Peace Education and Colombia's Efforts Against Violence: A Literature Review of Cátedra de la Paz.

As long as there has been violence in organized societies, achieving peace has been a goal through different means, including education. In Colombia -a country where the national government and the guerrilla FARC reached a peace agreement-, education was set to be essential to promote a culture of peace. Accordingly, this article presents a literature review of Cátedra de la Paz, a peace education course that seeks to encourage and strengthen a culture of peace in every educational institution in Colombia. The literature review suggests that, whereas this course reveals a positive impact in the communities, a lack of institutional support -which could stem from larger-scale political and societal conflicts over what peace means and how to achieve it-impedes its implementation. Furthermore, this paper argues that -if Cátedra de la Paz or other future peace education courses aim to promote a culture of peace grounded in contextualized needs and opportunities-critical lenses towards the topics and pedagogy are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]