PrefaceDr. Betty A. Reardon is a pioneering and world-renowned leader of peace educationand human rights.1Her groundbreaking work has laid the foundation for aninspiring new cross-disciplinary eld that integrates peace education and the questfor international human rights within a gender-conscious, global perspective.In recognition of her internationally acclaimed contributions, achievementsandawards as a teacher, activist, researcher, author, andconsultant spanningve decades, she was nominatedbythe International Peace Bureau(Geneva,Switzerland) for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.My association with Betty Reardon as a colleague and friend has spanned overtwodecades,and began with our rst and auspicious faculty meeting togetheratColgate University in 1990. Our mutual interest and dedication to the formulationof global peace and international human rights education have given rise tomeaningful collaboration over the years. For example, as founding director of TheUniversityofToledosCenterforDemocraticEducationandNon-Violence, mycolleagues and I were honored to organize the Betty A. Reardon Collection, anarchiveof her publishedandunpublishedworks, whichopenedin2009intheWard M. Canady Center for Special Collections at The University of Toledo.Given the widerangeand complexity of Reardons work, thisshort commen-tarywill highlight what I perceiveas her coreideas, acknowledgingthat mysummaryis not exhaustive. These ideas include universal humandignityanduniversal moral inclusion; violence as dehumanization and the core problematic ofpeaceeducation; a humanrights ethical framework; a transformational paradigmof peace; and peace learning and reective inquiry.Central to Reardons conception of peace and peace education are twofundamental normativeassertions: universal humandignityanduniversal moralinclusion. Thesetwoclaimsarenormative, notempirical, inthesensethatthey1Theauthor isverygrateful toMaryM. Darbesforhelpful andinsightful feedbackonthispreface. A website on this book with additional information on Betty A. Reardon, including linksto videos and a selection of the covers of her major books is at: \http://afes-press-books.de/html/SpringerBriefs_PSP_Reardon.htm[.viiReardon, Betty A. and Snauwaert, Dale T. (editors), Betty A. Reardon: A pioneer in education for peace and human rights, SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice No. 26 (Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London: Springer-Verlag, 2014).by Dale T. Snauwaert, in:ethicallyassert what shouldbe. These relatedcore conceptions constitute theethical foundations of Reardons overarching philosophy.Universal humandignityandmoral inclusionarelogicallyinterrelated. Uni-versal human dignity is the normative claim that all human beings possess an equalintrinsic value that should be respected. In turn, this equal inherent dignity bestowsupon each person standing in the human moral community. That is, each person isseen to be an equal member of the human moral community and thus each personhas a right to equal moral consideration. This moral inclusion is universal in scope;it pertainstoall humanbeings. Theseinterrelated, normativeassertionsarethebasis of Reardons value-based conceptions of peace and violence.Inmakingthesetwofundamental ethicalassertions, Reardonisapart ofthelong tradition of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanismhas many dimensionsepistemological, social, political, and ethical. The cosmopolitan ethical imperativemandatesthat weseetheother asaperson; it demandsthat wetranscendthelongstandinghumanpatternsofviolence, dehumanization, andobjecticationofpersonsinfavoroftherecognitionoftheirhumanity,andtherebyembracetheirstanding in the human moral community.2Violence is that which dehumanizes, which tears and erodes human dignity, andsobeing, it isthecoreproblematicof peaceandpeaceeducation. AsReardonstates:Iidentifyviolenceasthecentralproblematicofpeaceeducation. Allviolencedegradesand/ordenieshumandignity. ThisiswhyIassertthatthesubstanceoftheeldshouldcompriseaninquiryintoviolenceasaphenomenonandasystem,itsmultipleandper-vasiveforms, theinterrelationshipsamongthevariousforms, itssourcesandpurposes,howitfunctionsandpotentialalternativesforachievingthelegallysanctioned, sociallyaccepted, or politically tolerated purposes commonly pursued through violence.3ThisconceptionisasimilartoJohanGaltungsunderstandingofviolenceasthat which impedes and delimits human potential. Galtung writes:violence is present whenhumanbeings are beinginuencedsothat their actualsomatic and mental realizations are below their potential realization Violence is heredenedasthecauseof thedifferencebetweenthepotential andactual, betweenwhatcouldhavebeenandwhatis.Violenceisthatwhichincreasesthedistancebetweenthepotential and the actual, and that which impedes the decrease of this distance.42Chris Brown, 1992: International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress);ImmanuelKant,[1795]1983:PerpetualPeaceandOtherEssays,trans. TedHumphrey. (Cambridge: Hackett); MarthaNussbaum, 1997: Kant andCosmopol-itanism, in: James Bohman, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann(Eds.): Perpetual Peace: Essays onKants CosmopolitanIdeal (Cambridge: MIT Press).3Betty A. Reardon, 2010: Human Rights Learning: Pedagogies and Politics of Peace (San Juan,Puerto Rico: UNESCO Chair for Peace Education, University of Puerto Rico), 55; see Chap. 11in this volume.4Johan Galtung, 1969: Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, in: Journal of Peace Research6, 3: 168.viii PrefacePaulo Freire also conceptualizes violence as dehumanization; he writes:Any situation in which A objectively exploits B or hinders his and her pursuit of self-afrmationasaresponsiblepersonisoneofoppression. Suchasituationinitselfcon-stitutesviolence becauseitinterfereswiththeindividualsontologicalandhistoricalvocation to be more fully human. With the establishment of a relationship of oppression,violence has already begun 5Freiremaintainsthat it isour ontological andhistorical vocationtobecomefully human, to strive for and actualize our potential as human beings. We have ahuman right to the actualization of our humanity. All forms of coercive political,economic, andsocial interference, bothdirect andstructural, withour humancompletion dehumanize and oppress, and are thereby unjust.6Reardonidenties anumber of social structures andmodesof thought thatviolate human dignity. They constitute what Galtung refers to as direct, structural,andcultural violence.7Theseviolent structures constituteasystemof control,domination, and oppression, including ways of thinking and believing that justifyandnormalizethesestructures. InReardonsview, militarism(thewarsystem),patriarchy/sexism, and a technocratic-managerial economic hierarchy, and itsconcomitant knowledge industry and social philosophy, constitute the basicstructure of a violent society.8ForReardonthetransformationneededfortheongoingpursuitofpeace, andthereby,areductioninviolence,requiresafundamentalparadigmshiftinsocialvaluesandworldviewsashift fromaparadigmofwartowardaparadigmofpeace.9This value shift was expressed early on in her work through the assertionof the following world order values: minimization of violence, war prevention;maximizing of economic welfare increasing of social justice by relieving dis-crimination and oppression; broadening of the democratic base of public policy restoration of ecological balance.105Paulo Freire, 1970: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum).6For furtherdiscussionsseeDaleT. Snauwaert, 2011: Social justiceandthephilosophicalfoundationsofcritical peaceeducation: Exploringnussbaum, Sen, andFreire, inJournal ofPeace Education 8, 3; David Ragland, 2012: Theorizing Justice in Betty Reardons Philosophyof Peace Education: A Gender and Feminist Political Conception (The University of Toledo).7Galtung, 1990: Violence, peace, and peace research; cultural violence, in: Journal of PeaceResearch 27, 3.8See Reardons bibliography of publications in this volume as well as 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, andEpilogue.9BettyA. Reardon, 1989: TowardaParadigmof Peace, in: LindaRennieFarcey(Ed.):Peace:Meanings, Politics, Strategies(NewYork:Praeger);LearningOurWaytoaHumanFuture, in: Betty A. Reardon, Eva Nordland (Eds.): Learning Peace: The Promise of Ecologicaland Cooperative Education (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994).10TransformationsintoPeaceandSurvival:Programsforthe1970s,in:GeorgeHenderson(Ed.): Education for Peace: Focus on Mankind (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision andCurriculum Development, 1973), 13334; see Chap. 5 in this volume.Preface ixIn subsequent work, the value shift is articulated within a human rightsframework. Ahuman rights frameworkis the lingua franca of cosmopolitanethics.11Human rights are a way of expressing what one must do or can never doto another human being who possesses an equal inherent dignity.12The languageof rights thus can be understood to constitute the principles of a cosmopolitan ethicofhumandignity, andthusacounter-point toviolence. AsReardonmaintains:Humanrightsstudyprovidesuswithtoolsofdenitionanddiagnosisofwhatcomprises violence, experientially as well as conceptually 13There are a number of logically consistent ways of conceiving rights, all ofwhich follow from the value of human dignity. One way to conceive a right is whatahumanbeingisdue. Fromthisperspective, rightsconstitutewhateachandeveryhumanbeing isowed by virtue oftheirhumanity.Rights arealso justieddemandsfortheenjoymentofsocialgoods.14Rightsarealsoconceivedaspro-tections against coercion, deprivation, and inhumane treatment. Rights protect thepowerlessfromthepowerful.Inthissense,rightsarepoliticalinthattheyareameans of adjudicating conict as well as protecting the individual from harm.15Rightsthusdenewhat theindividual asonewhopossessesequal inherentdignityisdue, isjustiedindemanding, and/or isprotectedfrom. Inthiswayrightsaredevices,whichdenewhatmoralchoicescanneverbemadeorthosethat must be made.16As Reardon asserts, human rights function as tools for therealization of the conditions necessary to human dignity.17In turn, rights logically entail correlativeduties:1. Duties to avoid depriving another the right.2. Duties to protect the other from deprivation of the right.3. Duties to aid the deprived.18Thedutytoavoiddeprivationentailsrestraint: theobligationtorefrainfromdestructive action and/or interference. The duty to protect entails the responsibilityfor establishment of norms, social practices, and institutions that enforce the dutyto avoid deprivation. The duty to aid is positive in the sense that it is an obligation11Norberto Bobbio, [1990] 1996: The Age of Rights (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press); R.J.Vincent, 1986: HumanRightsandInternational Relations(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress).12Michael J. Perry, 1998: TheIdeaof Rights:FourInquiries(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress).13Reardon, Human Rights Learning: Pedagogiesand Politics of Peace, 13.14Henry Shue, 1980: Basic Rights: Subsistence, Afuence, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton:Princeton University Press).15Michael Ignatieff, 2001: HumanRights as Politics andIdolatry, in: AmyGutmann(Ed.)(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).16Perry, The Idea of Rights: Four Inquiries.17Reardon, Human Rights Learning: Pedagogiesand Politics of Peace, 46.18Shue, Basic Rights: Subsistence,Afuence, and U.S. Foreign Policy, 5253.x Prefaceto provide for those in need. These duties comprise the obligation of socialresponsibilityinherent inhumanrights. As Reardonsuggests: Humanrightslearning, at its core, is the cultivation of ethical reection and assessment for theexercise of social responsibility.19In turn, Reardon conceives peace in terms of the realization of human rights andduties: Asustainableworldpeacecanonlybeassuredthroughtheuniversalactualizationofhumandignity.20Shemaintainsthat:Humanrightsstandardsarethespecicindicators andparticular measures of progress towardandtherealizationofpeace. Humanrightsputseshonthebonesoftheabstractionofpeace and provide the details of how to bring the esh to life.21A society, bothnational andglobal, that secures thehumandignityof all citizens throughtherealization of their rights is the standard for authentic peace. Reardon writes:Asapolitical frameworkfortheactualizationof humandignity, humanrightsaretheethicalcoreofpeaceeducation;notacomplement, oraparticularcomponent, andcer-tainlynot analternativeor aneducationallyequivalent substitutefor peaceeducation.Humanrightsareintegral topeaceeducation, that is, without humanrightspeaceedu-cation lacks a primary component of its core and essential substance. Human rights are theessenceandthearbiter of peace, theantithesisof violence, touchingonmultipleandcomplex aspects of the human experience, illuminating the necessity of holism to the eld.The potential of human rights as the means to cultivate transformationalthinking lies inviewing all human rights norms and standards as a whole, an integrated ethical system.22Thisvalue-oriented,humanrightsconceptionofpeaceintegratestheideasofnegative and positive peace.Reardondenesnegativepeaceastheabsenceofwar,achievedbythepre-vention and/or the general reduction and eventual elimination of armed conict.23She argues that a fully actualized state of negative peace would entail the abolitionof war as an institution(the war system), includingcomplete and generaldisarmament.24Positivepeaceincludesbuttranscendsnegativepeace. Itentailsnotonlytheeliminationofarmedaggressionbutalsothepositiveestablishmentofjustice.Itconstitutesasocial orderfreeofall formsofviolence, includingstructural andculturalviolence, aswell astheestablishmentandsustainabilityof fundamentaland wide spread social fairness. Positive peace can be understood as the realizationof the complete range of human rights: civil and political and economic, cultural,and social. She writes:19Reardon, Human Rights Learning: Pedagogiesand Politics of Peace, 55.20Human Rights Learning:Pedagogies and Politics of Peace, 4621Human Rights Learning:Pedagogies and Politics of Peace, 47.22Ibid.23Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility (New York: TeachersCollege Press, 1988), 6.24Disarmament and Peace Education, Prospects: Quarterly Review of Education 8, 4 (1978);Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for GlobalResponsibility.Preface xiThe major areas of concern in the domain of positive peace are the problems of economicdeprivation and development; environment and resources; and universal human rights andsocial justice. Peace education seems to have subsumed all of these areas into the generalconceptofglobaljustice. . . justice,inthesenseofthefullenjoymentoftheentirerange of human rights by all people, is what constitutes positive peace.25On the basis of both negative and positive peace, Reardon posits the notion ofauthentic peace. Reardon conceives authentic peace as the abolition of the warsystemandtheestablishment of global justiceandaglobal civiccommunity.Peace, soconceived, is thereforeanethical imperative, afundamental humanright.26Inadditiontoethical reectionwithinahumanrightsframeworkasacoreelement of a shift to a paradigm of peace, there are at least two other elements ofthisshiftinworldview.Reardonsconceptionofpeaceandherunderstandingoftheintegral elementsofa paradigmofpeaceareprofoundly inuencedbyfemi-nism and holism.27This constitutes an ontological perspective, which generates anunderstanding of life that is interrelated and interdependent: life is understood asan interdependent web of relationships within which respecting and caring for theinherent dignityof life, humanandnon-human, is imperative. This viewis aperspective of deep equality. This holistic ontology in turn leads to the inclusion ofalllifeinthemoralcommunity,therebybringingthemoralconsiderationofthenaturalworldandecologicalbalanceundertheumbrellaofauthenticpeace.Shewrites for example: Clearly, peacestudies must begintopursuewholismasthe framework, process as the primary method, and peace in its widest sense as thegoal, if it is to energize the intellectual transformation necessary to a paradigm ofpeace.28In addition, Holism and critical reection are essential and necessary tothetransformationofthinking(andtransformational thinking)conducivetothepolitical processesrequisitetotherealizationofhumanrightsasthebasisofapeaceful world order 29Based upon her conception of authentic peace Reardon denes the educationaltask in holistic and transformational terms:...thegeneralpurposeofpeaceeducation,asIunderstandit,istopromotethedevel-opment of an authenticplanetary consciousness that will enable us to function as globalcitizensandtotransformthepresenthumanconditionbychangingthesocialstructuresand the patterns of thought that have created it. This transformational imperative must, inmy view, be at the center of peace education. It is important to emphasize that transfor-mation, inthiscontext, meansaprofoundglobal cultural changethat affectsways ofthinking, world views, values, behaviors, relationships, and the structures that make up our25Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for GlobalResponsibility, 26.26Note that this conceptionof peace as anethical imperative is part of the cosmopolitantradition; see for example, Kant, Perpetual Peace and OtherEssays.27Her feminism, including her analysis of the relationship between sexism and militarism, is thesubject of Volume 27 in this series.28Reardon, Toward a Paradigm of Peace, 25.29Learning Our Way to a Human Future, 46.xii Prefacepublic order. It implies a changein thehuman consciousnessand in human societyof adimensionfar greater thananyother that hastakenplacesincetheemergenceof thenation-state system, and perhaps since the emergence of human settlement.30Oneof Reardons coreinsightsis that peacerequiresandis constitutedbylearning, andlearningisreectiveanddialogical, andthus, transformative. Herapproachtopeaceeducationis therebytransformational. Thetransformationalapproachtranscends but includes the twoother prominent traditions inpeaceeducation: the reformandreconstructiontraditions.31The reformapproachisdevoted to the prevention of war, including the control and balance of arms. Thereconstructive approach seeks to reconstruct international systems, to abolish war,andtoachievetotaldisarmament. Itsprimaryobjectiveisstructuralandinstitu-tional changeandtheestablishment ofglobal conict-resolution, peacekeeping,andpeace-buildinginstitutions.Thetransformational approachaimsattherejec-tion of all forms of violence, direct, structural, and cultural; its goal is a shift to aparadigm of peace, including the development of the human capacities and waysof thought necessary to sustain it.The transformational approach employs a pedagogy that elicits learning.Reardon describes this approach as follows:[transformational] peaceeducatorsdescribetheir goal aseliciting(not imposingorinculcating)positiveresponses, recognizingthat educationisnot somuchaprocessofimparting knowledge as it is drawing out the capacity to learn In eliciting awareness,theintentistostrengthencapacitytocare, todevelopasincereconcernforthosewhosuffer becauseof theproblems andacommitment toresolvingthemthroughaction.Awarenessinfusedbycaringbecomesconcernthatcanleadtosuchcommitmentwhenoneaction isfollowedbyotheractions, andwhenactionforpeacebecomesa sustainedbehavioral pattern, part of the learners way of life. The objective is to elicit an ongoingand active response to the problems of peace and a commitment to their resolution. thiscycle of care, concern, and commitment is the core of the peace learning process.32Reardon maintains that a transformational peace education should draw out anew mode of thinking that is life-afrming, oriented toward the fulllment of thehumanpotential, anddirectedtotheachievement ofmaturationastheultimategoal of positive peace.33More specically, peace education should be30Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility (New York: TeachersCollege Press, 1988), x.31BettyA. Reardon, 2000: PeaceEducation: AReviewandProjection,in: Robert Moon,MiriamBen-Peretz, andSallyBrown(Eds.)RoutledgeInternational CompaniontoEducation(London: Routledge).32Reardon, ComprehensivePeace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility, 2122.33Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for GlobalResponsibility, 53.Preface xiiifundamentallyconcernedwiththedevelopmentofthepoliticalefcacyof futurecitizensthe capacity to engagein transformative political action.34Political efcacy involves complex learning that requires pedagogies ofmultiple forms of reective inquiry. Peace learning and thus reective inquiry isboth critical and ethical; it involves both the analysis of politics and value-basedethical assessment.Reardonarticulatesthreeformsofreectiveinquiry: critical/analytic; moral/ethical; andcontemplative/ruminative. Critical/analyticreectionpertainstothediscernment of power, an understanding and critique of social institutions, analysisof the structural dimensions of social life, anda critical consciousness (inaFreirian sense) of the politicaleconomic origins of violence. Moral/ethicalreectionaddressesquestionsofjustice, andtherebystructuralandculturalvio-lence, guided bythe principles of a human rights framework. Contemplativereection is conceived as self-examination of internal moral motivation andcommitment. It pertains to a reection on what is meaningful and valuable. It alsoinvolves the exercise of imagination to envision alternative realities necessary fortransformative action.35Thecentralmethodof facilitatingreectiveinquiryisnotonlytheposingofquestions, but more deeply the posing ofqueries. Reardon writes:Reective inquiry initiated by the posing of questions is deepened through the consider-ationofqueries.Inthatitisinessenceaprocessofthinkingbyinterrogation,itisthusessentiallydialogic, beginningwithfocusingonandencounteringthe subject of theinquiry as the entry point into the process of examination of what is to be further explored.Inthisrespect, reectiveinquirybeginswithaninnerprocessofconfrontingandques-tioning towardabasic understandingofthesubjectorissue.While itispossiblefor theprocesstoremaininwardandstill beproductiveof learning, thepracticeofreectiveinquiryaspeaceeducationlearningtowardsocialandpoliticalchangemustbecomeoutwardly dialogic in the form of a learning discourse through posing queries to elicit theindividual reections of all who comprise the learning community (or class).36Whilequestionselicit denitive, descriptivefactual answers, queriescall forconditional, speculativeresponses. Queries requirereectionrather thanrecol-lectionordeduction,whichinturnproducesgroupdialogandinquiry.Queriesare a way of putting the quest into questions and the search into research Itis the questing and the search that opens an inquiry.37Queries open inquiry todeeper reection and critical analysis.34BettyA. Reardon, DaleTSnauwaert, 2011: Reectivepedagogy, cosmopolitanism, andcritical peace education for political efcacy: a discussion of Betty A. Reardons assessment ofthe eld, in: In Factis Pax: Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice 5, 1; see Chap. 13 inthis volume.35Ibid.36Reective Pedagogy, Cosmopolitanism, and Critical Peace Education for Political Efcacy:A Discussion of Betty A. Reardons Assessment of the Field, 7.37Reective Pedagogy, Cosmopolitanism, and Critical Peace Education for Political Efcacy:A Discussion of Betty A. Reardons Assessment of the Field, 12.xiv PrefaceThisconceptionof apedagogyof reectiveinquiryisdeeplyinuencedbyPaulo Freires critical pedagogy:Critical pedagogyisthemethodologymost consistent withthetransformativegoalsofpeace education and human rights learningI have argued that the theories and practiceswe have learned from Paulo Freire are the conceptual and methodological heart of the mosteffective peace learning and peace politics. I so argue largely because I see his work as theprimary model of a process in which learning is politics and politics can be learning 38Paulo Freire posits the general historical existence of a social reality dominatedbyoppression.39Inresponse he points us towardthe possibilityof a societyconstitutedbyauthenticsubjects co-existingindialogical solidarityseekingtofulll their ontological vocationtobecomemorefullyhuman. Thecoreprob-lematicishowtomovefromoppressiontoliberationandempowerment, whichentailsboththetransformationofthestructuresofconsciousnessandthetrans-formation of the social structure. The Freirean means to this end is culturalactiondialogical andproblem-posingeducational interventions (critical peda-gogy) tofacilitatecritical consciousnessandauthenticsubjectivity. Withinthistheoretical framework Freire conceives hope as untested feasibility. Freiremaintainsthat thereisastrongtendencytoperceivesocial realityasreied, asxed. This perception locks the individual in a reality that is hopeless, leading to adisempowered self-concept. Freire maintains, however, that it is possible tounderstandsocial realities as uidlimit situationsthat aresocial constructionssubject to critique and transformation. Critical pedagogy is a method that engagesinproblem-posingactivitiesthatre-presenttaken-for-grantedsocialassumptionsinto problems to be critically explored and understood. It constitutes a method thatempowersandliberatestheconsciousnessofthestudent. Thisapproachsigni-cantly shapes Reardonsidea of critical reectiveinquiry.It is also apparent that Reardons pedagogy is signicantly inuenced by JohnDewey. Deweydenes educationas that reconstructionor reorganizationofexperience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases abilitytodirect thecourseof subsequent experience.40Deweyconceives therecon-structionof experience interms of the development of humancapacities andpowers. Learning is fundamentally about capacity building: knowledge is power.The reconstruction of experience, entailing the growth of capacity, is facilitated byvarious modes of reective experimental inquiryandestheticexperiencecon-nected to the conjoint activity of social life. From this perspective, peace is a basicconjoint, communal activity, and peace education a process of the reconstructionof experience facilitatedbyreectiveinquiryconnectedtothat activity. BothDeweyandReardonemphasizethedevelopmentofthestudentsinternalcapac-ities and powers through active reective inquiry as the essenceof education.38Reardon, Human Rights Learning, 66.39Freire, Pedagogy of theOppressed.40John Dewey, 1916: Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy ofEducation, Text-Book Series in Education (New York: The Macmillan company), 74.Preface xvInsummary, Reardons transformational pedagogyaddresses thecoreprob-lematicof howtopromoteauthenticplanetaryconsciousnessinthemovementfrom oppression to empowerment. She argues that this pedagogy, and its reective,dialogical inquiry, must be critical, ethical, and contemplative, which will cultivatethehumancapacities necessaryfor thepolitical empowerment andefcacyofcitizens,the core goal of peace education.Inconclusion,thisbookisarichcollectionofreectiveinquiryandongoinglearning by one of the great pioneers of peace education. This commentaryintroducesDr. Reardonscoreideas, whichareelucidatedconsistentlyfromthebeginning of her work to the present. In addition to being a leading world gure inthe eld of peace, disarmament, and human rights education, Dr. Reardon has alsobeen a major contributor to the development of a feminist analysis of peace issueswithinthecontextofaglobal,ethicalperspective.Hermajorwritingsonpeace,disarmament and human security from a gender perspective will be the subject ofanother volume in this series(volume 27). Betty Reardon has powerfully shapedthe theory and practice of peace and human rights education over ve decades. Herworkistrulypathbreaking, bothenlighteningandinspiringtomeandtomanyothers. May the publication of these collections of her work serve to challenge andinspire peace builders and learners everywhere.Toledo, April 2014 Dale T. Snauwaertxvi Prefacehttp://www.springer.com/978-3-319-08966-9