Using hermeneutics, syllogistic reasoning, and critical thinking, this article examines social implications of Christ’s mediation for peacemaking in Africa. The main arguments and conclusions in the article rely on the author’s hermeneutics of Saint John’s gospel, John 14:6, and on the analysis of observations and open-ended interviews conducted from 1990 through 2010 in fifty Catholics parishes across twelve African countries on the role of the Church in African societies. The article addresses questions on the implications of Christ’s mediation for the Church, by articulating cross-arguments around two main points to demonstrate how Christ’s mediation requires that the Church engages more into peacemaking activities in conflict-affected countries in Africa. The first part of the article enhances Jesus’ way as an effective way of mediation for peacemaking. The second part develops some implications of Christ’s mediation for his followers with recommendations for the Church in war-torn societies in Africa.

Does school teach peace? School is a place where we learn values and attitudes - a transmission belt - a social institution that can generate common standards and moral ideals from how we learn (pedagogy) and what we learn (curriculum). This mixed-method analysis utilizes directive (qualitative) and summative (quantitative) content analysis to scrutinize the national curricular statements of England (Early Years Learning and Stage 1-4) to explore whether three elements common in peace education programs appear: recognition of violence (direct, structural or cultural); addressing conflict nonviolently; and, creating the conditions of positive peace. It finds limited evidence in both documents that the English National Curriculum contains content conducive to creating positive peace, minimal content that transmits techniques for transforming conflict nonviolently, and, despite abundant examples of violent acts, there is either norecognition of violence (Stage 1-4) or primarily nominal references to direct violence (Early Learning).

Pope Francis urges us to reject the throwaway culture and instead embrace a culture of solidarity. A primary virtue in Catholic social teaching, solidarityrequires building relationships founded upon equal human dignity, experience and vulnerability are required. This creates certain challenges for teaching andlearning about global solidarity within the confines of a classroom. In this article, I highlight three pedagogical tools I use to create space for experience andvulnerability. Without physically leaving Queens, NY, students begin learning to be in solidarity with others through digitally engaging multiple stories, onlinesimulations, and academic service learning.

This research provides suggestions for identifying and addressing university students’ perceptions of systemic inequities related to racism and racial privilege.Suggestions are derived from findings of a confirmatory study conducted by the authors in three university classrooms. The project was motivated by theauthors’ on-going commitment to the struggle to eradicate racism and all of its deleterious effects, predicated on the early work of Dr. Joyce King and her conceptof dysconscious racism. The university students’ levels of dysconsciousness regarding systemic inequities related to racism and racial privilege demonstrateddifferences in two of the three categories. Suggestions for increasing student consciousness in the classroom are included.

Although school closure has become an increasingly common reform strategy in urban centers across the country, little research has examined its efficacy. Thisarticle argues that school closure policy imposes a form of structural violence on already oppressed students and perpetuates direct, interpersonal violence inschool settings. In the wake of mass school closures in Philadelphia, we find that schools slated for closure offered safer learning environments than the schoolsto which displaced students were sent, both during the year prior to and the year following closure. At the same time, in the receiving schools, reports of violence significantly increased during the first year of receivership. Despite these dehumanizing conditions, those adversely affected by this policy have organized around alternative legislative options, which hold the promise of disrupting the cycle of oppression and violence that neoliberal school reforms, like school closure, maintain. These policy alternatives represent positive peace and advance equity-oriented, socially just educational change.