Human and integral education: educational paradigms from the Indian context expanding meanings of peace and conflict

Abstract

ABSTRACT Post-independence, the Indian context has witnessed conflicts between religious groups, structural/cultural violence, and discrimination based on socio-cultural factors such as socio-economic status, religion, gender, sexual identity, caste, language among others. Even though the perpetuation of these power imbalances at the macro-national level are being manifested in schools through educational interventions, there are ongoing efforts, as part of peace curriculums, to engage with/transform this culture of conflict towards cultivating a culture of peace. This study seeks to understand how school curriculums engage with ideas of peace and conflict. A document analysis of micro-peace curriculum (two school sites) that incorporated both a deductive and inductive approach of analysis was undertaken. Guided by a critical peace education framework implicating that curriculum engaging with conflict, positive relationships, and transformation can contribute towards cultivating peace guided the process of analysis. Curriculums reveal a focus on human education, a sense of oneness with the self, world and environment, and integral education, developing all faculties of the human being-including the soul and spirit, which are both directed towards addressing sources of structural violence while cultivating a sense of collective consciousness to build a peaceful world.