Perceptions of Teachers and Students about the Impact of General Institutional Environment on Peace-Promoting Attitudes: A Peace-Education Perspective

Abstract

Peace education is a process of achieving peace, at personal, interpersonal, national and international levels, through education, focusing on promoting universal brotherhood, global citizenship, and a culture of peaceful co-existence. Therefore, this research study is exclusively based on the formal mode of peace education. The area specified within this mode of education is, “Perceptions of teachers and students about the impact of General Institutional Environment on peace-promoting attitudes: a peace-education perspective”. The objectives were: i, to explore the perceptions of teachers and students about the impact of General Institutional Environment on peace-promoting attitudes; ii, to compare the perceptions of teachers and students about the impact of General Institutional Environment on peace-promoting attitudes. University level was selected for the study. The population consisted of teachers and students of a total of 113 public and private sector universities situated in Pakistan. The sample consisted of respondents for11 universities in all, standing for 10% representation of the population. A total of 719 respondents (210 teachers and 509 students) participated in the study. In this survey type study, the perceptions of the respondents were collected through questionnaire. As research tool, a questionnaire covering the aspects of general institutional environment of the respondents was prepared to get responses from a wide spectrum of teachers and students across the country. The research tool was validated and duly piolet tested. The questionnaire was distributed among a total of 770 target respondents. Where 719 questionnaires were collected back, indicating 93.38 response percentage. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS version 16. It was found that General Institutional Environment plays significant role in affecting attitude towards peace education. In the light of the findings, suggestions and recommendations were presented.

Keywords: Peace, Peace-education, institutional environment, culture of peace