Peace Education in Precarious Times Professor Monisha Bajaj

Since World War II, peace education has emerged as a field of study, policy, and practice alongside and within the field of international and comparative education and in the realm of global policy. The Comparative and International Education Society was formally chartered 70 years ago in 1956, and the Peace Education Commission within the International Peace Research Association soon after in 1964. How has peace education research and praxis shaped the field of international and comparative education? What insights can peace education—particularly in its critical and decolonial approaches—offer in the present moment for scholars and practitioners in global education? What is the role of peace education in an increasingly violent and unequal world? With rising authoritarianism and disregard for international human rights frameworks, conventional notions of liberal peace are being challenged; how can education respond to this time of polycrisis?

This keynote lecture explores these questions and the lessons peace education might offer for the precarious times we find ourselves in. Focusing on the conference theme of “Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World,” Monisha Bajaj will discuss core concepts from critical peace education, namely: the role of student and educator agency in transforming unequal systems; the centrality of human dignity in education for peace; the ethic of justice in our work as scholars and practitioners; and the epistemic requirement of solidarity. Dr. Bajaj’s keynote will also offer insights from her nearly three decades of research and engaged praxis across the globe.

Dr. Monisha Bajaj is Professor and Chair of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. She is the editor and author of eight books and numerous articles on issues of peace, human rights, migration, racial justice, sustainability, and education, as well as the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Human Rights Education. Dr. Bajaj has developed curriculum and teacher training materials for non-profit and national advocacy organizations as well as inter-governmental organizations, such as UNICEF, UNESCO, and Global Kids.

Dr. Bajaj’s research has been supported by the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council, the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the University of San Francisco’s Jesuit Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, among others. Her 2012 book, Schooling for Social Change: The Rise and Impact of Human Rights Education in India (Bloomsbury), was awarded the Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award from the Comparative and International Education Society. In 2015, Dr. Bajaj was awarded the Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award (2015) from Division B of the American Educational

Research Association (AERA) and the Teachers College, Columbia University Early Career Distinguished Alumni Award. She also received the Distinguished Research Award from the University of San Francisco in 2018. Her co-edited (with Janelle Scott) World Yearbook of Education 2023: Racialization and Educational Inequality in Global Perspective (Routledge) won the 2023 Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association.

Seeking to translate her work for wider audiences, Dr. Bajaj has contributed widely-read guest articles for the Global Partnership for Education, Learning for Justice, The Conversation, and Edutopia. Her debut picture book is entitled “A Year of Kites,” and—with vibrant illustrations by Amber Ren—chronicles kite-flying traditions from around the globe. More information about Dr. Bajaj’s work can be found at www.monishabajaj.net .