‘‘Peace’’ perceptions of Special Education Students in North Cyprus: a metaphorical approach

Recently, the peace education as a field has received world-wide attention from scholars, educators and policymakers. In Europe, awareness-raising activities supported by individuals and organizations has paid off and led to successful implementation of peace curriculum into education. Considerable amount of studies reveals that the peace education activities in schools contributed to the realisation of the importance of peaceful and sustainable future. However, peace education is a long neglected subject among the scholars in North Cyprus. Unfortunately, there is no single study focussing on peace education and its necessity in North Cyprus. In this regard, the aim of this study is to investigate how Special Education Students in North Cyprus perceive the concept of ‘‘peace’’. Also, the possible ways of implementing ‘peace education’ into curriculum are scrutinized. In order to fulfil the research aim, qualitative data collected from 158 Special Education teacher candidates. The findings reveal that majority of the participants believes that ‘peace education’ should be taught in schools. At this point, collected data also indicate that governmental initiatives need to be taken in order to raise awareness among students and teachers about ‘peace education’.