Description
Since the United Nations Security Council adopted the Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) agenda in 2015, global discourse has increasingly recognised youth as active agents of change, challenging historical narratives that view them solely as perpetrators or victims of violence. Peace Education plays a crucial role in equipping youth with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for meaningful social impact, empowering them to become transformative change agents. However, formal education often underutilises Peace Education, creating a gap that Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) work to address. Effective Peace Education for youth requires pedagogies that resonate with learners' interests and have transformative potential.
This paper critiques eleven youth-centric pedagogies employed by a leading NGO in post-conflict Sri Lanka, drawing on empirical research, including interviews with four programme facilitators and seven youth participants. These pedagogies include interactive lecture-based presentations, activity-based learning, dialogue, arts-based pedagogies, sports-based pedagogies, film discussions, intergenerational and intercultural exchanges, challenge-based learning, debate, research, and video production.
The analysis explores how these pedagogies embody holistic, participatory, cooperative, humanistic, and experiential principles essential for impactful Peace Education. Furthermore, the paper classifies these pedagogies into three categories: (1) critical pedagogies—such as lecture-based presentations, activity-based learning, dialogue, arts-based pedagogies, sports-based pedagogies, film discussions, debate and research—that foster critical thinking; (2) pedagogies of resistance—including challenge-based learning, dialogue, debate, research and video production—that empower youth to turn ideas into action for social change; and (3) inter-generational and inter-cultural pedagogies—in particular exchanges—that particularly enable lived experiences of solidarity across generations and cultures.
