On the occasion of International Peace Day (September 21) and International Peace Education Day (September 20), Peace Education Hub of the University of Sarajevo- Faculty of Philosophy organized its third Peace Pedagogy Summer School in close collaboration with forumZFD in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Forum Civil Peace Service) and the Network for Peace Building.

The Summer School 2023 was organized as part of the event Peace Days whose slogan “Future= Positive Peace” included the following events: the award of the Peace Prize “Goran Bubalo”, the Conference of the Youth Activism for Peace (held this year at the Youth Center in Grbavica, Sarajevo) and the Regional Seminar entitled Peace Education and Human Rights: How can Divisions at Schools and Discrimination against Youth in Community Work Be Overcome (held at the Faculty of Philosophy on September 22, 2023).

Within the sessions and workshops of the Peace Pedagogy Summer School 2023 all participating teachers, teacher educators, students and peace activists had a chance to attend the following lectures and discussions prepared and presented by specialists and educators in the field of peace education:

  • Peace Education for Teachers: Holistic Peacebuilding Approaches (Emina Dedić-Bukvić & Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžić, panelists; Lejla Mulalić, panel moderator-on behalf of Peace Education Hub, and Michele Parente, panelist- on behalf of forumZFD)
  • Doing Belonging: Human Rights Education in a Graffiti Project on the Nuremberg Trials (Soerena Torraua, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, Nürnberg, Germany)
  • Montessori Pedagogy as a Peace Message (Marija Sablić, University of Osijek, Croatia)
  • Empathy, Language, and Peace: A Framework for Classroom Practice (Adriana Merino, Princeton University, USA)

On behalf of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, Dr. Minka Džanko, Vice Dean for Research, International Academic Cooperation and Publishing, addressed organizers and participants and underscored the importance of peace learning in formal education.

The exchange of knowledge and experiences between teachers in practice, peace educators from the non-governmental sector and members of the academic community opened up many important questions about the presence of the value of peace in education and in the context of cooperation between formal and informal education.