Teaching Peace in the College Speech Class: A Survey of Current Practice

A survey was conducted to examine the role of peace education within existing speech communication programs and to describe that role both in terms of curricular and research priorities. Respondents, 113 department Chairs out of a total of 578 on the Speech Communication Association's list of institutions offering degrees in communication, answered questions concerning (1) educator attitudes about the relationship between the discipline of speech communication and peace issues; (2) the inclusion of peace issues in collegiate programs and curricula; and (3) research priorities for examining peace issues from a communication perspective. The results indicated a significant range from zero peace communication curricular activity to full-fledged interdisciplinary majors. While most speech communication educators responding to the survey perceived a logical relationship between peace communication and their discipline, very few were actually teaching peace communication theory, history, or strategies. Those who are "teaching peace" are typically doing so within the scope of upper level courses in interpersonal and small group communication. There seems to be a perception that such instruction is inappropriate for or of little interest to the general student population. Although there is increasing activity in the broad area of peace studies in the university setting, for the most part that activity is under the leadership of some department or program other than speech communication. (Six references are attached.) (ARH)