The Peace Education as a tool for cosmological transformation: interview with Betty Reardon.

"Systems that oppress invoke the resistance of those who are oppressed"

Abstract

Betty Reardon (Rye -New York, 1929) is a world pioneer of Peace Education and human rights, with a gender focus. This educator and feminist activist has been founder of the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) and promoter of peace education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Betty defined her main activity as "learning while helping other people learn". She has been part of the core promoter of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, continues to annually review the UNSC Report on this Resolution, has participated in multiple processes of social education-transformation around the globe, and has been nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Betty argues that violence dehumanizes and violates human dignity and demonstrated in her book Sexims and the War System (Reardon, 1985) how patriarchy is the most violent and long-lasting form that has subjugated people for thousands of years through slavery, conquest, enslavement and exploitation. Her numerous publications have become a global classic, required reading in courses and postgraduate degrees in Feminist Analysis and Peace Education in the most prestigious universities in the Global North and South. Her commitment to a dialogic and reciprocal learning approach, centered on reflective educational practices, is rooted in the Freirean tradition of liberatory education, as well as in feminist postulates that overcome the processes of superiority, discrimination and exploitation caused by the division between the personal and the political. In this interview we talk with Reardon about critical engagement, effective action, reflective education, gender focus and community research as key elements to enhance peace building.