Title: Connecting the Place for Peace to the Practice of Peace

Author: Nattaporn Luangpipat, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract: This presentation is a work in progress for an anticipated dissertation proposal on a model for peace literacy practice. The plan is to integrate what Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the most popular destination in Hiroshima for school field-trips for school from all over Japan, displays with the process of peace literacy building. Three steps of the study will be presented, starting from analyzing the definition of peace presented and displayed in museums for peace around the world. Then, with the definition of peace in Japan, the study will be focused on teachers’ life stories using narrative inquiry. The researcher will analyze how stories and concepts of peace influence the teachers’ practices in communities and schools. Finally, how teachers apply the concept of peace in the classroom, particularly in writing classrooms will be observed focusing on the interaction between teachers and students, class activities or discussion topics, writing prompts, assignments, and assessment. The goal of this study is to create a model for building peace literacy practice not only in Japan’s context but also in other areas that have been devastated by the insurgency or any kind of conflict using the concepts and stories from a museum.