This interview took place before the formal start of the “Parents of the Field” project. Hence it is less formally structured and somewhat more discursive that other interviews in the series. Betty Reardon was one of the first women academics to enter and develop the new field of peace education from Teachers College at Columbia University and subsequently throughout the world, providing a strong woman’s voice in a world then dominated by men.
Betty Reardon grew up during the Second World War and developed early on in life both an interest in international affairs, including the new experiment in international governance represented by the United Nations, as well as profound doubt about whether international problems could or should be solved through armed force. She became interested in the World Federalist Movement and worked for the Institute for World Order between 1963 and 1970, becoming involved in the Institute’s “World Order Models” program.
However, her real interests revolved round the issue of peace education, which she has always defined broadly and inclusively, and in the pedagogy involved in the actual teaching of topics related to building a more peaceful world. She was instrumental in developing the Peace Education Center at Teachers College in Columbia University, and has had an enormous influence on the development and teaching of peace education programs not merely in the U.S.A but globally, partly through through her involvement with the Peace Education Commission of the International Peace Research Association [IPRA] .
Through her activities at Teachers College. Professor Reardon helped to develop curricula for the U.N. University for Peace’s Masters Program in Costa Rica which symbolizes her interest in peace education internationally, a continuing theme throughout all her work. Her “International Institute on Peace Education” has met annually for over 25 years, and has taken place in a wide variety of countries not just in north America.
As one of the pioneering generation of women in peace studies, together with such figures as Elise Boulding, Berenice Carroll and Cynthia Enloe, Betty Reardon has always been at the forefront of the struggle to have women’s role in peace-building and peace education recognized and accepted. As she describes in her interview, this has involved pointing out the dominance of “white haired wise men” in the punditry of the field and attempting to have women’s ideas and issues become a central part of the debate about how to achieve a real peace for the globe.
