Peace in the psychology curriculum: Moving from assimilation to accommodation.

Abstract

Drawing primarily from Western psychology, we delineate ways in which the discipline of psychology has contributed to peace education. We then extract and amplify psychological concepts and themes relevant for teaching about peace and conflict in traditional psychology courses, an approach that fits an assimilation model. The assimilation model, although well-suited for the goal of heightening students' awareness of the psychology of peace, is not sufficiently powerful when the goal is to produce peaceful people. Accordingly, we then propose an accommodation model in which the psychology curriculum and pedagogies are fundamentally restructured to support the development of peaceful people. Central to the accommodation model is the use of peaceful pedagogies to impart values, teach social competencies related to peaceful behavior, and give students a sense of political efficacy.