Journal for Peace and Justice Studies

This paper presents qualitative data gleaned from four New York City elementary classrooms and focuses on how teachers attempt, each in their own distinct way, to create educational cultures of peace. Here, classroom vignettes are reconstructed from two months of observational and interview data with attention to how teacher beliefs on peaceful co-existence manifest in the playing field of a child’s subject formation. Drawing from Judith Butler’s concept of subjectification, this study asks: what conditions of possibility do teachers conceive of when thinking about peace in their classrooms? Findings show that teachers create conditions that emerge from their particular theories about children and understandings of peace. The four classrooms presented in this paper suggest to students in four different ways that peace is emergent from and located within specific relationships: namely that between the self and others; the self and law; the self and society; and, finally, within oneself.

This article attempts to articulate an understanding of the Augustinian value of Caritas as a call for Augustinian Institutions of Higher Education to promote justice and equity in the world. The author grounds this definition of Caritas by incorporating three primary concepts of Catholic Social Teaching: the dignity of the human person, concern for the common good and a preferential option for the poor and marginalized in society. The article attempts to apply this definition of the value of Augustinian Caritas to the ways in which a concern for social justice and equity is promoted and practiced in an undergraduate teacher preparation program in an Augustinian educational institution.

This article provides a review of sociology student’s reflection papers discussing their service-learning hours with the College Brides Walk (CBW). CBW is a campus-community collaboration in its fifth year. Based in South Florida, the initiative is intended to help raise awareness about domestic and dating violence and to inspire a community response. It is designed as a form of Human Rights Education (HRE). Student papers show that most gained knowledge of sociological concepts and theories as well as personal insights through their participation. Many also expressed desire for continued effort with this or related initiatives. Despite these positive findings, the paper shows that there are significant differences in how students connect their service to course material and gaps in students’ ability to articulate what has been learned. Recommendations for organizers and others involved in similar campaigns are provided.

Joel Spring’s proposal, for a human rights education and an education in human rights, based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, assumes an autonomous, rational subject that is endowed with rights; which owns rights. We can think of two standpoints that are unsatisfied or offended by this construction of justice around individual humans: poststructuralists and deep ecologists. Inspired by Spring’s project, we have been considering a mindful education and an education in mindfulness as a “universally applicable” education that does not require a rational subject.