Abstract
Humanist sociology shares space with positivity fields such as peace and conflict studies, positive psychology, and the wellness arms of health, science, and education to contribute to the “plus” side of knowledge and be part of the “solution” to problems and discord in human living systems. Hope is an often misinterpreted merit. It helps one imagine something different, yes, but it is also deeply connected to a sense that something can be different; something you wish will happen and a notion that change is actually (however unlikely) possible. A critical middle step between identifying spaces in need of transformation and working for change is the capacity to move from the perceived to the possible—the ability to imagine other that than what is. In this article, hope is examined conceptually, including an overview of recent literature on hope, the outcomes of hope, and what the alternatives to hope are. After identifying the importance of hope, hope’s role in the social study of peace and nonviolence will be examined looking at peace education and the potential of a “curriculum for hope.” Finally, this article offers a “how” of hope by presenting hope pedagogy for all to be utilized at the individual level.
Personal Reflexive Statement
My sankalpa (purpose) in life is to be an instrument of wellness. As a social scientist at the University of Otago researching violence and the transformation of violence, my goal is to deeply understand why we hurt one another and ourselves and humbly suggest nonviolent options each of us can choose instead of more violent (knee-jerk) ones. As a student, I relished the opportunity to change my instrument through contemplative discipline, and as a community educator, I seek to share these knowledge(s) with my students and learn their ways of being and living too. My humanity involves remembering what I already know—that we are all interconnected and we can build the light, the light of knowledge, the light of understanding, and the light of love together. As the flaky yoga instructor teaching graduate students how to breath or as the global curricular analyst seeking to garner meaningful understanding of how we transmit violence or nonviolence intergenerationally, I use the same tools—I seek to understand, appreciate, and then take action. My compassion comes from failing, a lot, at being the person I want to be. I am grateful for the present; it gives all of us another chance to feed the right wolf (see article below). I hope that this offering is useful and of service to those looking to learn “how” to have hope. The human capacity for hope can be astonishing, like weeds that can grow up through the smallest cracks in slabs of concrete.
Humanist sociology is about making the world a better place, and the field is occupied by social scientists who are “die hard do-gooders and proud of it” (Du Bois and Wright 2002:6). Humanist sociology shares space with positivity fields such as peace and conflict studies, positive psychology, and the wellness arms of health, science, and education to contribute to the “plus” side of knowledge and be part of the “solution” to problems and discord in human living systems. Concerned with service to humanity, humanistic sociology seeks to harness the individual “as the element through which society is changed and envisioned” (Du Bois and Wright 2002:11; Lee 1978). While other sociologies seek to observe how “society” works (and for whom society “works” best), humanist sociology seeks to alter how people think and enact potentialities that change the world. Humanist sociology is utopian, seeking an ideal or improved future existence. Utopias are products of the imagination requiring creativity, perspective, complexity, and hope. As a facet of utopia, hope is a critical value that needs to be utilized for future beneficial change to occur. Muller (2012) avers that before people “can envision and actively work towards a more perfect social world, they need to become critically aware of the social world they wish to change” (p. 55). A critical middle step between identifying spaces in need of transformation and working for change is the capacity to move from the perceived to the possible—the ability to imagine other than what is. In this article, hope is examined conceptually, including an overview of recent literature on hope, the outcomes of hope, and what the alternatives to hope are. After identifying the importance of hope, its role in the social study of peace and nonviolence will be examined looking at peace education and the potential for a curriculum for hope. Finally, this article offers a “how” of hope by presenting hope curriculum for all to be utilized at the individual level.
Hope is an often misinterpreted merit. It helps one imagine something different, yes, but it is also deeply connected to a sense that something can be different; something you wish will happen and a notion that change is actually (however unlikely) possible. It is a sentiment that some ascribe to “wishful” thinking, dislocated from reality or accepting things as they objectively are but also the dare-to-dream capacity so important in future visioning. Hope can be considered a positive and aspirational concept—attuned to winning the lottery or getting “that raise.” Yet hope is not merely something that you get but rather a propensity to actually imagine something different than what is, something better because something different is possible. Dictionaries define “hope” as a desire for something to happen (Oxford Dictionary) or to be true (Cambridge Dictionary) but also an expectation that your desire (whatever your desire is) will be fulfilled (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). As modern humans, we “hope” for a successful life, for world peace, for recovery from illness, at the same time as hoping to find a parking spot close to the post office or your kids’ elementary school.
All humans hope, and we use the term all the time to signal that we do. Hope is used by politicians in speeches, by communities of faith when they pray, by learner/educators who navigate that vital space of liminality between the handed in essay and the feedback loop of grading—not to mention the millions of us who hope to drop a pant size, that hope we get selected for the soccer team, that hope we don’t get picked for public speaking or worse, hope that violence and hunger and illness and inequality and fear and insecurity and pain stop. Some of us spend much of our days in “actions without intentions,” while many of our fellow humans spend most waking moments in active and vigorous hopefulness. To hope is not to imagine but to “do” something when it may appear that nothing can be done. And, the act of hope is sometimes the only thing we can do. In this article, hope is examined conceptually, including an overview of recent literature on hope, the outcomes of hope, and what the alternative is. After identifying the importance of hope, its role in the social study of peace will be examined looking at education and the potential for a curriculum for hope.
Despite the ubiquity of hope (Google “hope” and see what comes up!) hope is often underappreciated and imagined, by some, as little more than wishful thinking or desire, without depth or substance. Despite the prevalence of hope, the subject of “hope” has received little attention as a seriously considered concept until more recent times (Bernier 2015). Many philosophers such as Nietzsche, Plato, and Bacon scorned hope, seeing it as lacking in substance and solely emotional (Snyder 2000). While some have undervalued hope, there has also been work in more recent times on what hope actually is, particularly within the field of positive psychology—the publication of the Oxford Handbook of Hope (Gallagher and Lopez 2018) is testament to this. This new landscape of appreciation broadens our understanding of hope—which is hope is not only spiritual or emotional but also relates to an individual’s physical, and particularly, cognitive states. Furthermore, while the focus in this article is more on hope and the individual, it is not limited to this. When hope is defined and understood, there is a realization that hope is present in many important ways in society, with and without the label of “hope.”
Essentially, anything, be it mental, physical, or spiritual that encourages moving forward to achieve a goal, utilizes the concept of hope in some way. Hope has a critical role to play in societal, group, and individual achievement and transformation. Hope is also extremely meaningful; hope can be the only lifeline in the face of tremendously hard circumstances, the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel;, and hope is a vital coping resource against despair, the very definition of which is hopelessness (Lazarus 1999). Hope prevents despair and may be the key to coping in the face of multiple forms of direct, indirect (structural), and cultural violence. Hope can be spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical, and hope is multidimensional in that it can be directed toward individual or group desires, from small to big possible futures. Hope, essentially, drives people in their everyday lives to move forward, to plan, and to action their needs. Hope is ubiquitous and undervalued.
The Diversity of Hope
Most English dictionaries define hope in relatively similar terms to mean: a desire and expectation for something to happen. In everyday language, hope is often “future” oriented, and despite the positivity of “hope,” it is just as frequently used negatively. On the positive side: Hope can be “drummed up,” one can “cling” to hope, “hope against hope,” have a “last hope,” or “hope for the best.” Hope can “spring eternal,” one can “hold out hope,” have a “glimmer of hope,” or pin ones’ hopes to something (or someone). In the negative, one can have “dashed hopes,” “hope not,” not have a “hope in hell,” be “beyond hope,” have “no more hope,” “not get one’s hopes up,” or be “hopeless.”
Although positive examples of hope in everyday language seem little more than a wish or desire, hope is much more than that; though what is hoped for is always desired, hope is not wishing, it refers to both a wish and sense that wish can be fulfilled. The very idea of hope implies possibility, a potential pathway to gain what is desired. Holistic hope refers to an interconnectivity of hope, that hope, or the effects of hoping, do not live solely in the mind but are spiritual, emotional, cognitive, and physical—meaning that hope affects much more than the material or tangible but the internal, the subconscious, the unseen. While hope has not always been taken seriously as a concept, this discussion outlines the main ways hope can be understood and how its value has been increasingly recognized in recent times by researchers.
In some cultures, hope is conceived of as a group value, whereas today hope is often individualized—conceptualized in terms of individual thought processes and personal development—and aligning with Western practices and perceptions including self-examination and positive psychology. This difference, hope as a reflection of a “group” versus hopefulness as a “personal” attribute, relates to modern societies’ view that humans are individual and autonomous units of life. The singularity of the “I” is here contrasted to alternative concepts of “we” characterized by holistic societies; holisticism is the perception that something cannot be grasped independent of its context, parts cannot be separated from the whole. Indigenous groups, while by no means homogenous culturally, perceive hope as a collective good, a dynamic, powerful, and imaginative force connecting well-being in the natural–spiritual domain (Chew and Anthony-Stevens 2017; Durie 2001; Stewart-Harawira 2005). Indigenous ontology perceives of the interconnectivity of all existence in a matrix—all as a manifestation of matter or spirit, energy or material in a never-ending transmutation that cannot be grasped in single assessment. This is an ontology shared by traditional disciplines such as Buddhism, Jainism, and Yogic Science that profess nondualism, a premise that views notions of separateness (dualism) as illusions and false perceptions (Feuerstein 2001).
Philosophical inquiry on the conceptualization of hope include Bauman’s (1976) “sociology of hope,” which rests not on wishful thinking or utopianism but rather on focusing on the present moment and the immediate as a space of potential transformation. Bauman perceived that we globally occupy a human sphere of uncertainty and liquidity—transitioning away from social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental practices of the recent past in a space where the “new social order” has not yet arrived (Davis 2011). As Davis remarked, Bauman did not align “hope” with Pollyannaism or the perception that we are already living our best life (sorry Oprah) but that hope was actually a practice of right perception to see things as they actually are (not great) but that difference or “other worlds” were possible. Bauman’s active utopia started and stopped with a “waking up” of the individual to “question” the world around us, but in so doing, perceive that reality was not the only option.
Martin (2014), an analytic philosopher, defines an orthodox (but ultimately unsatisfactory) view of hope: “to hope for an outcome is to desire it while believing it is possible but not certain to obtain” (p. 5). This view is contrasted to philosopher Urban Walker (2006) who sees hope as a constant social good, a necessity, in that it is crucial to everyday life and that every act moving forward is an act of hope. Somasundaram and Sivayokan (2013) aver that hope is evoked and becomes important (at the collective or individual level) depending on the circumstances. They consider that in communities that face obstacles such as discrimination, postconflict recovery, and psychological and physical trauma, hope manifests in opposition to conflict. One could perceive, in this regard, that the absence of hope is not “hopelessness” but a satiety that does not wish otherwise. Hope as contemporary critique, hope as pessimism, hope as perpetuity, or contingent hope permit a limited appreciation of this construct. In the following section, the holistic or interconnected levels of hope will be explored including spiritual hope, emotional hope, cognitive hope, and physical hope see Figure 1. The following brief section does not demonstrate discrete characteristics but incorporates a holistic perception, which entails overlap and enmeshment as innate. To consider the interconnectivity of hope, we will explore the beneficial properties of hope that forms a connection (spiritual hope), creates a positive mental state (emotional hope), and manifests in wellness and curative outcomes (physical hope), as well as the mental practice of hoping (cognitive hope). An increase in hopefulness in any of these four dimensions of hope leads to increased benefit throughout (Van der Kolk 2014).
The interconnecting (holistic) dimensions of hope.
Spiritual Hope
The importance of hope has long been recognized. In Western culture, the concept of hope was first elaborated in the myth of Pandora. As the story goes, Zeus was angry at Prometheus for stealing fire from the gods. With revenge in mind, Zeus sent Pandora to earth with a box full of evil creatures. Zeus told Pandora not to open the box, yet he knew that her curiosity would soon overwhelm her. As predicted, Pandora eventually opened the lid to look inside. When she did, a swarm of creatures flew out to forever plague humankind: gout, rheumatism, and colic for the body; envy, spite, and revenge for the mind. Only one creature remained in the box when Pandora finally managed to close the lid. That creature was hope, which supposedly makes human cares and troubles seem bearable…(Snyder, Harris et al. 1991:570).
As a divine value, hope has deep roots in both human mythology and subsequent theological groundings. In the West, and after Pandora and Zeus had long been forgotten, religion, in particular, the Judeo-Christian tradition, perceived a key theological value in hope. Hope, in the Judeo-Christian faiths, is identified as a necessary link to the transcendental (Lerner 2015). In Christianity, one only needs to walk into a church during a worship service and the word “hope” will be identifiable in song in reference to the divine. This belief and hope in transcendence asserts a sense of meaning in the face of suffering which can include material depravations and difficulties but also injury, impairment, and illnesses, especially terminal illnesses (Tutton, Seers, and Langstaff 2009). During the Enlightenment, there was broadening in thinking about hope as not solely confined to religion but also to be associated with secular ideas such as utopia, with an emphasis on science and humanism (Lerner 2015). Both of these otherworldly notions of hope communicate the transcendent or potential “otherness” of existence whether in the afterlife or in life after massive social change.
Emotional hope
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One wolf is evil- it is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” The grandfather paused then added, “the other wolf is good-it is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed” (Native American Cherokee Story).
Emotions are feelings that emerge from experience, memory, or imagination. In many cultural traditions, hope is an emotion, a feeling that things will improve. In the Judeo-Christian world, this traditional view is based on the view that hope is focused toward a potential (and not impossible) and positive future (Cartwright 2004). The Judeo-Christian view of hope considers hope to be divine, emotional, therefore, beyond the realm of rational thought. Conceptualization of hope purely as an emotion, such as is done in various positive psychologies, may be considered vague (Schrank et al. 2011) but is recognized to have a profound effect on individual experiences (Martin 2014). If hope is a feeling (not something solely transcendent), then it can be mobilized and utilized by the rational mind (the wolf you feed). This perspective is recognized in management practices of organizational productivity and includes constructs that strengthen leadership and harness worker well-being. Such programs link mindfulness, self-care, and future visioning to increase productivity and profit for businesses (McKee, Johnston, and Massimilian 2006).
Within psychological literature, hope can be considered similar to other forms of positive psychology, a field that focuses on psychological strengths, such as optimism, self-efficacy, and esteem theories closely linked to hope (Snyder 2002). For example, while the theory of optimism has been defined as a static “positive frame of mind,” hope, as a psychological value, is seen to have more effect on action and agency (Shin Wong and Lim 2009). The difference between emotional/psychological hope and cognitive hope relates to how the mind is utilized. In emotional hope, the mind is positively charged to an upbeat and optimistic disposition, whereas in cognitive hope, hope is a way of thinking.
Cognitive Hope
A rainbow is a prism that sends shards of multicolored light in various directions it lifts our spirits and makes us think of what is possible. Hope is the same—a personal rainbow of the mind. (Snyder 2002:269)
Cognition is the mental act of knowing. Urban Walker (2006) sees hope as having dynamic tendencies to affect action through thought processes. This dynamic has been recognized by academic, psychologist, and hope theorist Snyder (2002) who has reconceptualized hope as something more than an emotion but rather a cognitive process which influences emotion. Snyder’s work identifies three necessary parts of hope, in the form of hopeful thinking: Goals Pathways thinking Agency
Hope can be defined in this way of thinking as “a cognitive set that is based on reciprocally derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed determination) and (b) pathways (planning of ways to meet goals)” (Snyder, Harris et al. 1991:571). Not merely the goal but how to achieve the goal. Here, hopeful thinking causes emotional hope, in that positive feelings directly follow “goal-directed agency” (Snyder 2000).
Snyder (2000) is not alone in this conceptualization of the cognitive function of hope. A range of psychologists in the 1950s and 1960s also wrote about the importance of goal-directed thinking in the conceptualization of hope (Snyder 2000). Further researchers have agreed with Snyder’s conceptualization. Bernado (2010), a cognitive and educational psychologist, for instance, agrees that hopeful thinking is more than thinking in a positive way, as hope focuses on a person’s agency and ability to work toward a hoped-for outcome. Bernier (2015), a philosopher specializing in hope, also perceives hope as more than an attitude but also stimulating action by the person who is hopeful—hope determines future purposive actions and is a stimulus to help what is hoped for occur.
Recent Western research on hope and its effects has been dominated by Snyder’s hope theory. Hope theory has been tested through various settings, often focusing on individual well-being and resilience. Based on Snyder and colleagues’ work on the definition of hope and the thought process of hopeful thinking, psychological measures of hope in individuals have been created to test the hope theory. Snyder and his colleagues have developed the Trait Hope Scale (HS) to measure individual levels of hope, a higher score indicating a higher level of hope in an individual (Snyder 2002). Many studies have used the HS tool to show the psychological differences in individuals as a result of differing levels of hope. For example, Chang and DeSimone (2001) found hope a significant predictor in the absence of dysphoria in a study that showed hopeful college students less likely to experience the negative effects of depression and more likely to be able cope with negative appraisal. Hope has been found a significant factor in positive psychology’s role in both the creation and the sustaining of motivation to overcome mental illness, and Snyder’s theory is used to justify hope being integrated into recovery practices for people with mental health conditions (Chen and Park 2016). Hope has been positively associated with resilience and coping with adjustment, also based on both HS and Trait Hope, another measure developed by Snyder (Ong 2006). More research found that through a longitudinal study of youth, high hope scores of individuals at the start of the year were good predictors of individual’s measure of higher life satisfaction a year later (Valle, Huebner, and Suldo 2006).
Physical Hope
[S]He who has health has hope; and [s]he who has hope has everything (Arab proverb)
Finally, hope as an action-oriented thought process affects emotion that relates to the physical. Snyder’s research has shown hope’s positive connection to good physical health and the prevention and treatment of illness (Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon 2002). Hope is a powerful therapeutic tool (Bressan et al. 2017). Within nursing practice, there has been research that hope is strongly linked to positive bodily changes in patients and that hope is a tool that should be used within nursing frameworks (Tutton, Seers, and Langstaff 2009). Hope in physicality is also present in research on the connection between mind and body, particularly relating to recovery from trauma, using mindfulness, movement, and meditation. Van de Kolk (2014) makes a strong argument about the interaction between mind and body and the influence between them through movement and mindfulness practices such as yoga. Practices that encourage mindfulness have been shown to create awareness that can lead students to change their attitudes and create more agency over their experiences. Generalized hope (hope that is associated with a positive mind-set) contributes holistically to personal wellness (Wiles, Cott, and Gibson 2008), and even in instances where an increased wellness is improbable, hope still carries with it the sense of a positive enhancement (hope is inversely related to morbidity; Snyder, Irving and Anderson 1991). The holistic perception of the interconnectivity of our faculties and features concludes that benefit in one arena in a person necessarily benefits the whole of the human instrument (from a holistic perspective, this personal impact has ramifications into our social and physical environments too). With this agency, they are empowered to “decide not only to reject oppressive and discriminatory positions, but begin to live these decisions in all areas of their lives” (Orr 2002:493). This, at least in theory, would encourage hopeful thinking and seems congruent with the many studies where hopeful thinking encourages positive outcomes.
Without Hope?
Another way to illustrate the crucial nature of hope, and how important it is for life, is to look at what life is like without it and what outcomes are associated with not having hope. Lazarus (1999) writes that people are desperate and work hard to hope, because to not have hope, is the definition of despair because “if one gives up hoping completely, there is nothing left to live for” (p. 675). To not have any hope at all would mean to not be goal oriented, to give up when there are obstacles, and not have agency to take action in an undesirable situation. This would indeed imply that a person with no hope at all would have little reason to live, which is why hopelessness has been strongly associated with depression and suicide (Grewal and Porter 2007). Indeed, research suggests that the presence of life goals is a barrier to suicidal behavior (Grewal and Porter 2007). Another study, by Vincent, Boddana, and MacLeod (2004), found that individuals who had recently engaged in suicidal behavior were less able to think of specific goals, felt less in control, and more likely to think of more obstacles than nonsuicidal individuals. While this may seem common sense that hopelessness and despair are places where hope is not, what is still unclear is why hope and an understanding of hopeful thinking are not more commonly recognized as being tools to prevent depression and suicide. However, this is where hope can be related to intervention in and the prevention of intrapersonal violence.
Hope Intervention
As “hope” is conceptually related to “peace” (both are perceived as beneficial), it is first useful to see how a lack of hope can relate to violence. Violence has been recognized and defined by Galtung (1969): “when the potential is higher than the actual is by definition, avoidable, and when it is avoidable, then violence is present” (p. 169). Violence can be can be broadly defined in two ways: direct (physical) and indirect. Indirect forms of violence can be defined further by structural and cultural violence. Structural violence, for example, could be when institutions and systems in society oppress certain people (Galtung 1969). Cultural violence is when the oppression of a part of society is normalized and engrained into our societies and institutions (Galtung 1990). Violence can be directed toward states, groups, individuals, and to oneself (intrapersonal). Much violence is directed to the elimination of hope. For example, Urban Walker (2006) describes the original use of torture: to inflict such despair on individuals they lose hope for their cause. This can be reflected on a larger scale—by taking away group or societal resources on which a people’s future hopes depend. It is not difficult to realize then that many forms of direct violence, interpersonal (domestic violence, bullying) to inter/intrastate (war, ethnic cleansing, mass torture), have the intention to cause despair and therefore loss of hope in the victims. Intrapersonal violence, on the other hand, can be the result of losing hope, of despair in oneself and one’s circumstances. Suicide and self-harming behaviors are forms of intrapersonal violence, which are becoming particularly prevalent in countries of what peace education researcher Salomon (2002) terms “experienced tranquility” (p. 6). While many things can cause intrapersonal violence, it can be a result of structural violence, which embedded within society can cause despair and loss of hope over a long period of time. Urban Walker (2006) outlines a few reasons for loss of hope, many of which can be a result of indirect or direct violence; “Fear, stress, sickness, loneliness, unemployment, racism, poverty, prison, violence, and the death of loved ones can kill hope.” (P. 42)
When it comes to peace, it too can mean many things; however, in its most basic definition, it is the absence of violence (Galtung 1969). Yet it is also more than this; positive peace is based on conditions conducive to fulfillment of basic human needs (Galtung 2010). Peace is also a multidimensional concept in that it can be between states, groups, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Hope is critical to the fulfillment of basic human needs (Maslow 1943) in that if those needs are not easily fulfilled, then in order to strive toward fulfilling them, people must be hopeful, according to the discussion above. Furthermore, as previously pointed out, hope is not only critical for people in some sort of hardship, it is also critical for general well-being and a positive physiological and emotional state (Snyder 2002). Hope therefore is a tool against many of the forms of violence that directly or indirectly affect the fulfillment of human needs. For example, having hope and thinking in a hopeful way mitigate against intrapersonal forms of violence, such has suicide, which has an important relationship with depression and hopelessness (Grewal and Porter 2007). Hope can also be a preventative, in that people with high hope are less likely to resort to intrapersonal violence because they are less likely to be in a place of despair. It also can be predicted. A study of Turkish University students found self-compassion an important predictor of hope, while self-judgment and isolation was a negative predictor (Akin and Akin 2014). This is important for how hope is encouraged and fostered within people, particularly when peacebuilding within individuals. Within peace and conflict studies, nonviolence in oneself is closely related to inner peace, which is more prominent within Eastern religions and the offerings of peace advocates such as Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh (Harris and Morrison 2013).
Peace Pedagogy
Within peacebuilding—an intervention that seeks to stop or prevent violence—peace education is considered a strategy for peace (Harris and Morrison 2013). Education is a form of socialization, and it can come in many forms including through formal schooling. Formalized education is a result of what society deems important for students to learn, at the same time as being part of the process of becoming human (Standish 2015). Education is value based, and traditional education can often contribute to structural and cultural violence as well as reproduce violent behavior and attitudes in children (Harber and Sakade 2009). Peace education, on the other hand, is a broad field that is both a philosophy and a process which encourages and teaches behavioral change to resolve conflicts nonviolently and aims to bring about conditions “conducive to peace, whether at an intra-personal, interpersonal, inter-group, national or international level” (Fountain 1999; Harris and Morrison 2013:11).
Many types of education can fall within the definition of peace education or include peaceful values, and peace, much like the concept of hope, is often implicit, rather than explicitly labeled (Harris and Morrison 2013). While hope is ubiquitous, is it often undervalued, and there seems to be little if any explicit linkage of peace education and hope within the field. However, as peace and hope are well connected, peace education is hopeful. Peaceful curricula could also be termed “hope curricula.” Some peace education that is more explicitly focused on hope is peace education that focuses on a futures orientation, in that it encourages students to recreate society as it should be rather than how it currently is. In effect, “futures studies attempts to provide young people with positive images of the future and give them reason to hope” (Harris and Morrison 2013:35). Educational curricula with a future orientation can challenge fatalistic thinking about problems facing humanity and the world today. Without hope for a positive future (by creating potential solutions for issues), students could turn to despair (Hicks 2004).
Along the lines of “future”-oriented peace education stands the emerging field of critical peace education, a form of peace education that is concerned with developing a “critical consciousness” of reality (Freire 2003). Critical peace education acknowledges that forms of inequality that relate to direct and indirect (structural and cultural) violence require both investigation and amelioration (Bajaj 2015; Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016; Brantmeier 2011; Snauwaert, 2011) and that “transformation via raising consciousness, vision, and transformative action” (Brantmeier, 2013, p. 250) is possible.
While hope, or conceptions of hope such as Snyder’s hope theory, may not be taught explicitly, hope can be present within education in other ways. For example, any curriculum that is encouraging individuals to pursue their goals in any part of life despite obstacles is somewhat encouraging hopeful thinking and resilience. McDermott and Hastings (2000) see the classroom as “one of the most efficacious settings for increasing hope” (p. 186), as self-compassion and mindfulness correlate with hope. Once hope is understood, then hope can be implicitly recognizable in education as content and pedagogy—what and how students are taught. Hopeful thinking can be incorporated in many subjects in many ways, through tools such as constructing personal narratives, to goal making in mathematics or physical education classes (McDermott and Hastings 2000). While this can be focused on the individual and life skills, hope curricula could also address current and future challenges at a community, state, and international level. The very premise of education relies on reproduction and assumes there is a future and life to prepare students for (Hicks 2004). This has limitations, however, as education, particularly formal schooling, can be violent and cause despair (Cote-Meek 2014; Lange 2012; Loewen 2007). In fact, much formal schooling puts so much pressure on students, in many countries (especially India and China); suicide among students is on the rise (Mani et al. 2014:595). Examination of what hope looks like in curricula, identifying hopeful curricula and teaching hopefulness is crucial to encouraging hope, resilience, and well-being. Students today are facing increasingly complex obstacles on every level from challenges to personal well-being and inner peace, to protracted violent conflict, volatile climate change, dwindling resources, and looming future underemployment or unemployment. If young people are to face the challenges the future holds, they must have hope.
Hope Pedagogy
Hope pedagogy is teaching/learning that specifically seeks to manifest hopefulness and the capacity to hope. Scholars such as Boulding (2000) and Lederach (2004) employ techniques of creative hopefulness using future visioning. This visioning utilizes hope as a creative tool for manifesting change. Along this line of imaginative visioning, Bauman’s sociology of hope conceptualized that hope practice related to asking constant critical questions of social reality as a starting point for finding potential answers. This aligns with the work of critical pedagogue Giroux (2004) who also perceives hope as a questioning and a form of social transformation and political agency that not only tells us what needs to change to make the future different but how to make change: “educated hope” as a “precondition for individual and social struggle” (p. 38). Rather than seeing it as an individual proclivity, we must see hope as part of a broader politics that acknowledges those social, economic, spiritual, and cultural conditions in the present that make certain kinds of agency and democratic politics possible…. Hope makes the leap for us between critical education, which tells us what must be changed; political agency, which gives us the means to make change; and the concrete struggles through which change happens. (Giroux 2004:38; italics in original) Hope is more than a politics, it is also a pedagogical and performative practice that provides the foundation for enabling human beings to learn about their potential as moral and civic agents. Hope is the outcome of those educational practices and struggles that tap into memory and lived experiences while at the same time linking individual responsibility with a progressive sense of social change. As a form of utopian longing, educated hope opens up horizons of comparison by evoking not just different histories but different futures. (Pp. 38-39)
Hope Curriculum Practice
This simple practice can take 15–60 minutes depending on the size of the group: Teacher/facilitators are encouraged to conduct this exercise along with student/learners, and utilization of relational/narrative pedagogy is encouraged after the written exercise to practice active and reflective listening. Wherever possible, encourage handwriting with pen/pencil and paper to stimulate both left and right brain thinking.
Directions
List two things that cannot happen. List two things that will not happen. List two things that should not happen. List two things that could happen. List two things that can happen. List two things you want to happen. Of the two items listed in #6 pick item (1) and imagine HOW it could happen then repeat with item (2).
Sample practice
List two things that cannot happen apples cannot fly I cannot dance List two things that will not happen. the moon will not explode I will not grow flowers from my arm in the spring List two things that should not happen. parents should not eat their children I should not forget to breathe List two things that could happen. life could be discovered on Mars I could have a shower later List two things that can happen. A cyber-attack can erase bank records I can hold my breath for 60 seconds List two things you want to happen. I want global warming to stop I want to win the lottery Of the two items listed in #6 pick item (1) and imagine HOW it could happen then repeat with item (2). stop carbon emissions, recycle, make it illegal to use fossil fuels anywhere on the planet, take responsibility for clean water, plant a million tress a year, send ice cubes to the polar regions… find a city with a lottery, buy a lottery ticket, win!
This hope curriculum is pretty simple (and a little ridiculous), but it takes students through a series of questions that relate to aspects of creativity, desire, despondency, possibility, ability, and agency aligning with Snyder’s (2002) hope mechanisms: goals and pathway thinking—and personal agency once a course is set. 1 This practice employs Bauman’s (1976) sociology of hope by focusing on the present moment—the immediate—as a space of potential transformation, it is congruent with Giroux’s (2004) “utopian longing” and aligns with the humanist sociology perception of the individual as an agent of change (Du Bois and Wright 2002). Further, as a nonviolent peace education practice (a taught strategy for peace), it increases well-being (cognitive hope holistically impacts spiritual, emotional, and physical hope) comprising a form of personal peacebuilding (an intervention to stop violence; Harris and Morrison 2013; Lederach 2004) that can lead to a reduction in self-harm. Hope curriculum is a tool for coaching an individual, in a group learning setting, to both perceive the present and to imagine a possible and better future.
In the first few questions, the goal is to challenge student/learners to be as ridiculous and creative as possible but also to personalize one of the responses (this is a goal for the entire practice though many students responded to the whole exercise with non-I answers). The next questions look at values (#3), possibility (#4), and capability (#5), whereas (#6) looks at desire. The “pathway thinking” is harnessed in (#7) where items from (#6) gain potential agency or action toward achieving the stated goals. It can be tricky for student/learners to differentiate between the action directions (could, can, should, etc.) so be sure to use multiple prompts and perhaps go first in the circle by giving sample responses.
There is potential for hope curriculum (such as this) to build personal resilience and prevent violence. This deliberate exercise is unrushed, thoughtful, creative, and elicits thoughtful responsiveness not unconscious reactiveness. Where reactiveness is associated with shallow thinking and reflexive action, responsiveness is associated with conscious choice and voluntary behavior. Thoughtful responses are nonviolent responses and hopeful responses hold both a desire and a potentiality that things will be different, things can be different, and things will be better. As Giroux (2004) says, “This is not to say that a politics and pedagogy of hope is a blueprint for the future: it is not. What hope offers is the belief, simply, that different futures are possible” (p. 39).
Conclusion
Hope is a critical part of the sociological imagination, the ability to move from observation to imagination to action. And hope is multidimensional emerging and impacting people in spiritual, emotional, cognitive, and physical ways that function interconnectively and holistically. Research has shown hope’s importance in areas such as life satisfaction, academic achievement, prevention, and recovery from physical and mental illness as well as the propensity to alter our personal–emotional landscapes to positive effect. Positive psychology and the rise in self-examination have been particularly influential in the recognition of hope as a beneficial value not to mention the repercussions for well-being when hope is low or absent. After understanding the importance of the concept of hope in several facets of humanity, one realizes that hope itself does not lack substance or importance rather it often lacks value. Within peace and conflict studies, hope can be connected to the prevention of violence and fostering of positive peace. Direct, structural, and cultural violence is often the cause of despair and loss of hope in groups and individuals. This is evident when examining intrapersonal violence, and the loss of hope in the individual, which is correlated with self-harm and suicide. Hope is a relevant tool in peacebuilding, through peace education. While hope is already present within peace education, this does not mean it is recognized or targeted as a tool for peacebuilding. Education can be a vehicle for hope in students, and some educational curricula could be more hopeful than others. Education and curricula can also be destructive and cause violence to students and to the wider community. Therefore, all curricula are important to analyze for impact—do they increase student hope and well-being? Do some do this more than others? Peace education is not mainstream (yet), can we see hope curricula in the so-called formal or mainstream education too? Hope curricula could facilitate hopeful thinking and resilience in students. While having “hope” is important for the everyday, it is crucial that curricula equips students with the resources for facing current and future challenges. As Du Bois and Wright (2002) intoned: As important as it is, it is not enough to deconstruct the world. We also have lives to construct. It is an armchair luxury merely to condemn without beginning the hard work of deciding what to recommend. We have a world to make. (P. 29)
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.