Looking through the philosophical lens of love, this study seeks a deeper understanding and appreciation of how postsecondary social justice educators use storytelling, in the context of critical peace education, to create social change. This research explores the guiding question of how storytelling is used to encourage social change and to inspire action toward the goal of greater social justice. The argument for the importance of this research is located within the crisis of neoliberalism, where the very tenets of democratic education are being challenged by an educational agenda that favors standards-based learning and employment training over the critical and analytical thinking skills required for democracy to flourish. The results of this study identify storytelling as a method of ideology critique, and locate it within a larger process of loving praxis. A theoretical model of loving praxis is offered to explain how postsecondary social justice educators engage story as an action that leads to the goal of social justice. The steps in the model describe how valuing the common good motivates social justice educators to take action through storytelling, toward the outcome of building transformation, voice, and agency within students as a means to build greater social justice. The sense of possibility that is cultivated in this process re-engages the cycle by validating the value of and hope for the common good.

"Let knowledge serve the city" reads the golden letters on a pedestrian bridge just 200 feet from my faculty office in Neuberger Hall at Portland State University. Public peace scholarship might allow knowledge to help the polis by keeping it out of war via changing the national discourse toward a strong and informed peace analysis. Educators have an uneasy relationship to public scholarship and mainstream media have a nervous attitude toward public peace intellectuals. Institutions of higher learning are also often either unaware or uncomfortable with a public promotion of a positive peace platform. Academic writing and research is hard to translate into publicly accessible knowledge and time constraints mitigate professorial efforts at such civic engagements. This dissertation looks at the evolving nature of this intersectionality between and among factors and analyzes data derived from research interviews conducted with 12 academics/activists. The conclusion is a grounded theory generated by this process. Key findings include problematic lack of academic freedoms--especially in the promotion and tenure context, overwhelming faculty workloads, infrequent faculty development of public scholarship skills and a spotty distribution/connection system that often fails to facilitate competent and willing faculty to engage as public peace and justice scholars. Policy recommendations attempt to address all these obstacles.

Human security conceptions, service quality theory, critical social theory, and humanistic and social reconstructionist conceptualization of the curriculum have been used in this study to diagnose the quality of higher education (HE) in peace and security courses offered in Kenyan universities from the perspective of the student. The discourse emanates from the Kenya Government’s recognition of HE as key in solving the challenges affecting the country’s peace and security. This conceptualization is crucial in fast-tracking security reforms and dealing with the persistent peace and security challenges which the country faces. However, delivering quality HE amidst the recent explosion in demand for University education in Kenya has been a challenge and discourses on the dwindling quality of teaching and learning (QTL) delivered to University students in the country abound. The on-going dialectic contends that quality assurance in education is customer driven and the role of the student in evaluation of quality of education is categorical in determining viability of the programmes and self efficacy of the graduands. Using the positivistic-interpretivist paradigm, a total of 152 diploma and undergraduate students from five universities in Kenya participated in the study. Data were collected by use of a modified Service Performance (SERVPERF) questionnaire and interview schedules. The data were analysed both qualitatively by generating themes and categories and quantitatively by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found that whereas students hold high perceptions of course relevance, their overall perceptions of the QTL in such aspects as facilities, lecturers, teaching methodology, curriculum evaluation and programme content design was low. The study recommends that the universities should mobilize resources to improve the quality of their teaching and learning resources while intensifying practical training and improving the quality of assessment to minimize overreliance on written examinations in evaluating students. Further study of the role of HE in peace and security studies in reinforcing peacebulding and security management in the East African region is equally imperative. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum and Instructional Studies)

This study was designed to bring to the fore the reasons for introducing peace education in pre-service teacher education in Zimbabwean teachers colleges in order to establish the foundations for positive peace in Zimbabwe. The focus of the study was on the preparation of Zimbabwean pre-service teachers in peace education as an effective approach for building durable peace in Zimbabwe. The main research question that guided this study was: Why and how should peace education be introduced at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe? The overall aim of the research is to develop an appropriate peace education programme for Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges which will be employed as a strategy for constructing positive peace in Zimbabwe. A phenomenological methodology blending Edmund Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology and Martin Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology was used to elicit participants’ views on the challenges and possibilities of introducing peace education at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe. Data for the study were gathered using semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and documentary analysis. Key themes emerging from the data analysis were that (a) there is an absence of positive peace in contemporary Zimbabwe (b) Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges are not offering courses in peace education (c) peace education would benefit Zimbabwe as a country, (d) peace education is implementable at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe, (e) there is need to develop an appropriate peace education curriculum that reflects the needs of Zimbabwean citizens and (f) college principals, lecturers, student teachers, policymakers and programme-makers have important roles to play in peace education initiatives. Through this study, the researcher established that peace education is a plausible and sustainable mechanism for building positive peace which has remained obscure in Zimbabwe despite thirty-four years of hard won independence. This shows the necessity for introducing peace education in Zimbabwean teachers colleges as a strategy for positive peace building. It is therefore, recommended that teachers’ colleges in Zimbabwe should introduce peace education in their pre-service programmes in order to build prospective teachers’ capacities to establish an infrastructure for positive peace in their future classrooms, the immediate communities and Zimbabwean society as a whole. / Philosophy of Education / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Human security conceptions, service quality theory, critical social theory, and humanistic and social reconstructionist conceptualization of the curriculum have been used in this study to diagnose the quality of higher education (HE) in peace and security courses offered in Kenyan universities from the perspective of the student. The discourse emanates from the Kenya Government’s recognition of HE as key in solving the challenges affecting the country’s peace and security. This conceptualization is crucial in fast-tracking security reforms and dealing with the persistent peace and security challenges which the country faces. However, delivering quality HE amidst the recent explosion in demand for University education in Kenya has been a challenge and discourses on the dwindling quality of teaching and learning (QTL) delivered to University students in the country abound. The on-going dialectic contends that quality assurance in education is customer driven and the role of the student in evaluation of quality of education is categorical in determining viability of the programmes and self efficacy of the graduands. Using the positivistic-interpretivist paradigm, a total of 152 diploma and undergraduate students from five universities in Kenya participated in the study. Data were collected by use of a modified Service Performance (SERVPERF) questionnaire and interview schedules. The data were analysed both qualitatively by generating themes and categories and quantitatively by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found that whereas students hold high perceptions of course relevance, their overall perceptions of the QTL in such aspects as facilities, lecturers, teaching methodology, curriculum evaluation and programme content design was low. The study recommends that the universities should mobilize resources to improve the quality of their teaching and learning resources while intensifying practical training and improving the quality of assessment to minimize overreliance on written examinations in evaluating students. Further study of the role of HE in peace and security studies in reinforcing peacebulding and security management in the East African region is equally imperative. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum and Instructional Studies)

This study was designed to bring to the fore the reasons for introducing peace education in pre-service teacher education in Zimbabwean teachers colleges in order to establish the foundations for positive peace in Zimbabwe. The focus of the study was on the preparation of Zimbabwean pre-service teachers in peace education as an effective approach for building durable peace in Zimbabwe. The main research question that guided this study was: Why and how should peace education be introduced at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe? The overall aim of the research is to develop an appropriate peace education programme for Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges which will be employed as a strategy for constructing positive peace in Zimbabwe. A phenomenological methodology blending Edmund Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology and Martin Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology was used to elicit participants’ views on the challenges and possibilities of introducing peace education at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe. Data for the study were gathered using semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and documentary analysis. Key themes emerging from the data analysis were that (a) there is an absence of positive peace in contemporary Zimbabwe (b) Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges are not offering courses in peace education (c) peace education would benefit Zimbabwe as a country, (d) peace education is implementable at pre-service teacher education colleges in Zimbabwe, (e) there is need to develop an appropriate peace education curriculum that reflects the needs of Zimbabwean citizens and (f) college principals, lecturers, student teachers, policymakers and programme-makers have important roles to play in peace education initiatives. Through this study, the researcher established that peace education is a plausible and sustainable mechanism for building positive peace which has remained obscure in Zimbabwe despite thirty-four years of hard won independence. This shows the necessity for introducing peace education in Zimbabwean teachers colleges as a strategy for positive peace building. It is therefore, recommended that teachers’ colleges in Zimbabwe should introduce peace education in their pre-service programmes in order to build prospective teachers’ capacities to establish an infrastructure for positive peace in their future classrooms, the immediate communities and Zimbabwean society as a whole. / Philosophy of Education / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

This study focused on investigating the significance of peace education to manage institutional conflict at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. As conflict is inevitable in all settings, the need for looking at diversified ways of mitigating conflict is paramount and mandatory. Higher education should serve communities and nations in generating solutions on one hand and as well generating educated human power equipped with basic knowledge, skills and required attitude, on the other hand. The situation observed in the study area of AAU and other universities is a concern because the level and magnitude of conflict being experienced in university campuses is increasing. Taking this into consideration, the study employed a qualitative inquiry and collected data from students, academic staff from a variety of departments, the student administration wing student, the Institute of Peace and Security Studies and support staff. The findings of the study tried to identify the nature and cause of conflict. Moreover, it collected data regarding the measures currently taken by the university and as well investigated to what extent peace education can serve as an instrument to manage institutional conflict in AAU. Most of the conflict types were found to be dysfunctional, which involves the affective domain based on the feelings and emotions of the conflicting parties, mainly students to each other. It was injected by ethnic conflict and almost no dialogue is held to resolve the conflicts among them. On the other hand, turbulent situations in the society are enacted at the university, with students entering into conflict demanding their ethnic groups’ democratic and human rights. When conflicts arise, conflict resolving mechanisms are traditional with the university resorting to the use of the external police force with dire consequences such as imprisonment, detainment and even death. The study thus investigated and revealed the potential of peace education as an innovative solution to resolve conflict collaboratively thus satisfying all parties. / Educational Management and Leadership / Ph. D. (Education Leadership and Management)