Conversations Outside the Box is project developed by the cultural collective Fora da Caixa (Outside the Box) and for this series of interviews we will have the support and partnership of HOPE – Humans of Peace Education, a platform where you can find the profiles of peace educators across the globe and also have access to their projects and achievements.
This partnership also has the support of the community of International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) and Global Campaign for Peace Education. Our common goal is to make Peace Education and the professionals who dedicate their lives in spreading Peace more accessible and known in the community, schools, universities and public in general. We intend to inspire and show how much we have done and plan to do in the future.
Join us for this transformative and revolutionary journey!
We are thrilled to start our new series of interviews with Peace Educators with Janet Gerson, she is an activist, educator, choreographer, dancer, painter, mother, grandmother and so much more! Her academic life is outstanding and she has been teaching and inspiring people for more than 60 years! She is a brilliant peace educator with a great charisma and is capable to share her wisdom through theory, art and a touch of humour that brings lightness to everything she does. I feel privileged and honoured to have her as a mentor, friend and inspirational teacher. I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend time with her during the IIPE meetings and also to have her in my life as an inspiration and a role model.
Thank you Janet for sharing your life and wisdom with us! You are a shining example of a human being!
For more information about academic journey you can read her bio and articles published.
Dr. Janet C. Gerson is Education Director, International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE); Co-Director Emeritus, Peace Education Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, NYC; and on the Board of Directors, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. She has collaborated with the Morton Deutsch International Center on Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at Teachers College 1996-2017 with Morton Deutsch, groundbreaking American social psychologist and a founding father of modern conflict resolution.
In 2014, her doctoral dissertation received the Best Graduate Thesis Award for Public Deliberation on Global Justice: The World Tribunal on Iraq. In 2018, she was awarded the Lifetime Commitment Award at the Human Dignity Humiliation Studies Annual Conference.
As an activist-educator, she has taught for sixty years. Specializing in peace education and peace scholarship, Janet works internationally as a presenter, educator, consultant, program designer, and mediator. A political theorist and peace educator, her research focuses are democratizing justice, public deliberation, creativity and conflict processes, peace pedagogy, and most recently on the emerging ecological relational paradigm for peace. As former dancer-choreographer, she continues her creative processes, drawing metaphors for peace learning and action from her painting and mosaic-making.
She has worked in Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Peru, Canada, South Korea, Japan, India, Nepal, Hungary, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Lebanon, and Israel-Palestine. She served as a consultant for the UN University of Peace in Costa Rica, UNIFEM, Community-based Institutes on Peace Education (CIPE), and the Global Campaign on Peace Education (GCPE). She organized and ran a month-long training for the Afghan Institute of Learning at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a regular participant in MAMA African Colloquium on Peace & Development in Africa.
From 1996-2023, she participated with Betty Reardon in UN lobbying for women’s rights and empowerment. She participated in Beijing Women’s Forum 1995 and subsequent lobbying for the Beijing Platform for Action, UN Conference on the Status of Women, UNSCR 1325, UN NGO Representative for World Council on Curriculum and Instruction, and for International Institute on Peace Education; Global Civil Society Initiatives, including Hague Appeal Civil Society Conference to Abolish War 1999; Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, Tokyo 2000, World Tribunal on Iraq 2003-2005, The Peace Boat, International Peace Bureau, International Peace Research Association, and Peace and Justice Studies Association. She co-facilitated Theater of the Oppressed workshops for ten years where she worked with Augusto Boal and Claire Picher.
The 2020 COVID quarantine led to local organizing through ongoing community activism, reading and reflection-support groups. This return to community building reconnected with previous organizing 1986-2000, through the Janet Gerson Dance Co/Dance Stream, Inc.; Arts Interaction, the Arts Council of Upper Manhattan; and Choreographers Cooperative Showcases and the American Dance Guild.
Gerson’s writing on IIPE appear in the International Handbook on Peace Education (2026) and In Factis Pax: the Online Journal for Peace and Social Justice (2025). Her research on civil society and social movements appears in her book Reclaiming Post-Conflict Justice: Democratizing Justice in the World Tribunal on Iraq (2021) with Dale T. Snauwaert. She co-edited three Special Editions of In Factis Pax: The Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice. Her chapters include “Restorative Justice & Alternative Systems” in Encyclopedia of Nonviolence, Conflict & Peace, 3rd Ed. (2022), (Ed.) Lester Kurtz; and “Peace Education & Media Literacy” in Conversations on Peace and Nonviolence, (2021) (Ed.) Vedabhyas Kundu. Other chapters were contributed to Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations (Eds., Chowdhury, Britton & Hartling, 2020); Exploring Betty A. Reardon’s Perspective on Peace Education (Ed., D. Snauwaert, 2019), The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (Eds., Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus; 2000, 2006); Learning to Abolish War: Teaching toward a Culture of Peace (Reardon & Cabezudo, 2001); and articles to Peace Prints: South Asian Journal Of Peacebuilding with Asha Hans; In Factis Pax: Journal of Peace Education & Social Justice; Holistic Education; Theory into Practice; Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy, and The Middle East Journal.
Further information can be found at https://www.humiliationstudies.org/whoweare/gerson.html
Janet Gerson – Dance Photo
Book Publication
Betty Reardon was present for her presentation and Award at
Human Dignity Humiliation Studies Conference in 2018.
Activism in New York
Community building through the arts, in this case painting in the park with the sisters of Little League players, including Stella, her granddaughter.
Ecological Relational paradigm for peace