The conception of war and peace in early childhood: a phenomenological analysis of kindergarten children in Banten, Indonesia

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, numerous studies have been conducted on children’s understanding of peace and war. Geographic, economic, political, cultural, and social differences influence the concepts of war and peace. This study aims at examining this effect. In addition to comparing studies conducted in Western countries, the study aims to examine early childhood students’ understanding of war and peace concepts. The study involved ten early childhood children who were at the kindergarten level with an average age of 5.7 years. The study employed a phenomenological approach. Drawing and semi-structured interviews were utilized for data collection. The study results indicate that children conceptualize war as unhappiness, conflict, and weapons. War concepts are symbolized by sad people, weapons, and fighting characters. In addition, children conceptualize peace as happiness, the beauty of nature, and a place that makes them feel safe, cheerful, free to express themselves, happy, and in which no one is angry. Smiling people, houses, trees, rainbows, and mountains represent peace. Overall, early childhood simultaneously comprehends the concepts of war and peace. This result differs from those of several prior studies.KEYWORDS: Children’s drawingchildren’s understandingpeace conceptspeace education in childrenphenomenologywar concepts Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis research received funding from Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP) of the Republic of Indonesia with Grant number 2020031130770.Notes on contributorsIlfiandra IlfiandraIlfiandra is an Associate Professor of guidance and counseling with a research focus on peace education and pedagogy. He has been conducting research in peace education and pedagogy since 2012. He leads the Center for Peace Education and Pedagogy Studies at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. Under his leadership, the study center organized training activities to develop peace educator competencies for teachers in West Java Province, Indonesia. He also succeeded in developing the “Development and Validation Peaceful Classroom Scale: Rasch Model Analysis (Ilfiandra et al., Citation2022),” published in the International Journal of Instruction. His research findings in the book Bibliokonseling untuk Membangun Budaya Damai di Sekolah (Bibliocounseling to Build a Culture of Peace in Schools) (Ilfiandra et al., Citation2021) have also become a guide for Indonesian guidance and counseling teachers in developing a culture of peace in schools. Ilfiandra and Saripudin (Citation2023) also developed an ethnopedagogy model from the traditional values of the Sundanese indigenous people in Indonesia.Mohamad SaripudinMohamad Saripudin is a researcher in peace education and pedagogy. He founded a research organization, CARE Institute, with Amirul Hazmi Hamdan & Nur Asiah. He is also a lecturer at Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, Indonesia. He developed a model training program to develop the competence of kindergarten teachers as peace educators. One of his scholarly works on peace education is about film as a medium for developing a culture of peace (Saripudin et al. Citation2023). This article appears in the journal Media Asia.