This volume on ""Education towards a Culture of Peace"" is a timely undertaking, since the United Nations has proclaimed the years 2001-2010 as the ""International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World."" A culture of peace as defined by the UN is ""a set of values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations"". (UN Resolutions A/RES/52/13 1998: Culture of Peace and A/RES/53/243, 1999: Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace). Most of the chapters in this book are based on lectures that were presented at the International Conference, ""Education towards a Culture of Peace"". This conference was convened on 1-3 December 2003, by the The Josef Burg Chair in Education for Human Values, Tolerance and Peace - UNESCO Chair on Human Rights, Democracy, Peace and Tolerance School of Education, at Bar Ilan University, Israel.This international gathering was attended by prominent scholars of Human Rights and Peace from Canada, Chile, Croatia, Germany, Mauritius the Netherlands's, The United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Australian, Indian, Jordanian and Moroccan colleagues also submitted papers. This conference was held under the auspices of Israel National Commission for UNESCO and supported also by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, The office of Public Affairs of the US Embassy Tel Aviv, Fulbright - United States - Israel Educational Foundation

Israel witnessed rapid changes during the last five decades of its existence as an independent state. Geopolitical developments, particularly the continuous conflict with its Arab state neighbors, affected all spheres of life including education. Demographically, changing patterns of Jewish immigration has transformed the Jewish population several times from predominantly European in the late 1940s to Middle-Eastern during the late 1950s and 1960s and back to European following mass immigration from the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and 1990s. These demographic changes, including waves of immigrants from Ethiopia, have raised issues of equality in educational policies. The authors of this book provide historical backround and analyses of Israel's educational system that they believe is on the crossroads of still another transformation as a result of the prospects of peace in the region.

The existence of minorities will grow in most countries of the world because of sociopolitical upheaval and economic crisis, both of which result in waves of migration. Contributors to this volume discuss the task of education to alleviate the problems arising from the mix of peoples of various ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds.

No education system alone can create a just and equal society, and education by itself is not enough to achieve peace. Nevertheless, educational efforts assisted by other institutional commitments and actions are essential in order to create an atmosphere of justice, mutual recognition, and acceptance as preconditions for peaceful coexistence within groups and between people.

As a result of worldwide migration in reaction to wars and other geopolitical conflicts, as well as economic crisis, many modern nation-states consist of a mix of people of various ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. Indeed, there are very few countries that are monocultural. Here contributors discuss how it is imperative that multicultural education be promoted to achieve awareness, then tolerance, and finally acceptance of ethnic and other diversity within societies.

This volume on ""Education towards a Culture of Peace"" is a timely undertaking, since the United Nations has proclaimed the years 2001-2010 as the ""International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World."" A culture of peace as defined by the UN is ""a set of values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations"". (UN Resolutions A/RES/52/13 1998: Culture of Peace and A/RES/53/243, 1999: Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace). Most of the chapters in this book are based on lectures that were presented at the International Conference, ""Education towards a Culture of Peace"". This conference was convened on 1-3 December 2003, by the The Josef Burg Chair in Education for Human Values, Tolerance and Peace - UNESCO Chair on Human Rights, Democracy, Peace and Tolerance School of Education, at Bar Ilan University, Israel. This international gathering was attended by prominent scholars of Human Rights and Peace from Canada, Chile, Croatia, Germany, Mauritius the Netherlands's, The United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Australian, Indian, Jordanian and Moroccan colleagues also submitted papers. This conference was held under the auspices of Israel National Commission for UNESCO and supported also by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, The office of Public Affairs of the US Embassy Tel Aviv, Fulbright - United States - Israel Educational Foundation