ties for med i a ti on and nego ti ati on in a dom i n a n ce hiera rchy. James Wert s ch analy zes this in his stu dy on social lang u a ge ,s tressing that social privi l eging (dom i n a n ce) en su res that certain med i a ti on a l

means appear not on ly appropri a te , but as the on ly “n a tu ra l ”ch oi ce .

2 8Al t h o u gh nego ti ati on is po s s i ble wh en it con cerns who is privi l eged for wh a t , opportu n i ties for nego ti a ti on

a re minimal in the con text of Serbian sch ool instru cti on . Po s s i bi l i ties for nego ti a ti on depend on having access to other “ zon e s”wh ere patterns of privi l eging might be differen t .

But , in pri n c i p l e , su ch va ri ety hardly exists in any of the adu l t - child rel a ti onships in contem pora ry Serbi a .

Few studies have been done on adu l t - child social interacti ons in Serbi a . One stu dy of

m o t h er- child interacti ons in a learning set ting found that mothers did not help their ch i ld ren plan, ch eck , or revi ew probl em - s o lving but ra t h erinten s ely ob s erved the ch i l d ’s res ponses (in front of the instru ctor ) . Al t h o u gh the mothers were tem pted to of fer the

“ri gh t” a n s wer, t h ey did not help the child correct his or her mistakes nor explain the errors .

2 9 On the basis of this stu dy and what is known abo ut the Serbian edu c a ti onal system , one con clu des that ch i l d ren have but the most limited fra m ework for con s c i o u s

ref l ecti on and, h en ce ,for sel f - gen era ted ch a n ge and devel opm ent of a uton omy.

Un fortu n a tely, this pattern of rel a ti onship prevails not on ly bet ween adults and ch i ld ren , and te ach ers and stu den t s , but thro u gh o ut the whole soc i ety.“ Di rective s”to hom ogen i ze en du re and prevail in Serbi a’s social language . The pre s ent Serbian govern m ent uses

1 6 The Setting of a Closer Encounter
d i rectives abu n d a n t ly in com mu n i c a ting with its citi zen s . The April 1998 referen dum provi des one su ch ex a m p l e . The referen dum gave Serbian citi zens yet another ch a n ce to differen ti a te “p a tri o t s”f rom “tra i tors”by saying “n o” to intern a ti onal med i a ti on in

Serbi a n - Albanian nego ti a ti ons over the status of Ko s ovo. In s tru cti ons on the “ri gh t” a ns wer were repe a ted prof u s ely thro u gh prop a ga n d a .

Af ter a “properly ”i n s tru cted citi zen ry vo ted , po l i tical leaders interpreted the meaning

of the inevi t a ble “n o.” For ex a m p l e , the pre s i dent of the Serbian govern m en t , Mi rko Ma rja n ovi c , said the “n o”meant that the Serbian people “ wi ll defend their own soverei gn ty

and indepen den ce .”3 0 The intern a ti onal com mu n i ty “ wi ll understand that it is normal for

e ach co u n try to defend its own integri ty, and that the probl em of human ri ghts amon g

Ko s ovar Albanians is gre a t ly con f a bu l a ted .”An d , Ma r ja n ovic ex p l a i n ed , the Ko s ovar Al b anians should understand the vo te as saying that “t h ere is no need to press anybody to nego ti a te ,” because the Ko s ovar Albanians “must become aw a re that they are citi zens of

Serbia with equal ri ghts like everybody el s e .”

The pre s i dent of the Serbian assem bly, D ra gan Tom i c ,i n terpreted the “n o” as new

proof of the “great unity and hom ogen ei ty of the po l i tical parti e s ,the peop l e , and the

l e aders h i p.”3 1 He cl o s ed the whole circle of po s s i ble interpret a ti ons by proclaiming that

the “n o”provi des “the answer to all the qu e s ti on s .”3 2

An o t h er rel evant finding in James Wert s ch’s re s e a rch was that formal modes of i ns tru cti on resist inform a ti on from “o ut s i de” s et ti n gs . His data show that in the Am eri c a n

cl a s s room ,n on i n s tru cti onal statem ents are ex p l i c i t ly sep a ra ted from formal instru cti on a l

d i s co u rs e .

3 3 No do u bt similar re s e a rch in Serbia would show the same pattern . Two fe atu res of these “o ut s i de - t h e - form a l - i n s tru cti on” referen ces make them dangerous to the

dominant instru cti on model .F i rs t ,t h ey may con f l i ct with formal instru cti onal ut tera n ce s .

Secon d , because they con cern ex peri en ce and knowl ed ge to wh i ch the spe a ker (a stu den t )

has privi l eged acces s ,t h ey thre a ten to su bvert the te ach er ’s dom i n a n ce .

O f co u rs e , even though a sch ool may soc i a l i ze ch i l d ren aw ay from using their own experi en ces in the cl a s s room , ch i l d ren are likely to learn from them any w ay. Fu rt h er, s oc i a li z a ti on influ en ces cannot be vi ewed in terms of d i rect causality. For ex a m p l e ,d i f feren t

i n d ivi duals living in the same social con text adopt different su rvival stra tegi e s . However,

the issue of opti ons rem a i n s : Do any public social set ti n gs exist in wh i ch stu dents are all owed the “privi l ege” of h aving their own voi ce s ,t hus giving them an opportu n i ty to acqu i re stra tegies and skills nece s s a ry for dialogue? Moreover, s tu dents are soc i a l i zed to

u n derstand and re s pect a sharp del i n e a ti on bet ween the realm of s ch ool and the realm of

h om e .

3 4 The clear sep a ra ti on of l e a rning and living con tex t s , of formal instru cti on and

pers onal ex peri en ce , has well - k n own ped a gogical con s equ en ce s . Ch i ef a m ong these is studen t s’i n a bi l i ty to tra n s fer formal knowl ed ge to out - of - s ch ool set ti n gs . Less of ten disc u s s ed is the impact on stu den t s’ s oc i a l i z a ti on : If nothing el s e , this divi s ive approach

ori ents stu dents tow a rds hypoc ri s y.

Teaching Values 

Te aching va lues con ti nues to be a high ly po l i ti c i zed issue in Serbi a .Af ter 1991 the new

regime mech a n i c a lly gra f ted layers of n ew nati on a l i s tic ideo l ogy on to the mostly unto u ch ed Ma rxist ideo l ogy interwoven in many sch ool su bj ects in its banal, decl a ra tive

The Setting of a Closer Encounter 1 7
form s .

3 5 A su rvey of s ch ool tex tbooks showed , for ex a m p l e , that a 1992 fifth-grade tex tboo k , wh i ch was wri t ten after the fall of the Berlin Wa ll , pre s erved the form er ch ron o l ogy

of ch i ef h i s torical epoch s . Thu s , the modern age sti ll began some 70 ye a rs ago after the

Bo l s h evik revo luti on ,a n d , in this modern age ,“a major part of mankind sti ll lives in a

capitalist soc i ety, while another part ,to wh i ch we bel on g, is building a socialist soc i ety.” To

d i s pel any do u bts rega rding the on s et of the “l a test age ,” the tex tboo k’s illu s tra ti on of evoluti on from preh i s toric times to the pre s ent fe a tu res a pictu re of a worker carrying the Sovi et flag, with “ 1 9 1 7 ” wri t ten bel ow.3 6

In 1993 the Mi n i s try of E du c a ti on issu ed directives that implied not on ly term i n o l ogical ch a n ge s .

3 7 For instance ,i n s te ad of “S F R J ”( Socialist Federal Rep u blic of Yu go s l avi a )

s tu dents were to use “ F RY ”( Federal Rep u blic of Yu go s l avi a ) ; “Serbian language”rep l aced

“Serbo - Croa tian language” ;“boy or gi rl ” was su b s ti tuted for “p i on eer ”(a mem ber of a

yo uth or ga n i z a ti on ) . More import a n t , a form of l i tera ry “ethnic cl e a n s i n g”was introdu ced

in wh i ch almost all litera ry con tri buti ons by non - Serbi a n , form er Yu go s l av wri ters were

el i m i n a ted . For re a s ons of “ i deo l ogical cl e a n s i n g,” m a ny essays and ch a pters on Ti to also

were exclu ded .

Tex t b o o k s

Cu rrent Serbian sch ool tex tbooks prom o te five core soc i a l i z a ti on pattern s :

3 8

1 .Ach i eving com peten ce in work (by prom o ting pers onal ch a racteri s tics like

d i s c i p l i n e ,t h oro u gh n e s s ,s t a m i n a ,d i l i gen ce ,c re a tivi ty, and re adiness for furt h er

s el f - i m provem en t ) .

2 . Pre s erving com mu n i ty iden ti ty (thro u gh stru ggle against two kinds of en em i e s ,

n a m ely, forei gn occ u p i ers and internal class or ideo l ogical en em i e s ) .

3 .S ti mu l a ting social ad a pt a bi l i ty within the dominant group (by devel oping kindness,

open n e s s , and re s pect for others who bel ong to the in-gro u p ) .

4 .E n su ring the physical su rvival of the com mu n i ty (by prom o ting the idea that

Serbian people wi ll pay any pri ce for the freedom and soverei gn ty of t h eir terri tory ) .

5 .S ti mu l a ting joy of l i fe .

3 9

S ch ool tex tbooks in any soc i ety wi ll avoid certain top i c s , but it is instru ctive to note

wh i ch topics form er Yu go s l av and pre s ent Serbian tex tbooks do not men ti on . For ex a mp l e , the high ly ch eri s h ed ideal of a “con f l i ct l e s s” s oc i ety is never qu e s ti on ed . No cri ti c i s m

of the ex i s ting social sys tem is fo u n d , no ack n owl ed gm ent that em p a t hy for “en em i e s”i s

po s s i bl e , and no men ti on that con s tru ctive rel a ti onships with other peoples are po s s i bl e .

These om i s s i ons have a socializing functi on of t h eir own :S tu dents are soc i a l i zed aw ay

f rom these topics because they are con s i dered “ex tern a l ” to the privi l eged worl dvi ew.

Con f l i cting messages are also a ch a racteri s tic of Serbian tex tboo k s . Some very sign i f icant va lues prom o ted by the tex tbooks are pra i s ed toget h er with their oppo s i te s .

4 0 Thu s ,

while the texts praise pers onal auton omy and sel f - tru s t ,t h ey also te ach that in order to

su cceed in any en de avor, one must rely on in-groups and su bord i n a te pers onal interests to

co ll ective on e s .While advoc a ting coopera ti on and tru s t , the texts also prom o te com peti1 8 The Setting of a Closer Encounter
tiveness and te ach that others pose a thre a t .Al t h o u gh the texts ad d ress the horrors of w a r,

t h ey prom o te bell i cose beh avi or as a vi rtu e . While ad m i ring and tru s ting of yo ut h ,t h e

texts praise paternalism tow a rd yo ut h . These con f l i cting messages are indicative of the decl a ra tive natu re of a ut h ori t a rian soc i eti e s .

4 1 However, t h ey also con tri bute to con f u s i on

over what is real and what is imagi n a ry. Thus a fra gile hold on re a l i ty re su l t s ,

4 2 a fe a tu re of

s ocial sys tems based on the bel i ef that there is a single trut h .

Tex tbooks also prom o te nati onal sen ti m ents that overem ph a s i ze the em o ti on a l ,s ac ros a n ct com pon ents of a patri o tic atti tu de . The nati on is def i n ed as a com mu n i ty with a

u n i que history of su f fering and hard s h i p s , as well as a com mu n i ty of com m on terri tory —

the spaces wh ere the Serbian people live , wh ere their foref a t h ers lived , and thro u gh o ut

wh i ch are scattered the sac red shrines of n a ti onal history. These “s ac red shri n e s” a re at

times mon a s teri e s ,s o u rces of s p i ri tual va lu e s , but most frequ en t ly are graves and crypt s ,

“the cradles of the new force s .”4 3 The strong “ we” has ch a n ged from “ we , the soc i a l i s t

cl a s s” to “ we ,the mem bers of the Serbian nati on .” Trad i ti onal en emies are xen oph obi c a lly

de s c ri bed as a constant thre a t .

Needless to say, form er Yu go s l av and current Serbian tex tbooks for el em en t a ry grade s

en dorse and prom o te a patri a rchal model of gen der ro l e s .

4 4

In ad d i ti on to the cultu ral meanings tex tbooks convey, nu m erous narra tives de a l i n g

with social con f l i ct also can be iden ti f i ed .In 1997 an analys i s4 5was made of t wo types of

n a rra tives abo ut con f l i ct s , wh i ch were : (1) narra tives that recon s tru cted “ what happen ed ,”

and (2) narra tives that recon s tru cted “ what might have happen ed .”4 6 Using this disti n cti on , a som ewhat more com p l ex model of con f l i ct managem ent appe a red in the sch oo l

tex tboo k s . The narra tives of “ what happen ed ,” found pri m a ri ly in history tex tboo k s ,

s trayed freely from the known fact s .O n ly narra tives that actu a lly bel on ged to the ficti on

gen re of fered a va ri ety of w ays to manage con f l i ct .

The analysis showed that tex tbooks disti n g u i s h ed cl e a rly bet ween :(1) preferred stra tegies for dealing with con f l i cts bet ween indivi du a l s , and (2) stra tegies for dealing with conf l i cts bet ween social gro u p s . In con f l i cts invo lving out - gro u p s , no matter what social type s

were invo lved (et h n i c , cl a s s , rel i gi o u s , and so on ) , the preferred stra tegy was argumen t ative ,

4 7 b acked up by vi o l en ce and arm ed stru ggl e .Al t h o u gh no examples ex p l i c i t ly sti gm a tizing an out - group were fo u n d , tex tbooks repe a ted the fo ll owing el em ents until they

a ppe a red to be canon i zed “ru l e s” :

Rel a tionships betwe en different so cial groups are , as a ru l e , co n f l i ctu a l . Tex tbooks seldom men ti on coopera tive rel a ti onships based on mutual intere s t , except for short -

term all i a n ces to stren g t h en on e’s own po s i ti on wh en figh ting a third party or

gro u p. In tegra tive mechanisms of i n - group rel a ti onships are built on wariness and

c a uti on , and upon en m i ty tow a rd other gro u p s .

Retreat from a co n f l i ct is not co n s i d ered or expe cted . One should never yi eld to another. Yi elding is a sign of weakness and most of ten leads to defe a t .

Co n f l i cts are re solved by fo rce , i n cluding va ri ous fo rms of vi ol en ce and arm ed stru ggl e .

Ch a n ces for vi ctory are gre a ter if one has allies to stren g t h en on e’s po s i ti on .

All i a n ces are made or bro ken according to need and circ u m s t a n ce .

The Setting of a Closer Encounter 1 9
O n ly narra tives on con f l i cts bet ween indivi duals pre s en ted more flex i ble stra tegies and

t acti c s , and hen ce more nu m ero u s , el a bora te examples of i n tegra tive con f l i ct re s o luti on . It

s eems po s s i ble to use “s of ter ”t actics in indivi dual con f l i ct s , even if the con f l i ct is with an

o ut - group mem ber. No t a bly, texts te ach that one can yi eld or retreat from a con f l i ct wi t ho ut ending up a loser on ly in the safe haven of a family (espec i a lly if the other party is a

woman or ch i l d ) . The search for a mutu a l ,i n tegra tive soluti on to con f l i ct is found on ly in

n a rra tives in family set ti n gs . Aga i n ,on ly in the safe realm of a family group can the med ia ting attem pts of a third party (usu a lly som eone from the in-group—a mother or wi fe )

con tri bute to the su ccessful re s o luti on of a con f l i ct .

O n ly two explicit referen ces to a third - p a rty med i a ting role were found in history tex tboo k s : (1) The role of the Russian czar in med i a ting bet ween Serbia and Bu l ga ria du ri n g

the Balkan Wa rs (1912), and (2) the role of the co u rts of recon c i l i a ti on in solving agra ri a n

d i s p utes in parts of the co u n try under Au s trian rule before the fall of the Ha p s burg 

em p i re .

In both cases, m ed i a ti on did not prove su ccessful as a lon g - term soluti on . In the litera ry re aders ,h owever, t h ree cases inclu ded a third - p a rty interven ti on .One invo lved the

su ccessful interven ti on of a mother in a father- s on con f l i ct .In the secon d , an el derly gent l em a n , a sen i or of f i cer, su cce s s f u lly interven ed bet ween a wi fe who wi s h ed to visit her

wo u n ded husband in a hospital and a warden who ref u s ed to let her. The third was from a

popular folk story in wh i ch a legen d a ry figure of Serbian cultu re , Saint Sava ,a ppe a rs as a

t h i rd party to arbi tra te a con f l i ct and ad m i n i s ter ju s ti ce . Pri n ted bel ow in full , this story illu s tra tes the differen ce bet ween the role of a med i a tor (a pers on who attem pts to help the

d i f fering parties re ach a vo lu n t a ry agreem ent) and the role of an arbi tra tor (a pers on empowered to make binding recom m en d a ti ons for dispute set t l em en t ) .In this story, Sa i n t

Sava takes on the role of a rbi tra tor after he fails as a med i a tor in the first part of the story.

Saint Sava and the Two Rivals

One peasant takes a plot of land from another; the other peasant goes to Saint Sava to

register a complaint. When Saint Sava has heard the complaint, he calls up the offender

and politely tells him to return the land to his neighbor, to make peace, and to resume

living as good neighbors should. When the offender doesn’t agree, Saint Sava takes him

to a fertile part of the land and says, “Since you wish to own so much good land, here it

is; go, and whatever you cover on foot in this fertile part today, shall be yours. Just take

care and be wary, for at sunset you must return to this very spot where we are now

standing, otherwise your life is worth nothing.” 

The robber sets about his task. He starts running around the nice estate with all his

might. This meadow is nice, and that one is fine, and these woods are good, and the

orchard is beautiful, then that vineyard is excellent, and this field fruitful, and that pasture plentiful, and this and that . . . . So, the poor devil runs, hungry and thirsty, without

rest, all the summer’s day long. The sun starts to descend slowly beyond the hills, but the

miserable one still runs around the slopes and thick pine woods. When he finally

approaches the starting point, the sun has already set. Completely exhausted, he falls and

dies, without reaching the mark he started from.4 8

2 0 The Setting of a Closer Encounter
Te a c h e rs

A recent stu dy of 256 te ach ers from Bel grade , Su bo tica (in Voj vod i n a , an et h n i c a lly mixed

n ort h ern regi on ) , Kru s evac (in cen tral Serbi a , an et h n i c a lly hom ogenous regi on ) ,a n d

Niksic (in Mon ten egro, an et h n i c a lly hom ogenous sout h ern regi onwith strong attachm ents to trad i ti on and long-standing patri a rchal rel a ti onships) com p a red their implicit

a s su m pti ons abo ut social con f l i ct s .

4 9 The stu dy found that te ach ers overwh el m i n gly bel i eve that: (1) con f l i cts are caused by con f l i ct - prone pers ons with traits su ch as stu bbornn e s s ,i n to l era n ce , and rel a ted nega tive attri bute s ; (2) these traits are acqu i red in early

ch i l d h ood ; and (3) te ach ers and sch ools are incapable of h elping these tro u bl em a kers

ch a n ge sign i f i c a n t ly.

Te ach ers see con f l i cts pri m a ri ly as a win-lose com peti ti on wh ere both participants cannot come out as wi n n ers . Te ach ers do not bel i eve it is po s s i ble to med i a te con f l i cts nor do

t h ey bel i eve that there might be more than one side to the trut h . Th ey vi ew interests on ly

in a nega tive ligh t . In managing con f l i ct , te ach ers seek ei t h er to establish who is the guilty

p a rty or to avoid or wi t h d raw from a con f l i ct . Ma ny of t h em bel i eve that retri buti on is

ju s ti f i ed and are not pred i s po s ed to accept apo l ogies or en ga ge in acts of for given e s s . In

gen era l , the te ach ers’ implicit bel i efs abo ut con f l i ct are con d i ti on ed by two dimen s i on s :

(1) ri gid norm a tivi s m , ref l ecting a trad i ti on a l ,p a tri a rch a l , and aggre s s ive matrix found in

te ach ers with lon ger work ex peri en ce ; and (2) abstract norm a tivi s m , ref l ecting soc i a lly favora ble and con c i l i a tory atti tu des ch a racteri s tic of yo u n ger te ach ers .

Te ach ers from va rious parts of Yu go s l avia show a high level of s i m i l a ri ty, ref l ecting the

same gen era ti onal differen ces thro u gh o ut the co u n try.Wh et h er this is a con s equ en ce of

u n i form edu c a ti on for te ach ers or a uniform cultu ral pattern remains to be determ i n ed ,

most likely by a com p a ri s on with non - te ach ers .

All of the te ach ers’ convi cti ons and beh avi or are ch a racteri zed by: (1) a failu re to su f f ic i en t ly el a bora te on the natu re of con f l i ct , and (2) an inabi l i ty to manage con f l i ct , due to a

trad i ti onal (aggre s s ive - a r g u m en t a tive) understanding of con f l i ct situ a ti ons and the use of

wi t h d rawal and con f l i ct avoi d a n ce as re s erve mech a n i s m s .The stu dy also detected severa l

a l a rming ten den c i e s ,i n clu d i n g :

1 . A failu re to understand and re s pect interests as motiva tors ,

2 . A lack of i n i ti a tive ,

3 . An inabi l i ty to make a re a s on ed assessment of the other side in a con f l i ct ,

4 . An inabi l i ty to take another ’s pers pective , and 

5 . A failu re to understand the language of n eeds and patterns of n onvi o l en t

com mu n i c a ti on .

Si n ce these re sults are , ro u gh ly, in accord a n ce with the stereo type of bell i geren ce and aut h ori t a ri a n i s m , and thus bear a po l i tical con n o t a ti on , it would be useful to make a futu re

com p a ra tive analysis of te ach ers in different cultu res and soc i eti e s .

Not su rpri s i n gly, as the de s c ri pti ons above indicate , the Serbian sch ool sys tem’s soc i a l

re a l i ty is essen ti a lly similar to that found in the larger soc i ety. Factors found in soc i ety at

l a r ge , su ch as trad i ti on s ,i deo l ogi e s , and po l i ti c s ,a re also found in small er set ti n gs , su ch as

The Setting of a Closer Encounter 2 1
2 2

s ch oo l s , wh ere they influ en ce learning con d i ti on s . It is thus assu m ed that vi o l ent cultu re s

produ ce vi o l ent mem bers .

G iven that pe ace edu c a ti on’s goals and programs stand in fundamental oppo s i ti on to

Serbian soc i ety va lu e s ,i n cluding those of its sch oo l s , is it po s s i ble to initi a te activi ties at

the local level that may ch a n ge con d i ti ons in soc i ety as a whole? Rel a ti ons bet ween the

m ac ro and micro level are com p l ex , dy n a m i c , and i n teractive in natu re .At least in pri n c ip l e , an interdepen den ce bet ween the two levels of s oc i ety ex i s t s .On this basis, pe ace educ a tors push forw a rd .

The Setting of a Closer Encounter
2 3

Fo u r

An Ove r v i ew of Peace Education Pro g ra m s

The analyses above show that the sch ool set ting in Serbia con s ti tutes a web of

po ten tial vi o l en ce : The met h od of formal instru cti on paves the way for vi o l en ce ,

as do the prevailing va lues and worl dvi ew. More com preh en s ive ch a n ges than

pe ace edu c a ti on programs can initi a te are needed to ch a n ge su ch a depressing landscape .

Pe ace edu c a ti on is just a start . De s c ri bed bel ow are seven pe ace edu c a ti on progra m s

i m p l em en ted in Serbia bet ween 1992 and 1998, with short su m m a ries of t h eir main fe atu re s . A later secti on discusses the progra m s’ s i m i l a ri ties and their strengths and we a kn e s s e s .

Ma ny of the programs are based on insights from em p i rical studies perform ed in

1 9 9 1 – 9 2 .

5 0 Serbian pre s ch ool and el em en t a ry sch ool ch i l d ren (including ref u gees) were

ob s erved and intervi ewed to assess the impact of the war atm o s ph ere in the co u n try.

These studies provi ded the basis for devel oping the interven ti on progra m s . Bri ef ly, t h e

s tudies found that aggre s s iveness and into l era n ce had incre a s ed sign i f i c a n t ly at all age level s . Ch i l d ren’s fea rs ,e s pec i a lly fe a rs con cerning war, i n c re a s ed as well . All of the ch i l d ren —

not just the ref u gee s — were ob s e s s ed with war. It became a dominant theme in their play,

d rawi n g, and speech . Wh ereas drawi n gs and games are typ i c a lly the most imagi n a tive

forms of a ch i l d ’s ex pre s s i on , these play activi ties were almost com p l etely lost; i n s te ad ,p l ay

ri gi dly imitated re a l i ty. The ch i l d ren saw that adults close to them — p a rents and te achers — h ad become preocc u p i ed with their own feel i n gs and probl em s . Th ey had ce a s ed to

provi de su pport ,l e aving the ch i l d ren not knowing how to cope with their new ex perien ce s .Al t h o u gh the findings were alarm i n g, t h ey provi ded hel pful inform a ti on for developing the fo ll owing progra m s .

P ro g ram Pro fi l e s

Hi Neighbor (1997–98) 

S pon s ored by the Un i ted Na ti ons Hi gh Com m i s s i on for Ref u gees (UNHCR) and Rad d a

Ba rn en (Save the Ch i l d ren ) . Run by a non govern m ental or ga n i z a ti on (NGO) with the

same name. Im p l em en ted first in co ll ective ref u gee camps in Serbia and Rep u blika Srps k a , as well as in el em en t a ry sch ools in Rep u blika Srp s k a . Te a mwork headed by Ve s n a

Ogn j en ovi c , profe s s or at the Pre s ch ool Te ach ers Co ll ege , Bel grade .

In i ti a lly, the program sought to solve ref u gee s’ probl ems in to to :s o lve their ex i s ten ti a l

probl ems by helping them regain their sense of l i fe in a soc i a lly distorted con tex t . Du ri n g

Part II: A Look at Peace

Education P rograms in Serbia
2 4 Overview of Peace Education Programs

the first ye a rs of i m p l em en t a ti on ,the program con s i s ted of com p l ex psych o l ogical works h ops that activa ted va rious forms of s ym bolic ex pre s s i on (thro u gh movem en t , word s ,

and painting) con cerning thre a tening war ex peri en ce s . The work s h ops foc u s ed on recovering normal social interacti on s . Th eir con s ti tutive el em ents worked to :(1) incre a s e

aw a reness of the means of ex pre s s i on (movem en t , word ,i m a ge ) , and (2) stren g t h en a

s ense of a uton omy in using these means vi s - à - vis an actual or imagi n ed social con tex t .

Work s h op participants inclu ded ch i l d ren and their paren t s .The core topic was the

su pport and recon s tru cti on of the sel f - con cept . Because the program sought to avoid labeling ref u gees as “tra u m a ti zed ”or “pers ons with specific probl em s ,” it aimed to bu i l d

u pon parti c i p a n t s’ s tren g t h s .No attem pt was made to su ggest specific acti ons they migh t

t a ke . Ra t h er, the goal was to provi de a special fra m ework for social interacti on , and model

the “too l s”with wh i ch participants them s elves could discover and build their own and

e ach others’ pers onal re s o u rce s .

The initial program grew and divers i f i ed as it was being implem en ted . All the su bprograms carry a com m on ti t l e :“Child and Cu l tu re .” The program em ph a s i zed the social and

c u l tu ral integra ti on of both adults and ch i l d ren in local set ti n gs . Al toget h er more than

4,000 ch i l d ren and adults parti c i p a ted .

51 Th ere are no data eva lu a ting this progra m .

Smile Ke e p e rs (1993–95)

S pon s ored by UNICEF. Run by the In s ti tute of Ps ych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade . Te a mwork headed by Nada Ign ja tovi c - Savi c ,l ectu rer at the dep a rtm ent of p s ych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .

This program aimed to :

1 . Redu ce the nega tive psych o l ogical impacts of war and of o t h er dra s tic ch a n ges in

the envi ron m en t ,

2 . Pro tect and prom o te stu den t s’ pers on a l i ty devel opm en t ,

3 . Prevent the devel opm ent of po s t - tra u m a tic stress disorder (PTSD) and rel a ted distu rb a n ces in ch i l d ren and ado l e s cents ex po s ed to tra u m a tic even t s ,

4 . Help su f fering ch i l d ren and ado l e s cents overcome their psych o l ogical probl em s ,

5 . Fac i l i t a te ref u gee s’ ad ju s tm ent to the new envi ron m en t , and 

6 . Su pport and increase the pers onal and profe s s i onal com peten ce of pre s ch ool and

s ch ool psych o l ogi s t s , ped a gog u e s , and te ach ers .

The program strove to help all ch i l d ren in Serbi a , because all had been affected by the war.

The Smile Keepers program foc u s ed on iden ti ty and con ti nu i ty of the sel f ,m em ori e s ,

worri e s , em o ti on s , com mu n i c a ti on and coopera ti on , con f l i ct s ,a n ger, fe a rs ,s ad n e s s ,

d re a m s ,l ove , child ri gh t s , and futu re aims.

Ps ych o l ogi s t s , ped a gog u e s , and te ach ers were tra i n ed to fac i l i t a te the work s h ops wi t h

ch i l d ren . Training sem i n a rs were or ga n i zed in forty - four loc a l i ties in Serbia and Mon ten egro for 6,000 tra i n ee s . Di rect ben ef i c i a ries were pre s ch ool ch i l d ren ages 5 to 7, pri m a ry

s ch ool stu dents ages 8 to 15, and high sch ool stu dents ages 16 to 17, for a total of 8 1 , 0 0 0

s tu den t s .

5 2An eva lu a ti on of the program was con du cted .
2 5

Cognition through Games (1992–94)

S pon s ored by UNHCR. Run by the Cen ter for An ti - War Acti on , an NGO in Bel grade .

Te a mwork headed by Tu n de Kovac - Cerovi c , profe s s or of edu c a ti onal psych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .

This program was devel oped initi a lly to help ref u gee ch i l d ren gain social skills and

com peten ce in learn i n g.Work s h ops were de s i gn ed to help parti c i p a n t s : (1) arti c u l a te and

process a series of i m portant cogn i tive ex peri en ces (hesitati on , do u bt , con f u s i on , and so

on ) ;(2) take part in a coopera tive learning proce s s ; and (3) ad just to their new situ a ti on s

as ref u gees in co ll ective camps or in sch oo l s . Two forms of the program were devel oped :

one for ages 7 to 10 and one for ages 11 to 14. The work s h ops were de s i gn ed for after- cl a s s

s et ti n gs .

The Cogn i ti on thro u gh Games program was initi a lly run in co ll ective ref u gee camps,

but tra i n ed sch ool psych o l ogists have since implem en ted it in many sch ools in Serbi a

(and even in some other form er Yu go s l av rep u bl i c s ) .

5 3 Th ere are no qu a n ti t a tive data

eva lu a ting this progra m .

The Goodwill Classroom: Elementary School Pro g rams in

Constructive Conflict Resolution (1993–97)

UNICEF spon s ored the program thro u gh devel opm en t , te s ti n g, p u bl i c a ti on of a manu a l

by va rious intern a ti onal NGOs, and tra i n i n g. Run by the Cen ter for An ti - War Acti on ,

Group MOST, Bel grade . Te a mwork headed by Ruzica Rosandic and Tu n de Kovac -

Cerovi c , profe s s ors of edu c a ti onal psych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .

The program was devel oped in three form a t s :t wo for el em en t a ry sch ool stu den t s ,a ge s

7 to 10 and 11 to 14, and one for high sch ool stu den t s . The program inclu ded work s h op s

on cogn i tive and beh avi oral skills in con s tru ctive com mu n i c a ti on ,a n a lysis of i n tere s t s

and need s ,s el f - con trol and sel f - a f f i rm a ti on , to l era n ce of i n d ivi dual differen ce s ,m a i n ten a n ce of trust bet ween partn ers , re s i s t a n ce to group pre s su re , pers onal acco u n t a bi l i ty,

con trol of s trong em o ti on s ,a n a lysis of con f l i ct s , and tech n i ques of n onvi o l ent con f l i ct re so luti on .

Af ter the initial training for te ach ers ,s ch ool psych o l ogi s t s , and ped a gog u e s , ef forts were

m ade to establish a net work of tra i n ed sch ool staff. These indivi duals in tu rn tra i n ed others . Twen ty - f ive ad d i ti onal staff m em bers were tra i n ed and led thro u gh all the phases of

the spon s oring proce s s .

Af ter more than forty sem i n a rs and more than 1,000 training hours , 1,150 te ach ers ,

p s ych o l ogi s t s , and ped a gogues were tra i n ed to fac i l i t a te work s h ops with stu den t s . An

eva lu a ti on was made of the training and of the progra m’s ef fects on stu den t s .

5 4

Primer on the Rights of the Child (1994–97)

S pon s ored by UNICEF and Radda Ba rn en . Run by Fri ends of Ch i l d ren , a Serbian NGO.

The main aim of the program was to prom o te the UN Conven ti on on the Ri ghts of t h e

Ch i l d . Te a mwork headed by Mi r jana Pesic and Ivan Ivi c , profe s s ors of p s ych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .

This program was based on a publ i c a ti on ,Pri m er on the Ri ghts of the Child, pri n ted as a

p i ctu re book with poetry rhymes and ch i l d ren’s com m ents con cerning arti cles of t h e

Overview of Peace Education Programs
Conven ti on .In nu m erous sem i n a rs , the program acqu a i n ted participants (mainly te achers , but also el em en t a ry sch ool stu dents and va rious profe s s i onals working with ch i l d ren )

with the UN Conven ti on on the Ri ghts of the Ch i l d . Pa rticipants received training in how

to or ga n i ze mechanisms to mon i tor and pro tect ch i l d ren’s ri ghts in local com mu n i ti e s .

Te ach ers also learn ed how to te ach stu dents to mon i tor and pro tect their own ri gh t s

( t h ro u gh solidari ty acti ons for ch i l d ren whose ri ghts are in some way jeop a rd i zed ,e s t a blishing child lobbi e s , and rel a ted acti ons by ch i l d ren for ch i l d ren ) . A special focus was on

genuine ch i l d ren’s parti c i p a ti on in this acti on .

Af ter more than ei gh ty sem i n a rs with 2,770 parti c i p a n t s , the program re ach ed abo ut

400 loc a l i ties in Serbi a . An ad d i ti onal sixty instru ctors were tra i n ed .An eva lu a ti on was

m ade of the training and implem en t a ti on .

5 5

Mutual Education: Giraffe Language (1995–97)

S pon s ored by UNICEF. Run by the In s ti tute of Ps ych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade . Te a mwork headed by Nada Ign ja tovi c - Savi c ,l ectu rer at the dep a rtm ent of p s ych o l ogy, Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .

This proj ect had two com p l em en t a ry goa l s , wh i ch were to :(1) te ach adults work i n g

with ch i l d ren to use nonvi o l en t , com p a s s i on a te com mu n i c a ti on , and (2) train ch i l d ren

and young people to adopt basic skills in nonvi o l ent com mu n i c a ti on . Nonvi o l ent commu n i c a ti on skills were pre s en ted as an ef f i c i ent tool in: (1) preven ting misu n ders t a n d i n gs ,

con f l i ct s , and vi o l en ce in interpers onal rel a ti on s ;(2) intervening and re s o lving probl em s

and cri s e s ; and (3) affirming and devel oping a nonvi o l ent model of i n terpers onal rel ati onships that implies auton omy (freedom of ch oi ce and pers onal re s pon s i bi l i ty ) , mutu a li ty, and interdepen den ce . Work s h ops for te ach ers , ped a gog u e s ,p s ych o l ogi s t s , and ch i l d ren

a ges 5 to 10 inclu ded topics su ch as com mu n i c a ti on skill s ,s el f - re s pect and sel f - a pprova l ,

pers onal re s pon s i bi l i ty, mutu a l i ty, com p a s s i on , em p a t hy, re s pect for differen ce s , equ a l i ty,

and coopera ti on . The stra tegy was, f i rs t , to te ach adults working with ch i l d ren to use nonvi o l en t , com p a s s i on a te com mu n i c a ti on skill s , and secon d , to devel op a mutual edu c a ti on

m odel , wh i ch was then used to te ach new stu dents basic com mu n i c a ti on skills and active

p a rti c i p a ti on in the learning proce s s .

Al toget h er 552 adults from fifteen loc a l i ties in Serbia were tra i n ed , and 9,400 stu den t s

received tra i n i n g. Ni n ety new instru ctors also were tra i n ed . The training was eva lu a ted .

5 6

Enhancing Preschool Children’s Self-Esteem thro u g h

C o o p e rative Communication (1993–97)

Su pported by UNICEF. Run by the Pre s ch ool Te ach ers Co ll ege , Novi Sad , and the NGO

Fri ends of Ch i l d ren of Voj vod i n a , Novi Sad . Aut h ors : Ibo lya Gera and Lju bica Do t l i c , profe s s ors at the Pre s ch ool Te ach ers Co ll ege , Novi Sad .

This proj ect , an integral part of U N I C E F ’s psych o s ocial progra m , foc u s ed on pre s ch oo l

ch i l d ren and their paren t s .It tra i n ed both ch i l d ren and the adults working with them in

coopera tive com mu n i c a ti on skill s ,s el f - i den ti ty and sel f - e s teem , em o ti onal ex peri en ce s

and ex pre s s i on , and to l era n ce . The topic of ch i l d ren’s ri ghts also was part of the progra m .

The proj ect started after a large influx of ref u gees into Voj vod i n a . Tra i n ees were kinderga rten te ach ers and spec i a l i s t s . Du ring 1997 the program began to target ch i l d ren wi t h

2 6 Overview of Peace Education Programs
s pecial need s : ch i l d ren in hospitals and ch i l d ren’s wards on terri tory bel on ging to Serbi a

and Mon ten egro.

A total of 550 te ach ers were tra i n ed , and more than 19,500 pre s ch ool ch i l d ren and

t h eir parents parti c i p a ted .The training and program were eva lu a ted .

5 7

Method as a Gra p p l e

Pe ace edu c a ti on programs in Serbia are using two gra pples to cope with the social situ ati on , wh i ch su f fers from the ex ten s ive impact of vi o l en ce : edu c a ti onal met h od and program con ten t .

Mu ch in the met h odo l ogical approach is inspired by Jean Piaget’s idea that the task of

an edu c a tor is to mold a spiri tual tool in the hand of a child—not a new habi t , or even a

n ew bel i ef , butra t h er a new met h od , a tool that wi ll permit the child to understand and

find his or her own way.An o t h er major inspira ti on comes from theories of s ocial interacti on and the import a n ce of c u l tu ral tools devel oped by L. S .Vi gotski and his fo ll owers . According to this con ceptual fra m ework , the most po tent aspect of the pe ace edu c a ti on

programs in Serbia would lie in the met h od of i n s tru cti on itsel f . Ri ch ex peri en ce in tra i ning convi n ces us that these programs of fer “h a n dy ”pe ace tools for tra i n ed te ach ers and

the stu dents with wh om they work , tools thro u gh wh i ch sel f - i n i ti a ted ch a n ges can be

m ade . With a more favora ble mise-en - s c è n e , these tools would dem on s tra te incre a s ed

u s efulness and su ccess over ti m e .

The met h od of i n s tru cti on that these programs em p l oy ad d resses the core probl ems of

s oc i a l i z a ti on in the Serbian sch ool set ti n g. Th ey do so by means of the fo ll owing fe a tu re s :

1 . Th ey med i a te va rious patterns of i n teractive instru cti on , su ch as coopera tive learni n g, l e a rning by discovery, and learning by probl em - s o lvi n g.

2 . Th ey tra n s form the te ach er ’s role from a dom i n a ting one—the te ach er as “the sole

s o u rce of k n owl ed ge” — to a fac i l i t a ting on e .

3 . Th ey tra n s form the stu den t’s role from a passive to an active on e .

4 . Th ey introdu ce ex peri en tial learn i n g, wh i ch opens doors to “o ut s i de” i n form a ti on ,

bel i eving that stu den t s’ pers onal ex peri en ces and insights provi de a legi ti m a te basis

for knowl ed ge acqu i s i ti on . In that sen s e ,m a ny programs work inten s ively to recover

and refine the way stu dents ex press their pers onal ex peri en ce s .

Bet ween pre s c ri ptive and el i c i tive approaches—as Lederach labels the two oppo s i n g

types of tra i n i n g5 8—the basic ch a racteri s tic of the met h odo l ogy em p l oyed in pe ace educ a ti on programs in Serbia is sem i - s tru ctu red n e s s . Lederach labels as pre s c ri ptive tra i n i n g

that wh i ch “del ivers the produ ct .”For ex a m p l e , the tra i n er acts as an ex pert who impart s

k n ow - h ow and tech n i ques to implem ent the stra tegic approach . Ex perts know what the

p a rticipants need . As Lederach points out ,the cultu ral and ideo l ogical underp i n n i n gs of

this model are ra rely made ex p l i c i t .The tra i n er defines the need s , names the model , provi des the con ten t , overs ees the proce s s , and provi des directi on and correcti on . Pa rti c i p a n t s

acqu i re the med i a ted knowl ed ge .

The el i c i tive approach , according to Lederach ,“s t a rts from the va n t a ge point that tra i ning is an opportu n i ty aimed pri m a ri ly at discovery, c re a ti on , and solidificati on of m odel s

Overview of Peace Education Programs 2 7
that em er ge from the re s o u rces pre s ent in a particular set ting and re s pond to needs in that

con tex t .”5 9

Work s h ops used in most of the listed programs—no matter how spon t a n eous and

“n a tu ra l ”t h ey may seem — a re sem i - s tru ctu red . Th ey are based on caref u lly de s i gn ed , previ o u s ly dra f ted scri pt s . The scri pts are prec i s ely def i n ed in adva n ce in order to stru ctu re

p a rti c i p a n t s’ activi ties (frequ en t ly ga m e s ) .However, the specific knowl ed ge , the insigh t

that participants are ex pected to acqu i re du ring the work s h op, is not tra n s m i t ted as a

“re ady - m ade produ ct .” Ra t h er, it is el i c i ted from participants who co - con s tru ct it thro u gh

t h eir active con tri buti on to the proce s s .

Pa rticipants work in groups and su b gro u p s . Th ey ch a n ge partn ers in social interacti on s , wh i ch gives them the opportu n i ty to ack n owl ed ge and share va rious pers pective s

on the same issue—a matter of utmost import a n ce in overcoming the prevailing pattern

of one aut h ori ty, one trut h .

Scenarios That Elicit Pe rsonal Experiences

Arising from these pri n c i p l e s , the micro dynamic of an edu c a ti onal work s h op implies

progre s s i on thro u gh several stage s .F i rs t ,s cen a rios fe a tu ring certain topics are sel ected to

elicit rel evant pers onal ex peri en ces (rel evant to the participants as well as to the topic to be

el a bora ted ) .

To accomplish this aim, the work s h op has to fit the devel opm ental ch a racteri s tics of

the stu den t s . Ps ych o l ogical studies of child devel opm ent show that som etimes an age differen ce of a mere six months con s i dera bly alters the way a child re a s on s , as well as his or

h er social beh avi or and matu ri ty. The con tent (topic) of the work s h op, p l ay con tex t ,d i f f ic u l ty of the tasks, dynamics and or ga n i z a ti on of activi ti e s , as well as type of m a terial used ,

must be caref u lly ad ju s ted to differen ces in age . Also the vo lume of s el ected topics should

be ad ju s ted to different age gro u p s , with certain ones divi ded into small er units for

yo u n ger ch i l d ren .These same topics are el a bora ted on in a more com preh en s ive way for

o l der ch i l d ren .( As men ti on ed earl i er, the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room program has three form a t s : one for yo u n ger and one for older el em en t a ry sch ool stu den t s , and one for high

s ch ool stu den t s . )

To attract yo u n ger ch i l d ren to parti c i p a te in the activi ti e s , the play con text must be

ri ch er, cl e a rer, and more el a bora te . Sym bolic play is a spon t a n eous form of ch i l d ren’s activi ty, and re s orting to sym bolic activi ties is the easiest way to motiva te them . This is why

we introdu ce ch i l d ren to certain activi ties by first invo lving them in the sym bolic world of

i m a gi n a ti on . For ex a m p l e , we tell them ,“ Im a gine you are detectives in a po l i ce stati on and

your job is to solve this case,”or,“ Im a gine the obj ect in front of you is a magic wi s h i n g

well .”

The play con text is not as crucial for older ch i l d ren , who find it more natu ral to start a

n ew activi ty by rec a lling some of t h eir everyd ay ex peri en ces that might be rel eva n t , wi t ho ut a dra m a ti zed introdu cti on . The older stu den t s’ gre a ter cogn i tive matu ri ty en a bl e s

t h em to fulfill the mem ory request by app lying more com p l ex intell ectual opera ti ons and

gre a ter ref l ex ivi ty and aw a ren e s s .

The difficulty of the assign m ents obvi o u s ly must coi n c i de with the stu den t s’cogn i tive

c a p ac i ti e s . It is important to alw ays bear in mind that tasks should be nei t h er too easy nor

2 8 Overview of Peace Education Programs
too difficult. If t h ey are too easy, s tu dents might become bored ; tasks that are too difficult

wi ll con f ront stu dents with failu re and all the con s equ ent nega tive em o ti on s .

Work s h op dynamics depend on the qu a l i ty of p a rti c i p a n t s’ a t ten ti on . This differs wi t h

a ge . Work s h ops for yo u n ger stu dents must contain the gre a test po s s i ble va ri ety of activiti e s . Al s o,work s h ops must inclu de a nu m ber of m o tor activi ti e s . In this way, s tu den t s’ n a tu ral de s i re to move is ch a n n el ed thro u gh activi ties that are them a ti c a lly rel evant but

i n clu de movem en t ,d rawi n g, and ch a n ging seats or po s i ti ons in the room . Work s h ops for

o l der stu dents may com prise on ly a single activi ty calling for lon ger mental and phys i c a l

i nvo lvem ent of one kind (for ex a m p l e , re s o lving probl ems in small gro u p s ) .

S cen a rios introdu ced must be con s tru ed so as to evo ke parti c i p a n t s’ a ut h en tic ex perien ce s , and interacti on and el a bora ti on needs to occur so as to make sense to each 

p a rti c i p a n t .

For ex a m p l e ,the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room program work s h op s , wh i ch focus pri m a ri ly on

the ex peri en ce of being in a con f l i ct ,a re de s i gn ed to elicit rel a ted rel evant ex peri en ce s

f rom parti c i p a n t s .These could inclu de feel i n gs of d i s com fort wh en not listen ed to, ex peri encing the other party as an en emy, d i f f i c u l ty in beginning com mu n i c a ti on , coping wi t h

s p i te and the wish to have things on e’s own way, avoiding and po s tponing apo l ogi z i n g,

and so fort h .

The next step invo lves asking participants to find a su ccessful way of overcoming a

con f l i ct . Th ey usu a lly do so by re a l i z i n g,for ex a m p l e , that the other side wants to fulfill his

or her very important need , feeling that the con f l i ct is not irre s o lva bl e ,n o ticing a ch a n ge

in the other party ’s beh avi or after an “ I ”m e s s a ge is ut tered , or ex peri encing similar 

i n s i gh t s .

6 0

“Sculpturing” Feelings and Learning to Resolve Conflict

The fo ll owing—an example of I am Sorry and Thank You , a Goodwi ll Cl a s s room works h op activi ty for yo u n ger stu dents—is taken from the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room training manu a l .

“Sculpturing” Feelings. In this game students are divided into pairs, and one is asked to

“sculpture” a feeling that has been randomly attributed to the other. When the technique of sculpturing is used for the first time, it is essential that the instructor first

demonstrate how it is done. For example, the instructor might sculpture how he or she

imagines the feeling of fear might look in one child. The child should stand completely

relaxed while the instructor sculptures the expression of fear. At the same time, the

instructor should provide basic instructions on how to make a figure out of clay. For

example: “Now I am going to make her open her eyes wide. I am going to put her hands

in this position. I am going to bend her body forward a little.” It is expected that the clay

will respond to the sculptor’s intentions.

The children stand in two concentric circles, an inside one and an outside one, so that

they may form pairs. The instructor tells them, “Those in the inside circle turn toward

your partner in the outside circle.” All those in the outside circle are sculptors, and their

task is to sculpt a sad figure of their partner in the inside circle. The sculptors should

sculpt a figure in a way they think someone looks when sad. There are no “right” or

“wrong” ways to do this. There are no beautiful or ugly figures. It is just important that

Overview of Peace Education Programs 2 9
3 0 Overview of Peace Education Programs

the sculptor is satisfied with the way the “clay” is turned into a sculpture. Once the

sculptors are finished, they should move slowly around the inside circle looking at the

rest of the figures until they get to their partner again.

When this part is over, the children change roles. “Now the children in the inside circle

are the sculptors. Your task is to make a happy figure. When you finish your sculpture,

move around in a circle to see the other sculptures, and then return to your partner.

“Now we will begin to sculpture in the following way. You will stay in the same pairs,

but we won’t stand in a circle any more. Instead, the pairs will take turns standing in

front of the rest of us. We will be the audience. We will watch carefully what is happening. I will give the sculptor a slip of paper with a description of a certain situation in

which his or her partner may have been at some time in the past. Here is, for example,

one such situation. It says, ‘You have accidentally torn your partner’s new jacket.’ But

the sculptor will not tell his or her partner or us what is written on the slip of paper.

Instead he or she will sculpture a figure of his or her partner that shows how he or she

thinks the partner would feel in such a situation.”

Situations on the slips of paper include the following: “You have accidentally spilled

dirty water on your partner’s drawing during the art class”; “You have loaned your bicycle to your partner for half an hour”; “You have shared a chocolate with your partner”;

“You have forgotten about the arrangement to meet your partner in the playground

after school, and he waited for a long time”; “You have accidentally told your partner

the wrong time of the parents’ meeting, and her mother didn’t arrive until just before

the end”; “You have invited your partner to your birthday party,” and so forth.

Once the sculpture is done, the sculptor tells everyone the situation that was described in

his or her note. Now that his or her partner knows what the situation was, he or she can,

if willing, make changes to the sculpture to illustrate further how he or she might look in

such a situation by, for example, changing the position the sculptor has put him or her

in or some other changes.

After that, the instructor asks the sculpted child how he or she feels as a result of the situation described and then depicted in the sculpture. The instructor may have to persist

in asking questions until the child names and describes the feeling (for example, sad,

angry, happy, or grateful) because in this part of the game the children practice expressing, recognizing, and naming feelings.

If a sculpture represents unpleasant feelings as a result of the situation described, the

instructor asks the sculptor, “What would you do now that you have heard how your

friend is feeling?” After the sculptor replies, the instructor asks the sculpted child how he

or she feels. For example, how does the child feel if the sculptor has offered an apology?

When the sculpture represents pleasant feelings, the procedure is repeated. After the performance of each pair, the other children (who are holding cards with smiling or frowning expressions) are asked to evaluate how each of the “actors” feels at the end of that

interaction by raising a happy or unhappy face.
An el i c i ted ex peri en ce remains inarti c u l a te and, t h erefore ,i n com mu n i c a ble until it is

given shape using a sym bolic implem en t : a word , a drawi n g, or an acti on . Thu s ,s h a p i n g

an ex peri en ce is the key point of the work s h op. The skill of the work s h op’s fac i l i t a tor and

a ut h or is ref l ected in the de s i gn and pre s en t a ti on of the request to shape the ex peri en ce

and in the appropri a teness of the form of ex pre s s i on ch o s en (in the above ex a m p l e ,

t h ro u gh cl ay sculptu re ) . By bri n ging “o ut s i de” ex peri en ce into the instru cti on set ti n g, s tudents are no lon ger pre s s ed to produ ce a de s i red re s ponse (the “ri gh t”on e ) . On the contra ry, an important goal of these programs is to su pport the stu dents in integra ting into

t h eir repertoi re of everyd ay beh avi or an active role in acqu i ring knowl ed ge . Shaping spont a n eo u s ,a ut h en tic ex peri en ce s , ach i eved thro u gh the work s h op’s play stru ctu re , is the

ch i ef means tow a rd that en d .

E ach participant shapes his or her own ex peri en ce thro u gh the same sym bolic means.

This en a bles the process of s h a ri n g, of exch a n ge among parti c i p a n t s .S h a ring is one of t h e

most fru i tful ways of becoming aw a re and en ri ching on e’s own acc u mu l a ted ex peri en ce .

S h a ring has two functi on s . By ex pressing and explaining our ex peri en ce to others ,we become more aw a re of it and the way it affects our beh avi or. Too, o t h er parti c i p a n t s’ acc umu l a ted ex peri en ce s ,p a rti c u l a rly rega rding ways of dealing with different—and espec i a lly

u n p l e a s a n t — s i tu a ti ons and the ex peri en ces they cause, su pp l em ent our own and help us

gain a ra n ge of i n s i gh t s .

The process of s h a ring helps participants to el a bora te on their ex peri en ce and, f u rt h er,

to gen era te new knowl ed ge from mu l tiple tra n s form a ti ons that occur wh en the ex perien ce goes from being arti c u l a ted as an indivi dual insight to becoming gen era l i zed knowled ge . These tra n s form a ti ons occur wh en ex peri en ce passes from the idiosyncra tic to the

com mu n i c a ble and soc i a l ,f rom the isolated to the integra ted , and from the covert to the

f u lly con s c i o u s .The degree of el a bora ti on depends on the goa l , top i c ,p u rpo s e , and age of

the parti c i p a n t s .

The work s h op as a met h od of group work has specific ru l e s .It is important that the

p a rticipants are sitting in a circl e . This rule cl e a rly implies that all are equ a l . No one is in a

bet ter or worse po s i ti on , in the front or in the back ; the fac i l i t a tor and participants are add ressing everyon e ; everyone sees everyone el s e .In a work s h op everyone has a ch a n ce to

s peak and be heard — everyone has a voi ce .E ach op i n i on , no matter how different or isol a ted , has a ri ght to be heard (not on ly that, su ch an op i n i on is prec i o u s , because it enri ches our own op i n i on ) . A work s h op has no hiera rchy re s em bling the sch ool on e . Th ere

a re no ob s ervers in the work s h op. Everyone is a parti c i p a n t , but each participant has the

ri ght to hold back his or her ex peri en ce (namely, to not share with the group som et h i n g

he or she does not want to talk abo ut ) .All these are important innova ti ons in the cl a s sroom set ti n g.

The work s h op bri n gs abo ut de s i red ch a n ges by cre a ting con d i ti ons for ef fective interactive learn i n g. To this end participants must learn to com mu n i c a te with each other in

n ew ways . These factors toget h er cre a te an envi ron m ent in wh i ch ch a n ge can take place .

Focus of the Peace Education Pro g ra m s

All the programs pre s en ted here seek to edu c a te fo r po s i tive pe ace ra t h er than to edu c a te

a b ou t pe ace ,i f we fo ll ow Bet ty Re a rdon’s def i n i ti on of these two aspects of pe ace edu c aOverview of Peace Education Programs 3 1
ti on . Re a rdon defines the noti on of po s i tive pe ace as tending to clu s ter around three set s

of va lu e s : com munal and civic va lu e s ,l i fe - a f f i rming va lu e s , and the va lue of the hu m a n

pers on and po s i tive human rel a ti on s h i p s .

6 1 She of fers a con ceptual shorthand for these

t h ree sets of va lu e s :c i ti zen s h i p, s tew a rd s h i p, and rel a ti on s h i p s .

A su rvey of the pe ace edu c a ti on programs de s c ri bed herein con f i rms their ori en t a ti on :

All seek to red ress the shortcom i n gs of el em en t a ry sch ool edu c a ti on in Serbi a , wh i ch soc i a l i zes stu dents aw ay from all three sets of va lu e s . Ei t h er thro u gh the met h od of i n s tru cti on or thro u gh the va lues taugh t , the Serbian sys tem soc i a l i zes stu dents (as do the main

a gents of s ch ool soc i a l i z a ti on — te ach ers and tex tbooks) aw ay from coopera ti on and civi c

va lu e s , and aw ay from an apprec i a ti on of i n d ivi dual and cultu ral differen ces and of human dign i ty as the essen tial basis for human rel a ti on s , both interpers onal and soc i a l . Th e

Serbian sys tem soc i a l i zes stu dents to obey and to con form , to re act ra t h er than be active

or proactive in life . It con s trains stu dents to a narrow worl dvi ew based on a ri gid ideo l ogy,

wh i ch su ppo s edly provi des the on ly answer to dealing with the purported “t h re a ten i n g”

su rro u n d i n gs . It does not soc i a l i ze in favor of n onvi o l ent con f l i ct managem en t .

Thu s ,a ll pe ace edu c a ti on programs in Serbia share two fundamental aspect s .F i rs t ,t h ey

work to devel op the indivi dual and, a bove all ,s eek to understand indivi dual needs and to

en co u ra ge sel f - ex pre s s i on ,s el f - e s teem ,s el f - con f i den ce , and pers onal acco u n t a bi l i ty. Secon d ,t h ey work to devel op con s tru ctive understanding and assertive rel a ti onships wi t h

o t h ers , in the sense of a pprec i a ting indivi dual and group differen ces as well as social 

re s pon s i bi l i ty.

These two fundamental aspects get el a bora ted on according to wh i ch of the fo ll owi n g

s pecial probl ems a program ad d re s s e s : recogn i ti on of on e’s own need s ; accept a n ce of a no t h er pers on’s need s ; devel opm ent of n onvi o l ent com mu n i c a ti on stra tegi e s ;s ti mu l a ti on

of s el f - a f f i rm a ti on ,s el f - ex pre s s i on , to l era n ce , and open n e s s ; or pre s en t a ti on and modeling of w ays to re s o lve con f l i ct con s tru ctively.6 2

In ad d i ti on , one program—the Pri m er on the Ri ghts of the Ch i l d — foc u s ed on an explicit set of i deas abo ut human (ch i l d ren’s) ri gh t s . The programs en com p a s s ed a wi de

a rea of cogn i tive and beh avi oral skill s . De - cen teri n g, or learning to “stand in som eon e

el s e’s shoe s ,”i nvo lves learning the language of n eeds as a po s i tive ,a f f i rm a tive language

con cerning what we want and what we need—not what we are ex pected to do, forced to

do, or tri cked into doi n g. E s t a blishing a partn ership rel a ti onship invo lves learning to accept others,e s pec i a lly because depers on a l i z a ti on is one of the most important (and dangerous) fe a tu res of s ch ool soc i a l i z a ti on in Serbi a .

Ma ny programs foc u s ed on learning nonvi o l ent com mu n i c a ti on stra tegi e s , active listen i n g, and listening to em o ti on s . The list inclu des many other skills that are well - k n own

in nonvi o l ent con f l i ct re s o luti on progra m s , su ch as para ph ra s i n g, I - s peech and ref ra m i n g,

o utlining the field of com mu n i c a ti on (re a s ons for misu n ders t a n d i n gs and con d i ti ons for

u n ders t a n d i n g ) , physical ob s tru cti ons to com mu n i c a ti on , and so fort h .

Some programs dealt with important topics su ch as pers onal acco u n t a bi l i ty or re s i s ting group pre s su re . Su pport of to l era n ce and openness was another basic com pon ent of

a ll progra m s . The Goodwi ll Cl a s s room ,e s pec i a lly, m odels procedu res for con s tru ctive

con f l i ct re s o luti on and of fered ex ten s ive training in coopera tive com mu n i c a ti on

s tra tegi e s .

3 2 Overview of Peace Education Programs
3 3

F i ve

E va l u ations 

Su ch com p l ex ,l on g - term programs as these call for appropri a te models and

m et h ods of eva lu a ti on . Ba s i c a lly, t wo gen eral forms of eva lu a ti on are nece s s a ry:

(1) to establish to what degree the programs were implem en ted , and how the

re sults com p a red with the ori ginal goa l s ; and (2) to eva lu a te the actual impact of the 

progra m s .

Si n ce these were ra t h er different progra m s ,d i f ferent cri teria were used in assessing the

ef fectiveness of the tra i n i n g. Some programs used obj ective cri teri a ,i n cluding psych o l ogical test score s , ob s erved beh avi oral pattern s , and intervi ews . An o t h er set of i n d i c a tors inclu ded statem ents abo ut the impact of the programs from tra i n ee s ,s tu den t s , and the

te ach ers of s tu dents who had parti c i p a ted in the progra m .

Al s o, d i f ferent aspects of the training programs were eva lu a ted , su ch as:

1 . Ha n d boo k s ,

2 . Training and eva lu a tive sem i n a rs or ga n i zed after the programs had been implem en ted for a determ i n ed peri od ,

3 . Im p l em en t a ti on su pervi s i on ,

4 . Mon i tori n g,

5 . App l i c a ti on of acqu i red skill s ,a n d

6 . Ch i l d ren’s re acti ons to the progra m s .

An eva lu a ti on by UNICEF found the fo ll owing outcom e s : Local ex perts (the aut h ors of

the programs) were able to devel op cre a tive con cepts for all of the proj ects qu i ck ly, i m p l em ent them in the form of practical handboo k s , and devel op the con cept of s em i n a rs for

training te ach ers , ex pert assoc i a te s , and vo lu n teers .

6 3

The te ach ers re ad i ly accepted the proj ects and their met h ods of i m p l em en t a ti on . A serious qu e s ti on in the initial stages of i m p l em en t a ti on was wh et h er te ach ers and ex pert ass oc i a tes would agree to en ga ge in this proce s s , con s i dering the depressing circ u m s t a n ce s

in wh i ch they live ,c i rc u m s t a n ces that have led to a gen eral apathy and a dec rease in profe s s i onal motiva ti on . The re sults were en co u ra gi n g : 90 to 95 percent of the parti c i p a n t s —

or 10 percent of el em en t a ry sch ool staff—em braced both the con tents of the UNICEFsu pported proj ects and the met h odo l ogy. On a five - point scale, accept a n ce of the proj ect s

ra n ged from 4.5 to 4.9.

An a lyzing the re a s ons for su ch a high degree of accept a n ce shows that these proj ects res pon ded to certain of the sch ool staff’s (parti c u l a rly the te ach ers’) important human and

profe s s i onal need s . Na m ely, the con tents and instru cti on met h ods re s tore dign i ty to the

te aching profe s s i on , re a f f i rm te aching com peten c i e s , re s tore meaning to te aching (wh i ch
3 4 Evaluations

is otherwise almost to t a lly lost), h elp te ach ers improve com mu n i c a ti on with other adu l t s ,

and con tri bute to indivi dual and profe s s i onal insight and sel f - aw a reness for both stu den t s

and te ach ers . To rei tera te , the progra m s’ con tents and their active and parti c i p a tory met hods acco u n ted for the wi de s pre ad , po s i tive re s pon s e .

The Goodwi ll Cl a s s room program con ti nu o u s ly app l i ed this form of eva lu a ti on . Fo u r

m onths after the initial tra i n i n g, tra i n ed te ach ers met for a day to discuss their ex peri en ce s

and probl ems in implem en t a ti on , giving and receiving feed b ack and su pport from other

te ach ers and the ori ginal tra i n ers , and informing the group abo ut futu re plans. Th ro u gh

May 1997 there were twen ty - f ive su ch meeti n gs . Te ach ers’reports pre s en ted du ring these

m eeti n gs were hel pful in eva lu a ting the qu a l i ties of the progra m , its ef fects on ch i l d ren’s

beh avi or, and its recepti on by other te ach ers ,p a ren t s , and sch ool aut h ori ti e s .

On the basis of these report s ,a n a lysts con clu ded that te ach ers were using their new

k n owl ed ge and skills not on ly to fac i l i t a te work s h ops with stu dents but also to work wi t h

p a ren t s . For ex a m p l e , te ach ers app l i ed the work s h op format to or ga n i ze paren t s’ d ay

m eeti n gs and to solve probl ems in the class with parents and stu dents coopera tively. Th e

po s i tive ef fects on ch i l d ren were recogn i z a ble on several level s , and even those who had

not parti c i p a ted in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room had com m en ted on them . Te ach ers were sati s f i ed with the manu a l . The main barri ers to implem en t a ti on were tech n i c a l ,n a m ely, a

l ack of s p ace , ti m e ,s t a ti on a ry, and staff. Te ach ers su gge s ted that sch ool su pervi s ors and

principals be inclu ded in the tra i n i n g.

Almost 12 percent of the te ach ers underwent two- or three - d ay training for at least on e

of the pe ace edu c a ti on progra m s . Ne a rly all sch ool ex pert assoc i a te s — m ore than 2,000

p s ych o l ogists and ped a gogues em p l oyed at sch oo l s — p a rti c i p a ted in the tra i n i n g. Gro u p s

of these tra i n ees have received ad d i ti onal training to become tra i n ers them s elves so that

t h ey may con du ct furt h er training in their com mu n i ti e s .

It remains to be seen what percen t a ge of the remaining el em en t a ry sch ool te ach ers wi ll

be receptive to pe ace edu c a ti on progra m s . It is en co u ra ging that these proj ects have attracted te ach ers with good rep ut a ti ons among their peers . Im provem ents due to pe ace edu c a ti on programs were noti ce a ble in sch ools wh ere ten to fifteen te ach ers had under gon e

s ome tra i n i n g.

Ch i l d ren who parti c i p a ted in the programs also ex pre s s ed stron gly po s i tive atti tu de s

tow a rd them .( It should be noted that ch i l d ren’s atti tu des were not eva lu a ted in all programs.) The re a s ons for the te ach ers’ and ch i l d ren’s po s i tive atti tu des are more or less the

s a m e — for both gro u p s , the interactive and parti c i p a tory work met h ods proved invi ti n g.

Ch i l d ren’s po s i tive re acti ons to the proj ect affect the te ach ers because they ex peri en ce the

ch i l d ren’s re acti ons as a rew a rd for their invo lvem en t .

Ha n d books and other instru ctive materials were the first obj ective re sults of these progra m s . More than 50,000 copies of rel a ted material were publ i s h ed (nearly one per el em en t a ry sch ool te ach er ) .

6 4

The eva lu a ti ons fo ll owed the same logic as the programs them s elve s . Thus ,i f the programs aimed to ch a n ge the atti tu des and beh avi or of e ach parti c i p a n t ,the eva lu a ti on ,u sing a psych om etric approach , foc u s ed on measu ra ble and stable pers on a l i ty ch a n ge s . Th e

m a j ori ty of the programs aimed to ch a n ge not on ly parti c i p a n t s’ i n d ivi dual traits but also

the cl i m a te of the cl a s s room and percepti ons of the social envi ron m en t . Coopera tive and
ex peri en tial learn i n g — being the means of acqu i ring certain cogn i tive and beh avi ora l

s k i ll s — a s sumes that ch a n ges in indivi duals are cl o s ely linked to ch a n ges in social set ti n gs

and in rel a ti onships among stu dents and bet ween stu dents and te ach ers . From this pers pective , the ef fects of the program should depend on the degree to wh i ch these social rea l i ties coi n c i de with newly acqu i red skills and pers pective s . Th erefore ,s ocial re a l i ties and

n ew skills and pers pectives can mutu a lly su pport or we a ken each other to the ex tent that

the de s i red ch a n ges actu a lly take place in the immed i a te and broader envi ron m en t . Th e

proj ect should show sen s i tivi ty to the gen eral con text in wh i ch the work s h ops are condu cted . This is why trad i ti onal ef fect - eva lu a ti ons in several programs have been ex p a n ded

to inclu de an eva lu a ti on of the progra m’s po ten tial to indu ce ch a n ges within the set ti n gs .

The eva lu a ti on of the proj ect on The Ri ghts of the Child illu s tra tes this approach . Th i s

eva lu a ti on reve a l ed many significant findings . More than 500 local groups advoc a ti n g

ch i l d ren’s ri ghts had been form ed . Forty - t h ree percent of the inform ed parents had a po si tive atti tu de tow a rds the UN Conven ti on and were wi lling to parti c i p a te in some acti on .

Twen ty - four percent of p a rents were som ewhat intere s ted but relu ctant to ack n owl ed ge

the ch i l d ’s ri ghts (com m en ti n g, for ex a m p l e ,“What abo ut our ri gh t s ? ” ) . Th i rty - t h ree percent of p a rents were re s erved , not intere s ted , or oppo s ed to the very idea of ch i l d ren’s

ri gh t s .

Ot h er trends ob s erved in pri m a ry sch ools and local com mu n i ties bel ong in the same

c a tegory of i n d i ce s . For ex a m p l e , providing inform a ti on abo ut ch i l d ren’s ri ghts was gradu a lly becoming an on goi n g, perm a n ent activi ty. S ch ool staff bet ter unders tood the specific probl ems and needs of ch i l d ren . In tere s ted indivi duals and insti tuti ons out s i de the

s ch ool started to provi de su pport and to coopera te .S ch ool acti ons were growing in qu a li ty and ra n ge ,s pre ading from the sch ool to other sch ools or to local com mu n i ti e s .

The Goodwi ll Cl a s s room proj ect app l i ed a trad i ti onal eva lu a ti on of i m p act , with te s ting before and after implem en t a ti on , using ex peri m ental and con trol gro u p s . However,

the measu res of ch a n ge invo lved a com bi n a ti on of p s ych om etric and eco l ogical indicators ,focusing on ch a n ges in the microenvi ron m ent (the class) as mu ch as on ch a n ges in

the stu den t s’ i n d ivi dual atti tu de s . Th ree kinds of eco - i n d i c a tors were used : (1) stu dent res ponses to the qu e s ti on n a i re con cerning the qu a l i ty of rel a ti onships in the cl a s s room ,

both among stu dents and bet ween stu dents and te ach ers ;(2) te ach ers’ re s ponses to the

qu e s ti on n a i re (also on the social cl i m a te in the cl a s s room ) ; and (3) soc i om etry indicators ,

su ch as the ra tio of po s i tive re s ponses (accept a n ce) to nega tive re s ponses (rej ecti on) to

peers for su gge s ted com m on activi ti e s .

This eva lu a ti on was or ga n i zed in seven sch ools in wh i ch ei gh teen classes were sel ected

(nine parti c i p a ted in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room progra m , and nine did not). The ex perim ental (tra i n ed) classes and the con trol (untra i n ed) classes were similar according to all

basic ch a racteri s tics other than parti c i p a ti on in the progra m : class size , avera ge grade s ,

and discipline.

More than 90 percent of the stu dents in the ex peri m ental group reg u l a rly parti c i p a ted

in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room program (on ce a week for 90 minute s ) .Almost the same proporti on wanted to con ti nue with these activi ties (with som ewhat gre a ter su pport amon g

gi rl s ) .O ut of the list of feel i n gs assoc i a ted with parti c i p a ti on in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room ,

the most frequ en t ly sel ected were “n i ce”(94 percen t ) ,“del i gh ted ”(72 percen t ) ,“gra tef u l ”

Evaluations 3 5
(58 percen t ) , and “en co u ra ged ” (38 percen t ) . The least frequ en t ly sel ected feel i n gs were

“bored ,”“f ri gh ten ed ,”“m ad ,”“a n x i o u s ,” or “s ad .”Both boys and gi rls liked the program for

similar re a s on s : the way the work s h ops were conven ed and the re su l ting rel a ti on s h i p s

( n ew fri en d s h i p s , as they poi n ted out ) . The yo u n ger stu dents liked the play aspect of t h e

activi ti e s .

The re sults showed no significant increase in the nu m ber of po s i tive soc i om etri c

ch oi ces after the work s h op. However, p a rti c i p a ti on in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room work s h op s

bro u ght a significant dec rease in nega tive ch oi ce s , su ch as refusal to coopera te with peers

in com m on activi ti e s , wh i ch indicates that the ef fects of the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room were evi dent thro u gh the dec rease in nega tive ten s i ons among the stu den t s .

Because of a high dropo ut ra te among older el em en t a ry sch ool stu dents parti c i p a ti n g

in the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room , it was difficult to get meaningful data. O f 104 older stu den t s

at the beginning of the ex peri m ental cl a s s e s , on ly 68 percent rem a i n ed at the end of t h e

s em e s ter. The high dropo ut ra te did not all ow com p a ri s ons of the soc i om etric indicators .

The te ach ers received a list of po s s i ble probl ems to ch eck of f as the most perp l ex i n g

t h ey might en co u n ter in working with a cl a s s . The te ach ers’ a n s wers reve a l ed that, for exa m p l e , com mu n i c a ti on probl ems bet ween te ach ers and stu dents sign i f i c a n t ly dec re a s ed

a f ter implem en t a ti on of the Goodwi ll Cl a s s room program in the ex peri m ental cl a s s e s .

Fu rt h er eva lu a ti on is requ i red to determine how long ch a n ges wi ll last. From the data

one can determine the atti tu de of tra i n ees (and of those wh om they tra i n ed afterw a rd s )

tow a rd this new knowl ed ge (although there are no indices con cerning how well they

l e a rn ed it), and how po tent the new knowl ed ge is (how far it “rad i a te s” ) .S ti ll ,n one of t h e

programs of fered the opportu n i ty for a lon g - term eva lu a ti on .

It has been shown that local ex perts managed to qu i ck ly devel op ori gi n a l , basic concepts for the progra m s , to ad just them to local circ u m s t a n ce s , and to ad d ress the rel eva n t

s h ortcom i n gs of the sch ool sys tem . The pri m a ry, ava i l a ble edu c a ti onal re s o u rce s — t h e

s tron gly motiva ted te ach ers and almost all of the sch ool spec i a l i s t s — m ade this po s i tive

a s s e s s m en t .

However, the ri gid Serbian sch ool sys tem resists innova ti ons in gen era l , and pe ace educ a ti on in parti c u l a r. Cu rrent events in Serbian soc i ety (the policies of the Serbian and Yugo s l av govern m ents tow a rd the Albanian pop u l a ti on in Ko s ovo, for example) wi ll on ly

rei n force these ten den c i e s . Al s o, the forei gn funds that su pported these programs are fadi n g, and internal re s o u rces are almost non ex i s ten t . These are serious ob s t acles to furt h er

i m p l em en t a ti on of pe ace edu c a ti on and to the reten ti on of what has alre ady been accomp l i s h ed .

In a stu dy of f actors that prom o te reten ti on of pe ace edu c a ti on tra i n i n g, Ian Ha rris and

his co ll a bora tors con clu de that, by taking a pe ace edu c a ti on cl a s s , profe s s i onal edu c a tors

can become more aw a re of probl ems of vi o l en ce , but this does not guara n tee that they

wi ll use what they learn ed .

6 5 In the Un i ted State s , for ex a m p l e , pers onal factors — su ch as

f a m i ly su pport and feel i n gs of u r gency—and profe s s i onal factors — su ch as ad m i n i s tra tive

su pport and a po s i tive sch ool cl i m a te — i n f lu en ce wh et h er or not te ach ers use new knowled ge . More import a n t , it is not the abstract formal con tent of a pe ace edu c a ti on class that

m o tiva tes te ach ers to app ly its met h od s , but ra t h ertheir pers onal ex peri en ces rel a ted to

vi o l en ce and pe ace that influ en ce this. If it is true that pers onal factors (su pport of co l3 6 Evaluations
3 7

l e a g u e s ,f ri en d s , and family) are more influ en tial than sch oo l - rel a ted factors (wh et h er a

su pportive ad m i n i s tra ti on en co u ra ges an edu c a tor to begin a pe ace edu c a ti on progra m ,

for ex a m p l e ) , and if this finding can be gen era l i zed to other con tex t s ,t h en we can ex pect

that tra i n ed pe ace edu c a tors in Serbia wi ll con ti nue to implem ent what they have learn ed .

Evaluations
S i x

P rospects for Continued

Peace Education in Serbia

I

n 1478 in Cetinje Mon a s tery, Mon ten egro, the first print shop in So ut h e a s tern

Eu rope was establ i s h ed and went on to play an en ormous role in the diffusion of

books and literac y, as well as in spre ading cultu re well beyond the local are a . The 

f i rst book pri n ted on the Obod press by monk Ma k a rije was the Ort h odox servi ce boo k ,

Octoe ch o s, wh i ch is the first pri n ted Cyri llic book of the So uth Sl avs . The story goes that

not long after the book was pri n ted , the leaden let ters of the Obod print shop were

s m el ted into cannon b a ll s .

Th ere is fear in pre s ent day Serbia that after the North At l a n tic Tre a ty Orga n i z a ti on

( NATO) bom bing and a new war in Ko s ovo — wh i ch left behind thousands of de ad ,d i sp l aced , and tra u m a ti zed civilians and ren ewed nati on a l i s tic and militari s tic prop a ga n d a

hys teri c a lly spre ading fear and false com m i tm ents—the re sults of pe ace edu c a ti on to date

wi ll also melt into the prevailing atm o s ph ere of vi o l en ce and de s p a i r.And indeed , the ren ewed social crisis poses a big ch a ll en ge to work in pe ace edu c a ti on . The govern m en t

con demns pacifists as “u n p a tri o ti c” and stri ct ly con trols any devi a ti on from the prom o ted

p a tri o tic disco u rs e . This con trol ex tends to the sch oo l s .

But the ch a ll en ge could be of a n o t h er kind. If what was done in the area of pe ace educ a ti on proved influ en tial and rel evant en o u gh ,t h en su ch social circ u m s t a n ces could po s e

a ch a ll en ge to red i s cover vi goro u s ,a t tractive ,i n n ova tive , and ex pre s s ive new ways of

pe ace - bu i l d i n g, perhaps cre a ted by some of the young participants in pe ace edu c a ti on

work s h op s . Th ere is hope that they wi ll find new ways to con ti nue the process by finding

n ew venues for com mu n i c a ti on , and sym bols to ex press their pe ace com m i tm en t . Al s o,

m a ny who have de s i gn ed and taught pe ace edu c a ti on programs to date wi ll not easily give

up their ef forts and the sati s f acti ons inherent in pe ace edu c a ti on . However, t h ey have to

t a ke stock of s ocial con trad i cti ons and ten s i ons before they prof fer an altern a tive to conf l i ct . An on going con f ron t a ti on with the ch a n ging social re a l i ty appe a rs nece s s a ry.

In re s ponse to wors en ed con d i ti on s , those ded i c a ted to tra n s forming Serbian soc i ety

could establish an active ,a f f i rm a tive net work of pers ons alre ady tra i n ed in pe ace edu c ati on , refine the con cepts and progra m s , en l a r ge or refocus the scope of the progra m s , conceive new stra tegies of gra ppling with the envi ron m en t , and en dorse new vi s i ons of

s oc i ety. Pe ace edu c a tors’ past ex peri en ce is that su ch com m i tm ents help overcome de s p a i r.

If pe ace edu c a ti on is to deal with ex i s ting circ u m s t a n ces and con f l i cts that inclu de et hnic hosti l i ties and recent tra u m a tic ex peri en ce s , hu m i l i a ti on , and bi t tern e s s ,n ew programs wi ll have to be devel oped to ad d ress the very core of group iden ti ty and co ll ectivi ty.

New ideas have to be devel oped to fit som ething that could be call ed “edu c a ti on for recon c i l i a ti on .”This would not on ly attem pt to ch a n ge mind-sets abo ut the “o t h er ( s ) ,” but

3 8
3 9

the dispo s i ti on to accept the narra tives of the other(s) and to approach both their own

h i s tory and the futu re in a new way.

The ways out of these gl oomy circ u m s t a n ces may even be of a sym bolic natu re .O n e

su ch opti on is a proposal to establish the Balkan In s ti tute for Tex tbook Re s e a rch .P l ac i n g

su ch an insti tuti on in Ceti n j e , in Mon ten egro, wh i ch is the site of the first Balkan pri n t

m i ll and of the produ cti on of the first Cyri llic book of the So uth Sl avs , could add yet more

s ym bolic wei gh t .

A para ll el insti tuti on—the Geor g - E ckert - In s ti tute for the Stu dy of Tex tbooks (Geor g -

E ckert - In s ti tut für Schu l bu ch fors chung) in Germ a ny, fo u n ded in 1951 by UNESCO—

proved wort hy. Two of its most pra i s ed proj ects were the Germ a n - Fren ch and Germ a n -

Polish history tex tboo k s , wri t ten coopera tively by historians from the re s pective co u n tri e s .

This report has discussed the role the form er Yu go s l av and con tem pora ry Serbian tex tbooks have played in grounding a cultu re of i n to l era n ce . At pre s en t , it is ex trem ely hard to

i m a gine Serbian and Albanian historians sitting in the Serbian Mi n i s try of E du c a ti on and

wri ting a com m on history tex tboo k . However, perhaps it is po s s i ble to imagine them wi t h

o t h er Balkan and intern a ti onal ex perts discussing the probl ems of h i s tory tex tbooks at a

n ew insti tuti on with different and broader goa l s .In the spirit of a new insti tuti on , reco u n ting the histories of va rious groups should not be an ef fort to hom ogen i ze differi n g

vi ews and interpret a ti ons of h i s tory, but ra t h er to provi de an opportu n i ty to joi n t ly identify the different narra tive s , and to modera te tales of vi cti m h ood , bl a m e , and gl ory. A new

w ay of we aving history into the fabric of rel a ti ons could be a sym bolic as well as a practical way out of the pre s ent cri s i s .

Prospects for Continued Peace Education
4 0

N o t e s

N o t e s

1. The appeal called “Stop the War,” initiated in November 1991, was signed by sixty-five

prominent Serbian psychologists and sent to all federal and republican governmental bodies in

the former Yugoslavia, as well as to all the leading dailies and weeklies in the country.

2. Serbian political leaders focused on these problems only later, mainly as a source of arguments against the so-called “unprovoked, undeserved, unjust” sanctions.

3. See “Perspectives on Peace Education,” in Ake Bjerstedt (ed.), Educational Information and

Debate, 89 (Malmö, Sweden: School of Education, Lund University, vol. 121, 1990), pp. 55–75.

4. M. Lawson, The International People’s College, Helsingor, Denmark: Seven Decades of Peace

E d u c a t i o n , Peace Education Miniprints, no. 71 (Malmö, Sweden: R&D Group, 1995).

5. See Betty Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility

(New York: Teachers College Press, 1988).

6. Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education, p. 14.

7. Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education, p. 14.

8. In 1994-95, UNICEF’s Belgrade office launched its Education for Development project. The

author, Ruzica Rosandic, directed one of the composite projects, The Goodwill Classroom, during its first two years. The Goodwill Classroom is discussed later in this report.

9. Birgit Brock-Utne, “Peace Education at the End of a Millennium,” in H. Lofgren (ed.),

Peace Education and Human Development (Malmö, Sweden: Malmö School of Education, Lund

University, 1995), p. 62.

10. Brock-Utne, “Peace Education at the End of the Millennium,” p. 68.

11. Most such clubs are sponsored by the Fund for Open Society in Belgrade. Some (for

example, youth training seminars on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, run by the

Center for the Protection of Child Rights, Belgrade) are sponsored by Radda Barnen, which is

Swedish for Save the Children. Group MOST from the Center for Anti-War Action (CAA) in

Belgrade also has organized numerous youth seminars in conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and dispute settlement, not only in Serbia but in Kosovo and Montenegro as well.

12. In early 1999 an informal program in peace studies was begun in Belgrade at a summer

school sponsored by a private bank. Members of the Group MOST, who belong to academia,

offer informal courses in conflict resolution for undergraduate students of psychology or at the

Teachers College. However, these are all informal, unsystematic forms of peace education.

13. Urie Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1979).

14. Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education.

N o t e s
15. Jerome Bruner is the author of a book with the same title, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds

(Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1986).

16. Michael Wessells, The Role of Peace Education in a Culture of Peace: A Social-psychological

A n a l y s i s . Peace Education Miniprints, No. 65 (Malmö, Sweden: School of Education, 1994), p. 5.

17. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: The Continuum Publishing

Corporation, 1986), pp. 57–58.

18. Wessells, The Role of Peace Education in a Culture of Peace.

19. Malvern Lumsden, “Breaking the Cycle of Violence,” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 34, no.

4 (1997), p. 67. 

20. Wessells (1994) stresses that peace education must be integrated across a variety of social

levels; that cooperative orientations are essential components of the psychological substrate for a

culture of peace; and that there is a need for cooperation on superordinate goals, empathy and

multicultural understanding, and a thorough reorientation of the structure, content, and pedagogy of peace education toward positive peace.

21. Lumsden (1997) sees the following leverages as efficient: creativity, healing, education, and

communal rites.

22. A recently issued law giving the government control over universities reflects such a policy.

In retaliation for the demonstrations in the winter of 1996–97, in which students and university

professors took the most prominent part, the Serbian government issued a law that gave it total

control of the universities. The government used its new power as an instrument of repression

and revenge against the opposition intelligentsia. 

23. See Spending for education in the majority of East European countries in transition has

exceeded or is approaching the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) mean. The largest increase, related to 1989, was in Hungary (in 1994 it was close to 7

percent). A negative trend is registered only in Albania. See B. Laporte and D. Ringold, Trends in

Education Access and Financing during the Transition in Central and Eastern Europe ( W a s h i n g t o n ,

D.C.: World Bank), Technical Paper no. 361, 1997, p. 20. 

24. As for comparative military spending, the data show that according to the public expenditures per soldier, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) ranks 42nd out of 160 countries, while for

GNP it ranks 88th. See Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1996

(Washington, D.C.: World Priorities, 1996), p. 50. 

25. Evaluation of the UNICEF-Supported EducationProgram in Yugoslavia: 1995–97 ( B e l g r a d e :

UNICEF, 1998).

26. Evaluation of the UNICEF-Supported EducationProgram in Yugoslavia.

27. J. V. Wertsch, Voices of Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action ( C a m b r i d g e ,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 112.

28. Instead of “dominant,” Wertsch uses “privileged” as more appropriate for the study of

psychological processes. Wertsch, Voices of Mind, p. 124.

29. T. Kovac-Cerovic, “Metakognitivne komponente socijalne interakcije majke I deteta”

(“Metacognitive components of mother-child social interaction”), Ph.D. thesis, 1997, defended

at the Deptartment of Psychology, University of Belgrade (unpublished).

Notes 4 1
30. According to the former Serbian newspaper Nasa Borba, April 24, 1998.

3 1 . Nasa Borba, April 24, 1998.

32. Nasa Borba, April 24, 1998.

33. In an analysis of videotapes of six full days of interaction in a first-grade classroom,

Hagstrom and Wertsch found only twelve instances of noninstructional experience statements by

students. Three of these days involved a teacher who was generally viewed as quite orderly and

strict in her approach to classroom control, and the other three involved a teacher whose classroom was considered more open in style. However, the noninstructional experience statements

were so infrequent that a comparison of the two settings was impossible. See Wertsch, Voices of

M i n d , p. 129.

34. A rather common practice in many communist countries, including the former

Yugoslavia, was that, out of fear of political consequences, parents were urged to forbid their children to carry information that they had accidentally overheard from home to school. Otherwise,

children could be used (and were used) as informers in prosecuting their own parents.

35. One of the basic principles (defined as such at the Tenth Communist Party Congress), the

fifth among twelve listed, is, “Marxism as a science and as the ideology and praxis of the working

class is basic for all education.” T. Bogavac, Skolstvo u Srbiji na putu do reforme: razvoj skolstva

1945–1975 (Serbian School System on the Way to the Reform: Developments from 1945–1975)

(Belgrade: Prosvetni savet Srbije, 1980), p. 316.

36. See D. Stojanovic, “History Textbooks Mirror Their Time,” in R. Rosandic and V. Pesic

(eds.), Warfare, Patriotism, Patriarchy: The Analysis of Elementary School Textbooks( B e l g r a d e :

Center for Anti-War Action, 1994), p. 88.

37. The Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, XLII, August 13, 1993. See more details in

Rosandic and Pesic (eds.), Warfare, Patriotism, Patriarchy, pp. 49–50.

38. The availability of pure (these years almost nonexistent) research funds is not the only reason for so extensively studying school textbooks as a means of school socialization. School textbooks are a powerful means of socialization in settings with a high percentage of illiterate people

and low reading habits, where school textbooks may be the only books available.

39. D. Plut, “Socialization Patterns of Elementary School Textbooks,” in Rosandic and Pesic

(eds.), Warfare, Patriotism, Patriarchy, pp. 25–28.

40. Rosandic and Pesic (eds.), Warfare, Patriotism, Patriarchy, p. 23.

41. The following offers a hint of what one can get from a text on peace education, written by

a Soviet specialist: “The present stage of development of the socialist world system and the international working-class and youth movement provides convincing proof of the vitality of the idea

of socialist internationalism. Public ownership of the means of production, scientific management of socio-economic life, the politically and ideologically unanimous way the workers support

the communist and workers’ parties, the comprehensive development of the people’s social activities, the rise in material prosperity and the cultural standard are becoming decisive factors in promoting an almost completely international way of public life for socialism. . . .” (This quotation

ends with some quotes from Brezhnev.) See G. N. Filonov, “Educating Young People in the Spirit

and Ideas of Internationalism and Peace,” in Ch. Wulf (ed.), Handbook on Peace Education

(Frankfurt/Main-Oslo: IPRA, 1974), p. 77.

4 2 Notes
42. See the description in this report of the film Tito for the Second Time among the Serbs,

p . v i i i .

43. R. Rosandic, “Patriotic Education,” in Rosandic and Pesic (eds.), Warfare, Patriotism,

P a t r i a r c h y , pp. 41–58.

44. I. Jaric, “Vicious Circle: Images of the Male and the Female,” in Rosandic and Pesic (eds.),

Warfare, Patriotism, Patriarchy, pp. 111–124.

45. R. Rosandic, “Culture-Specific Models of Conflict Management Transmitted through the

School Textbooks” (Berlin: Berghof Center for Conflict Management, 1997), manuscript.

46. Inspired by Jerome Bruner. See J. Bruner, Acts of Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1990).

47. The conceptual matrix for the analysis of conflict management strategies is defined

according to Pruitt’s and Rubin’s classification. See D. G. Pruitt and J. Z. Rubin, Social Conflicts:

Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986), pp. 139–164.

48. From the Reader for the Eighth Grade (Belgrade: Zavod za udzbenike I nastavna sredstva,

1992), p. 26.

49. T. Kovac-Cerovic and G. Opacic, “Teachers’ Implicit Theories and Teachers’ Actions in

Conflict Management” (Berlin: Berghof Center for Conflict Management, 1997), manuscript.

50. See “We, Children, War,” in Psiholoska istrazivanja, no. 5 (Belgrade: Institut za psihologiju, 1994).

51. This overview is based on a 1998 article by Vesna Ognjenovic, “Program psiholoske

podrske deci pogodjenoj ratom” (“The Program of Psychological Support to Children Affected

by War”) (forthcoming).

52. N. Ignjatovic-Savic, “Programs for Supporting and Promoting Child Development within

War Affected Social Context: Smile Keepers” (Belgrade: UNICEF, Education for Development

Program, March 1993–December 1995).

53. Based on the leaflet published by the Center for Anti-War Action (CAA), Group MOST,

1997, no. 12.

54. R. Rosandic and T. Kovac-Cerovic, “Goodwill Classroom: School Program for

Constructive Conflict Resolution” (Belgrade: UNICEF, Education for Development Program,

May 1995–July 1997).

55. Friends of the Children of Serbia: Committee for the Protection of Children’s Rights,

“Application of the Primer of Children’s Rights in promoting the UN Convention on the Rights

of the Child” (Belgrade: UNICEF, Education for Development, October 1997). 

56. N. Ignjatovic-Savic, “Mutual Education: Giraffe Language in Kindergartens and Schools”

(Belgrade: UNICEF, Education for Development Program, October 1995–June 1996).

57. G. Ibolya and L. Dotlic, “Enhancing Children’s Self-Esteem” (Belgrade: UNICEF Program

of Psycho-Social Assistance within the Republic of Serbia, 1993–1997).

58. J. P. Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (Syracuse, N.Y.:

Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp. 39–70.

Notes 4 3
4 4

59. Lederach, Preparing for Peace, p. 55.

60. For an extensive elaboration on this methodology, see S. Jankovic and T. Kovac-Cerovic,

“Basic Principles of Workshop Procedure” in T. Kovac-Cerovic, R. Rosandic, and D. Popadic

(eds.), The Goodwill Classroom: School Programs for Constructive Conflict Resolution ( B e l g r a d e :

CAA, Group MOST, 1995), pp. 36–51 in the English manuscript translation.

61. Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education, pp. 29–37.

62. For an elaborate account of the main topics of intervention programs, see D. Plut, “Basic

Principles of Intervention Programs or Conflict Resolution,” in T. Kovac-Cerovic, R. Rosandic,

and D. Popadic (eds.), The Goodwill Classroom: School Programs for Constructive Conflict

Resolution (Belgrade: CAA, Group MOST, 1995), pp. 15–27 in the English manuscript 

t r a n s l a t i o n .

63. Evaluation of the UNICEF-Supported Education Programs in the Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia: 1995–1997 (Belgrade: UNICEF, 1998).

64. All of the material was empirically tested, which has increased its value. See the UNICEF

report, note 63 above.

65. J. Glowinski, I. M. Harris, and N. Perleberg, “Factors That Promote Retention of Peace

Education Training” (Milwaukee, Wis.: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Peace Studies

Program, 1998), manuscript.

Notes
4 5

About the Au t h o r

Ruzica Rosandic is a profe s s or of p s ych o l ogy at the Un ivers i ty of Bel grade .In the early

1 9 9 0 s , she became active in the Cen ter for An ti - War Acti on , wh ere she co - fo u n ded and

for several ye a rs headed the Group MOST, an agency for training and re s e a rch in cons tru ctive con f l i ct re s o luti on . She co - ed i ted two books publ i s h ed by the cen ter: Wa rf a re ,

Pa tri oti s m , Pa tri a rchy, a cri tical analysis of Serbian sch ool tex tboo k s , and The Goodwi ll

C l a s s roo m , a manual in con s tru ctive con f l i ct re s o luti on for el em en t a ry sch oo l s . In

1 9 9 8 – 9 9 , she was a sen i or fell ow in the Jen n i n gs Ra n do l ph Program for In tern a ti on a l

Pe ace at the Un i ted States In s ti tute of Pe ace , Wa s h i n g ton , D. C . Cu rren t ly, she is a vi s i ti n g

profe s s or te aching gradu a te co u rses in altern a tive dispute re s o luti on at the Sch ool for 

Social and Sys temic Stu d i e s , Nova So ut h e a s tern Un ivers i ty, Fort Lauderd a l e ,F l a .
About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created by Congress to promote research, education, and training on the peaceful management and resolution of international conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute meets its

congressional mandate through an array of programs, including research grants, fellowships,

professional training, education programs from high school through graduate school, conferences and workshops, library services, and publications. The Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. Crocker

Vice Chairman: Max M. Kampelman

President: Richard H. Solomon

Executive Vice President: Harriet Hentges

Board of Directors

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Service, Georgetown University

Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, Washington,

D.C.

Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University 

Stephen J. Hadley, Esq., Shea and Gardner, Washington, D.C.

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

Zalmay Khalilzad, RAND Corporation, Washington, D.C.

Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University

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Members ex officio

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4 6
OTHER TITLES IN THE PEACEWORKS SERIES

Three Dimensions of Peacebuilding in Bosnia: Findings from USIP-Sponsored Research and Field Projects,

edited by Steven M. Riskin (No. 32, December 1999)

Building Security in Post–Cold War Eurasia: The OSCE and U.S. Foreign Policy, by P. Terrence

Hopmann (No. 31, September 1999)

New Approaches to International Negotiation and Mediation: Findings from USIP-Sponsored Research,

edited by Timothy D. Sisk (No. 30, August 1999)

Training to Promote Conflict Management: USIP-Assisted Training Projects, edited by David Smock (No.

29, July 1999)

The Challenge of Regional Cooperation in Central Asia: Preventing Conflict in the Ferghana Valley, b y

Anara Tabyshalieva (No. 28, June 1999)

Territorial Conflicts and Their Resolution: The Case of Ecuador and Peru, by Beth A. Simmons (No. 27,

April 1999)

The Quest for Democratic Security: The Role of the Council of Europe and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Heinrich

Klebes (No. 26, January 1999)

Nagorno-Karabakh: Searching for a Solution, by Patricia Carley (No. 25, December 1998)

Removing Barricades in Somalia: Options for Peace and Rehabilitation, by Hussein Adam and Richard

Ford, with Ali Jimale Ahmed, Abdinasir Osman Isse, Nur Weheliye, and David Smock (No. 24,

October 1998)

Muddling toward Democracy: Political Change in Grassroots China, by Anne F. Thurston (No. 23,

August 1998)

Preventing Genocide in Burundi: Lessons from International Diplomacy, by Stephen R. Weissman (No.

22, July 1998)

The China Challenge in the Twenty-First Century: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy, by Chen Jian (No.

21, June 1998)

Private Peacemaking: USIP-Assisted Peacemaking Projects of Nonprofit Organizations, edited by David R.

Smock (No. 20, June 1998)

Sovereignty after Empire: Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union, by Galina

Starovoitova (No. 19, October 1997)

Keynote Addresses from the "Virtual Diplomacy" Conference, by Richard H. Solomon, Walter B. Wriston,

and George P. Shultz (No. 18, September 1997)

Greek-Turkish Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy: Cyprus, the Aegean, and Regional Stability, by Tozun

Bahcheli, Theodore A. Couloumbis, and Patricia Carley (No. 17, August 1997) 

U.S. Responses to Self-Determination Movements: Strategies for Nonviolent Outcomes and Alternatives to

Secession, by Patricia Carley (No. 16, July 1997)

Creative Approaches to Managing Conflict in Africa: Findings from USIP-Funded Projects, edited by David

R. Smock (No. 15, April 1997)
OF RELATED INTEREST

Many other publications from the United States Institute of Peace address issues of direct relevance to

peacebuilding in the Balkans. 

RECENT INSTITUTE REPORTS INCLUDE:

Three Dimensions of Peacebuilding in Bosnia: Findings from USIP-Sponsored Research and Field Projects,

edited by Steven M. Riskin (Peaceworks No. 32, December 1999)

Training U.S. Army Officers for Peace Operations: Lessons from Bosnia, by Howard Olsen and John Davis

(Special Report, October 1999)

De-Balkanizing the Balkans: Security and Stability in Southeastern Europe, by Andrew J. Pierre (Special

Report, September 1999)

“Yugoslavia”: Building Democratic Institutions (Special Report, April 1999)

Montenegro—and More—at Risk (Special Report, January 1999)

To obtain an Institute report (available free of charge), write United States Institute of Peace,

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RECENT BOOKS FROM USIP PRESS INCLUDE:

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