The culture of peace from the perspective of Social Communication students

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to understand the meaning that a group of Social Communication students from the Universidad Monteávila, participants in the Training Seminar as Agents of Peace, part of the ReconciliACCIÓN project, give to four notions: violence, culture of peace, conflict resolution and the media as tools for the promotion of a culture of peace; and to understand if these meanings have been transformed after participating in this project. ReconciliACCIÓN is a project developed by People in Need, Universidad Monteávila, Asociación Civil Oportunidad and Mujer y Ciudadanía, which seeks to contribute to the consolidation of a culture of peace and non-violent conflict resolution, increasing the advocacy capacity of young people and women in the Sucre and El Hatillo municipalities of Caracas. The study was carried out from a phenomenological approach in which the meanings that young people confer to the notions under study are of interest. A questionnaire of open-ended questions was administered to 72 young people, and then the answers were classified according to the thematic axes indicated. Subsequently, the meanings conferred by the participants to these notions are reported. Finally, a preliminary reading is offered in which violence is understood as everyday, concrete, while the culture of peace is seen as an ideal. Conflict resolution appears as a way to combat violence and the media as a tool to promote a culture of peace.