p Having its origins in the academic community, the movement for peace education soon spread to many non- governmental organisations, both national and international, and has won the sympathy of various progressive and democratic movements. It is supported by school and college teachers concerned about the future of the world. Peace education is discussed at numerous anti-war conferences.

p In the second half of the 1970s, the movement began to pursue more specific goals, such as education for disarmament, for social and economic development, for environmental protection, reflecting some of the global problems facing mankind. Yet among these priority was given to disarmament education, because ending the arms race and achieving disarmament are today’s most urgent needs, on which most of the other problems of the world depend.

p In the early 1980s, the growing anti-war movement in the West gave a fresh impetus to the idea of education for peace and disarmament. Scientists holding anti-war views are doing much to inform the peace-minded public about complex military, strategic and political problems. They formulate realistic proposals and compose rallying cries to unite supporters. They want their research to have a practical application.

p Contrary to the view prevalent in Western political science that strength, especially military strength, underlies world politics, the concept of peace education aims at the non-use of force, peaceful co-operation and disarmament.

p In capitalist society, however, the peace education movement is largely eclectic and amorphous. In analysing the causes of war and the arms race, the movement’s spokesmen often advance Utopian recommendations on how to reach a lasting peace.

p And although the advocates of peace education criticise the most reactionary and militaristic trends in modern capitalism, the extent of their criticism differs greatly: from pointed condemnation of the military-industrial complex and aggressive military blocs, to vague protests. Besides, they often echo Western propaganda shifting half of the blame onto the socialist community, and placing equal responsibility for the arms race on the Soviet Union and the United States.

p The movement for peace and disarmament education is closely associated with the Western technocratic tradition which revives the old thesis of the Renaissance Period that education is the key to social harmony. "In a real sense," say the peace educators, "we are creating our own future through the kind of education we are providing to children in the present.”  [334•1  Therefore, they believe that peace and disarmament education is the best, if not the only, way to peace and social justice, "to the ending of war and the abolition of hatred and violence".  [334•2  Some even equate the notions of “peace” and "global education".  [334•3 

p Such an exaggerated role for education would substitute pedagogy for politics. It would mean that social and economic change is brought about entirely by education, instead of the other way around. It is a typically petty- bourgeois idea that education coupled with a few mild reforms can make an ideal society.

p Adherents of such views also fail to understand that the ruling quarters in capitalist countries would never permit 335 the schools to take a stand on war and peace dissenting from the official line.

Still, all these faults in the bourgeois approach to education for peace and disarmament, and the fact that its role in the West is somewhat exaggerated, in no way diminish the importance of such education. Warmongers have always sought to militarise the social consciousness, instilling the cult of military force and cultivating in people’s minds the stereotype of an enemy that constantly threatens to overrun and destroy their country. This is the picture the military-industrial complex is trying to put across. And this is why the adherents of peace education, despite their inconsistencies, make an important contribution to spreading the humane ideas of peace and disarmament. And it is evident that educating children, helping to shape their world outlook and system of values can and does have a role to play in resolving the problem of war and peace.