Concept of peace remains elusive for many children

Understanding peace is the first step in achieving it, psychologists say.

By Sara Martin
Monitor staff

Children don?t understand the concept of peace, said behavioral researchers at an International Congress symposium on peace and war. But that?s no surprise, they said, because adults don?t either.

In fact, even experts in peace studies don?t have one accepted definition for the concept of peace. Some say it?s the absence of war. Others describe it as any time people address injustices and oppression. Still others define it in terms of peace making?developing peace through human development, liberation and fulfillment.

Yet a clear understanding of peace is critical, agreed the session?s panel of researchers, who came from Australia, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland and Malaysia. As Ann Sanson, PhD, of the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, put it, 'The capacity to envision a peaceful future is needed in order to work toward it.'

One study with Northern Ireland children demonstrates children?s murky understanding of peace. In the study, Francis McClernon, a graduate student at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, asked 28 elementary-school children (14 boys and 14 girls), whether there was peace in Northern Ireland. The children were interviewed on three separate occasions: December 1994, June 1995 and January 1996. Each time, the children came up with different answers, said McClernon?s professor, Edward Cairns, PhD, who presented the data at the congress:

? In 1994, 18 percent of the children said 'yes, there is peace'; 14 percent said 'no, there isn?t peace'; and 68 percent said they didn?t know.

? In 1995, 50 percent said 'yes,' 46 percent said 'no' and 4 percent didn?t know.

? In 1996, 54 percent said 'yes,' 42 percent said 'no' and 4 percent didn?t know.

Cairns, who has studied children?s reactions to war for 25 years, said he didn?t think the differences from year to year were 'because these children were just guessing.' Rather, he thinks, 'These children were genuinely changing their minds.' The wording of the children?s answers more clearly reflected their confusion over the concept of peace. For example, one child who said there was peace said, 'There is a bit of peace, except for all the bombs,' Cairns reported.

To Cairns, the most important question McClernon asked in the study was 'Has there ever been peace in Northern Ireland?' He was quite surprised that the vast majority said 'no': 93 percent in the 1994 study, 82 percent in the 1995 study and 75 percent in the 1996 study. Because most of the children had previously indicated that there was peace at some point or that they weren?t sure that there was peace, 'I would never have guessed that this would be their answer,' he said.

But what?s even more interesting, he noted, is that even those children who said 'yes, there has been peace' hadn?t witnessed this peace firsthand. Their comments included 'I can?t remember peace myself, but I know there was peace'; 'There definitely was peace before, but I don?t remember it'; and 'I think there was peace before I was born. When my mother was at school, there was peace.'

Cairns believes these answers reveal a significant point. 'Perhaps one of the things we should be telling children in areas where there is conflict is that conflict hasn?t always existed and that at some time in the past there was actually peace. Because if you tell them that there was peace before, presumably it becomes rather more of a realistic goal that there will be peace in the future.'