Peacebuilding through Dialogue: Education, Human Transformation, and Conflict Resolution

By Peter N Stearns

This volume examines the many dimensions of dialogue as a key driver of peaceful personal and social change. While most people agree on the value of dialogue, few delve into its meaning or consider its full range. The essays collected here consider dialogue in the context of teaching and learning, personal and interpersonal growth, and in conflict resolution and other situations of great change. Through these three themes, contributors from a wide variety of perspectives consider the different forms dialogue takes, the goals of the various forms, and which forms have been most successful or most challenging. With its expansive approach, the book makes an original contribution to peace studies, civic studies, education studies, organizational studies, conflict resolution studies, and dignity studies.

Contributors: Susan H. Allen, George Mason University * Monisha Bajaj, University of San Francisco * Andrea Bartoli, Seton Hall University * Meenakshi Chhabra, Lesley University * Steven D. Cohen, Tufts University * Charles Gardner, Community of Sant’Egidio * Mark Farr, The Sustained Dialogue Institute * William Gaudelli, Teachers College, Columbia University * Jason Goulah, DePaul University * Donna Hicks, Harvard University * Bernice Lerner, Hebrew College * Ceasar L. McDowell, MIT * Gonzalo Obelleiro, DePaul University * Bradley Siegel, Teachers College, Columbia University * Olivier Urbain, Min-On Music Research Institute * Ion Vlad, University of San Francisco

Distributed for George Mason University Press and published in collaboration with the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Mason University
• Release date: Jan 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781942695127

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Peacebuilding Through Dialogue: Education,

Human Transformation, and Conflict Resolution

Peter N. Stearns, Editor

George Mason University Press

Fairfax, Virginia

Copyright © 2018 by George Mason University Press and the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue

The Ikeda Center is an institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, devoted to the related pursuits of peace, learning, and dialogue.

ISBN: 978-1-942695-11-0 (trade paper)

ISBN: 978-1-942695-12-7 (ebook)

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act.

First edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

Cover and interior design: Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

Project management and copyediting: Mitch Bogen

Editorial assistance: Lisa Kirk

Proofreading: David Lampo

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Daisaku Ikeda

Dialogue: An Introduction, by Peter N. Stearns

SECTION ONE: EDUCATION

  1.Identity, Race, and Classroom Dialogue, by Steven D. Cohen

  2.Listening and Dialogue in Educators’ Reflective Practice, by Bradley Siegel and William Gaudelli

  3.The Presence and Role of Dialogue in Soka Education, by Jason Goulah

  4.Dialogue and Agency: Educating for Peace and Social Change, by Monisha Bajaj and Ion Vlad

SECTION TWO: PERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

  5.Compassion in Dialogue, by Bernice Lerner

  6.Bringing Out the Best in Oneself and Others: The Role of Dialogue in Daisaku Ikeda’s Peacebuilding Practice, by Olivier Urbain

  7.The WISE Model and the Role of Self As Observer in Genuine Dialogue, by Meenakshi Chhabra

  8.Values, Dissonance, and the Creation of Shared Meaning, by Gonzalo Obelleiro

SECTION THREE: CONFLICT RESOLUTION

  9.Dignity Dialogues: An Educational Approach to Healing and Reconciling Relationships in Conflict, by Donna Hicks

10.Changing the Conversation: Emerging Better Dialogue Practices Seen Through Four Lenses, by Mark Farr

11.Dialogue and Mutual Recognition: The Practice of Interreligious Encounters, by Andrea Bartoli and Charles Gardner

12.Modes of Peacemaking Dialogue, by Susan H. Allen

13.Dialogue and Demographic Complexity, by Ceasar L. McDowell

Conclusion, by Peter N. Stearns

Works Cited

Index

Author Biographies

Foreword

Daisaku Ikeda

IN AN EXCHANGE with my dear, respected friends, jazz giants Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, we agreed that jazz and the art of dialogue resonate at a very deep level.

These vibrant sessions—whether of jazz or dialogue—develop as participants give voice to the calls that issue freely from their lives, mutually respecting each other and bringing forth the best that each possesses. Participants can give new life even to each other’s seeming mistakes or failures. As a result, all involved are dynamically elevated, and previously unrealized heights of creativity are reached.

The many examples of superb music that these two jazz masters have woven in collaboration with a remarkable diversity of musicians clearly demonstrate the power of dialogue inherent in the freedom of jazz.

While I was not gifted with a talent for jazz, I have challenged myself relentlessly in pursuit of the art of dialogue, engaging in many such sessions.

Growing up in Japan during World War II taught me all I will ever need to know about the suffocating realities of a militarism that will not brook free and open discussion. This experience instilled in me the conviction that dialogue is a bastion protecting human dignity against the assaults of violence, an essential force for the creation and expansion of peace.

After the war ended, I worked to develop grassroots dialogue under the tutelage of Josei Toda, a proponent of the ideals of human revolution and global citizenship. The following words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, encountered in those days, left an indelible impression on my young mind: the best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

Massachusetts in the middle decades of the nineteenth century was the site of efforts by Emerson and others to promote dialogue and bring to flower the ideas and spirit of the American Renaissance.

This year, the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue, founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1993, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. Over the years, the Center has continuously created forums for dialogue, bringing together people of diverse backgrounds in the work of communicating a vision of a culture of peace to the world, in this way fulfilling the goals set out in its founding mottos:

Be the heart of a network of global citizens.

Be a bridge for dialogue between civilizations.

Be a beacon lighting the way to a century of life.

I am delighted that Peacebuilding Through Dialogue marks this anniversary by examining the many dimensions of dialogue—an important theme the Center has consistently explored since its founding—based on the multidisciplinary insights of leading scholar-practitioners from throughout the world. As founder, I would like to express my earnest appreciation to the authors for their invaluable contributions, as well as to Peter Stearns for his deep knowledge and editorial guidance.

The American Renaissance offers a truly inexhaustible source of insights into the value of dialogue. This philosophical movement arose and flourished in citizens’ efforts to awaken and educate their fellow citizens, often through public lectures. These lectures, some of which provided the basis for Henry David Thoreau’s Walden as well as many works by Emerson, were occasions of open and thoughtful exchange.

The Lyceum Movement began as an open forum for learning where people, without regard to age or gender, were able to engage in lively and impassioned discourse. Lyceum is a Latin rendering of the Greek Lykeion, the home of the peripatetic school founded by Aristotle. A site where mentor and students conducted dialogical inquiries as they strolled on the grounds, the school was called Peripatos, meaning of walking or walking about in ancient Greek.

Inspired by this tradition, the Lyceum Movement of the American Renaissance placed importance on the spirit of mutuality, specifically the ideas of mutual instruction and mutual education. The movement aimed to elevate the citizenry not through one-way instruction but through the power of mutual teaching and learning.

This spirit of mutuality is an essential component in the kind of creative dialogue that the Center seeks to advance. Without mutuality, attempts at dialogue will constitute only dry and lifeless exchanges of words. We should heed the concern shared with me by Jim Garrison, past president of the John Dewey Society: Many times, what appears to be a dialogue is actually a soliloquy, because neither party is listening. . . .

Many of the thinkers with whom I have engaged over the years concur that the key elements that make dialogue fruitful are respect for the other and the humility to listen to and learn from perspectives different from one’s own.

For many years, Elise Boulding, remembered as the mother of peace research, warmly extended her support to the Ikeda Center. She reminded us that the creation of a culture of peace begins from our own effort to listen to others; that when we lend our ears to opposing opinions, this can bring to light the hidden essence of things, enabling us to grasp the core aspect of an issue. She considered listening to be the exemplary practice of the peacebuilder.

In order to achieve mutually enriching, deeply connecting dialogue, we need to overcome the divisions within our own hearts that make us unconsciously categorize people and rank their value on that basis. We need to be aware of the danger of categorizing people into such simplistic binaries as good and bad, us and them, and friend and foe. Such an approach is one of the deep drivers of conflict.

As a proponent of a philosophy of dialogue and of humanistically oriented education, John Dewey shed important light on this error and offered insights that today merit our renewed attention.

The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. Such a conception makes one severe in judging himself and humane in judging others.

The Lotus Sutra, which expresses the essence of Mahayana Buddhism, identifies ten states or inner conditions of life. These are the ten realms or worlds of hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity, rapture, learning, realization, bodhisattva, and Buddhahood. The Buddhist concept of mutual possession of the ten worlds teaches that each of these worlds possesses within it the potential of the other worlds in an interdependent and interactive relationship.

The experiences of suffering and despair, desire, anger, joy, learning, and altruistic concern do not constitute discrete, isolated realms. Within each of these experiences, the other nine states continue to exist as latent potentialities that can become manifest at any moment through interaction with our surroundings.

This understanding of life stands in strong contrast to a discriminatory worldview that assigns fixed value to different people. In the Lotus Sutra, the eight-year-old dragon king’s daughter was able to attain enlightenment in her present form. This example of the enlightenment of women was a disruptive challenge to the entrenched bias of the male Buddhist practitioners of the time, awakening them to the true meaning of equality and human dignity. The story of the dragon king’s daughter demonstrates that the path to enlightenment is open to all people without distinction, and that this is a vital concern to us all.

Ultimately, the teaching of the mutual possession of the ten worlds encourages us to see others in ourselves, ourselves in others, and to perceive our deeper connections and unity. It is an appreciation of human life as inherently diverse and mutable; it embodies an unwavering faith in the limitless potential and dignity of all people. I am confident that such a perspective offers a path toward peace and harmonious coexistence embracing all forms of ideological, religious, philosophical differences.

Today, the world is witnessing the rapid globalization of economic activity, information, and the movement of people. Cross-border exchanges and encounters are increasing at an unprecedented rate.

At the same time, however, the world is experiencing cycles of violence and conflict driven by divisions and deep-seated animosities predicated on ethnic and cultural differences. At the heart of these problems is a failure to fully respect human dignity, to understand and communicate with others on that basis. This failure gives rise to the forces of misapprehension and prejudice. Ours is thus an age where there is a critical need for truly creative dialogical processes grounded in respect for the dignity of life. This is vital if we are to transform division into harmony, confrontation into collaboration.

Austregésilo de Athayde, former president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, was an activist who deployed the power of language in the struggle for human rights. He once shared with me his conviction that the power of mutual understanding and solidarity arising from dialogue can triumph over the threats of evil.

As could be seen in Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for Indian independence, or the American civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., the path to a new era has often been forged by the power of courageous dialogue—fearless in the face of evil’s intimidations—igniting the flame of hope in the hearts of people.

Last year in July, the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This achievement was largely realized by the grassroots solidarity of civil society organizations bringing together and amplifying the humanitarian concerns of ordinary citizens. Of particular importance were the urgent calls by the survivors of the nuclear attacks, or hibakusha, that the tragic horrors wrought by nuclear weapons never be repeated.

The SGI’s activities for peace, education, and cultural exchange in 192 countries and territories have their core focus in local, small-group discussion meetings. These provide an interactive dialogic forum where people of diverse social backgrounds and generations can come together to share their experiences.

In an age when our humanity is threatened by crises of division, members of the SGI are deeply convinced of the value of one-to-one dialogue, a faith that is ultimately nothing other than a faith in people, in life itself. We seek to further nurture and expand a culture of dialogue that will give rise to the values of peace, education, and culture.

It is my sincere prayer that the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue will continue to contribute to the happiness of people and to building peace for humanity. As founder, allow me to take this opportunity to express again my profound appreciation to all those who have supported the Center over the years.

I conclude this foreword with my earnest wishes that this book will be just one of many, endlessly expanding sessions of dialogue.

Daisaku Ikeda

Founder

Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue

Dialogue: An Introduction

Peter N. Stearns

DIALOGUE IS one of the most basic forms of communication. Informal dialogue is surely as old as language itself, though we have no way of tracing its origins or earliest manifestations beyond noting that Sumerian records from five millennia ago already suggested the importance of organized disputations. Indeed, several cultural traditions make it clear that one of the initial sources of dialogue was an effort to convey, in writing, the kinds of exchanges that were widely occurring in actual conversations (conversation being the source of the term itself, in Greek)—and even today, authorities wonder about the advantages of oral versus written communication in effectively conveying dialogue.

While dialogue has a distinguished past, it is resolutely contemporary as well—as this book further establishes in working to advance the art in education, in personal and interpersonal transformation, and in conflict resolution, plus the contributions that all three facets make to peacebuilding. Police and community groups in many American cities seek greater mutual understanding through new ventures in dialogue. Religious leaders, recognizing the diversities promoted by immigration and globalization and rightly worried about the stresses on tolerance, organize dialogues to clarify mutual relationships and reduce tensions. Teachers, responding to concerns about student learning and involvement, talk about more participatory methods that, whether they use the term or not, clearly highlight new efforts at dialogue as a basis for more active engagement, as well as using dialogue in training in peacebuilding. Specifics may have changed—it is valid, for example, to talk about new opportunities in online exchanges as a form of dialogue; the basic need for more effective mutual communication builds both on a long tradition and on urgent current needs.

Dialogue is not, however, the only form of discourse, which launches the process of trying to define it more precisely. Most obviously, it contrasts with efforts simply to state a real or imagined truth or dictate some set of conditions without discussion; it differs as well from many forms of argument, where winning takes precedence over mutual interaction. Dialogue requires a deeper kind of communication, some recognition at least for a time that whatever topic is involved—an idea, a dispute—it merits examination from different vantage points. By the same token, dialogue requires some skills and sensitivities that prove challenging for many people—perhaps particularly people who wield political or cultural power and are tempted to use their position to circumvent discussion. As one result, use of dialogue is not a constant in the historical experience of humankind.

This book features essays that explore dialogue in three principal contexts: as a means of addressing conflict and attempting to advance more peaceful agreement; as an element of personal growth, including internal preparations for participation in meaningful interactions with others; and as an essential form of teaching, seeking more successful learning and, to some extent at least, trying to advance understanding and reduce hostility. The breadth involved is considerable, suggesting the varied applications that dialogue can generate. But the domains connect as well: all three revolve around openness to diverse ideas and suggestions. And they mutually reinforce: educational applications can link directly to personal growth, and both in turn to the use of dialogue in addressing conflict. Indeed, the essays on the role of dialogue in conflict situations make it clear that readying for dialogue, through training but also deep individual reflection, forms the basis for meaningful exchange. Dialogue can be immensely productive, but it is not an easy art, and the range of comment in this volume—linked by the common interest in advancing greater understanding—establishes several crucial building blocks.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: VARIETIES AND OSCILLATIONS OF DIALOGUE IN THE CLASSICAL TRADITIONS

Dialogue as a form of human exchange is currently undergoing an extraordinary surge, with a steady increase in references in English and in a number of other languages. But dialogue also has a rich past, which offers a historical context that amplifies an understanding of what dialogue involves, but also highlights some of its characteristic challenges and limitations—as well as the connections that can link its varied applications.

Thus several key points emerge from what we know about dialogue’s initial phases: first, that the idea initially attached primarily to a teaching function—one of the facets of dialogue featured in this volume; second, that a commitment to dialogue emerged independently in a number of religious and philosophical traditions, offering a cultural breadth important in a global context; and third, that while pedagogy dominated the early discussions of dialogue, the complexities involved also provoked commentary about the state of mind or interior preparation that the art required—another key theme in the essays that follow.

The multiple cultural sources of dialogue emerge strongly. While dialogues in classical Greece, associated with Socrates and Plato, have won particular attention in Western culture, dialogue was also a vital element in the religions that arose on the Indian subcontinent—noted in several Hindu epics and then gaining more extensive attention under Buddhism (Black & Patton, 2015). Confucianism also featured dialogues between the Master and his disciples, and exchanges within the later forms of Confucianism maintained this tradition strongly¹ (Jochim, 1997).

The diverse sources of dialogue raise a crucial question about preconditions, still relevant today. Some scholars, seizing on the importance of Athens in promoting Greek contributions, have speculated about the importance of democracy as a context for this kind of exchange. In fact, however, dialogue developed in many societies that were not at all democratic, and even in Greece and Rome, many commentators worried about the involvement of ordinary people in the intricacies of dialogue, sometimes urging that the exercise be confined to a wise elite. But if democracy is a variable, an atmosphere of some explicit political and cultural tolerance may be essential, including a recognition of the dignity of others and a willingness to consider and articulate diverse ideas (Stearns, 2017).

The great initial impetus to dialogue resulted from a belief that conversations between an instructor and his students would encourage learning far more readily than simple command. This was the realization expressed in several early Brahman epics, in India, and it served as the core of the Socratic approach in Greece, as amplified by Plato. Greek and Roman philosophers alike thus urged that understanding would benefit from considering an issue from various angles, even when one could not be sure that a single agreement would ever result (Nikuli, 2010). The Hindu word for dialogue in fact meant to bargain, and the Rig-Veda noted that opponents of the form were people who had no pleasure in questioning (Black & Patton, 2015, p. 2).

There was, however, a tension in early dialogues, still present today even as the form extends to the wider domain of conflict resolution: is the ultimate purpose of this kind of exchange an agreement on a single truth, or is the whole point an ongoing exploration, even as the most obvious errors are eliminated through debate? Thus Plato, though urging that truth not be forced on participants, worried about too much relativism, and the Hindu and Buddhist traditions even more firmly insisted that exchanges must meet a definite conclusion, in Buddhism sometimes based directly on the authority of the founder.² This kind of tension bears on the uses of dialogue in the contemporary world, not only in pedagogy but also in the realm of conflict, around the need to be open to various kinds of resolution rather than pressing any single set of claims.

This kind of complexity—never fully resolved—also helps explain another feature of early dialogue: the importance of inner preparation, and not just open exchange. Both Plato and the Indian epics refer to dialogues that occur within an individual—what the Ramayana called interior dialogues. Thus Plato wrote of individuals acting as their own critics, as they tried to advance their sense of ethics for example: the talk which the soul goes through with itself about any subject which it investigates (Godhill, 2008, p. 56). Here is another aspect of the historical context directly relevant to the range of dialogue today.

At least in the West, the early history of dialogue yields one final conclusion: that commitment to this demanding kind of exchange was vulnerable to shifts in religious emphasis. For as Christianity gained ground and advanced its claims to truth and certainty, the full commitment to dialogue measurably receded (Cameron, 2008; Godhill, 2008). Even Augustine was uncomfortable with too much open-ended discussion. Dialogue did persist as a literary form, a testimony to its earlier prestige, particularly in the Byzantine Empire. But the exchange tended to be truncated by the more urgent need to establish the truth and eliminate error. Thus in Byzantium, presumed dialogues between Christian and Jew, or Christian and Muslim, presented diverse statements but quickly moved to distinguish between right and wrong—as in one Byzantine exchange which ended when God revealed himself and cast the Jew aside in a blaze of light (Cameron, 2016). It was only with the Italian Renaissance, with the revival of classical philosophy and a more tolerant atmosphere, that genuine dialogue reappeared, with a number of basic treatises on the advantages of serious disputation. It was at this point that Jean Bodin even ventured an extraordinary Colloquium of the Seven, where a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Jew, a Muslim, a skeptic, and a believer in natural religion discuss the nature of religion itself—anticipating more modern uses of the dialogue technique (Burke, 1989; Winn, 1993; Cox, 2013).

DIALOGUE AND CONFLICT: MODERN USES AND TRENDS

We do not know much about the role of dialogue in conflict situations before modern times. Sun Tzu’s famous recommendations for military statesmanship included a clear preference for negotiations, including the importance of having a firm sense of the opponent’s position and allowing for his needs. The first Islamic civil war, around the battle of Siffin (657), ended when one of the leaders essentially accepted arbitration on grounds that mere human opinion can be right or wrong—implying the need for some flexible discussion. Much later, in Mughal India, the emperor Akbar encouraged discussions among leaders from various religions in the interests of promoting tolerance and advancing understanding—vital in promoting stability amid the religious diversity of the subcontinent.

FIGURE 1. Frequency of dialogue, 1500-2008 in English, Google Ngram Viewer.

An interest in dialogue clearly crested during the European religious wars, and particularly in the mid-seventeenth century around the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Westphalia (Repgen, 1999). A Google Ngram on the relative frequency of references to dialogue (among all other words) shows a remarkable surge of commentary at that point. Interest remained high, amid fluctuations, well into the eighteenth century, suggesting not only an ongoing willingness to confront religious diversity but also the Enlightenment interest in rational discussion and the need now to incorporate scientific findings in intellectual debate. Thus Lessing’s play, Nathan the Wise, featured conversations representing Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but in an atmosphere of Enlightenment-inspired tolerance. And while references to dialogue in eighteenth-century colonial America lagged a bit, they did pick up around the time of the revolution—another indication that the form was available and valued in times of conflict.

The same indices that register the strong interest in dialogue amid religious conflict and then Enlightenment ideas show a revealing trough that would last from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. The interlude is not easy to explain, and some scholars simply note it without further comment. Tensions between liberalism and science, on the one hand, and continued insistence on religious truth on the other may have discouraged the kind of effective interaction that dialogue requires. Science itself could generate a new set of truth claims that might be impatient with open discussion—another issue that survives today. On a global scale, the rise of European power, and then outright nineteenth-century imperialism, revealed a comfort in the presumed superiority of Western values that hardly supported any mutual exchange of ideas³ (Adas, 1989). Within Europe itself, nationalism, while it did not prevent periodic conferences among the major powers, may also have dampened enthusiasm, even through the growing tensions of the decades between the two world wars. It is important to remember this prolonged drought in the recent global past, but the same drought also highlights the remarkable resurgence of dialogue—in many settings—since 1945.

FIGURE 2. Frequency of dialogue, 1800-2008 in English, Google Ngram Viewer.

THE TWENTIETHTH CENTURY REVIVAL

The dialogue revival has combined tradition and innovation. Earlier precedents have been widely explored, as in the growing interest in dialogue as part of the Buddhist tradition of peace and tolerance. At the same time, philosophers such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Leonard Nelson, and Martin Buber have explored the dimensions of dialogue as a dynamic process of creating meaning, though specific formulations varied. Buber, for example, advocated dialogue not as a way to reach conclusions or expose different points of view but as the basis of authentic relationships among human beings, urging that true dialogue feature openness, honesty, and mutual commitment (Nikuli, 2010; Hogan, 2016). Dialogue loomed large in the work of John Dewey, who saw collaborative discussion of disputes as essential to peace and democracy alike: To cooperate by giving differences a chance to show themselves because of the belief that the expression of difference is not only a right of the other person but is a means of enriching one’s own life-experience, is inherent in the democratic personal way of life (Dewey, 1993).

Interfaith dialogues resumed and expanded, building on experiments around 1900. An initial Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in Chicago in 1893 in conjunction with the World’s Fair, helped launch the new process, with significant representation from India’s religions and various Protestant groups (Matyok et al., 2014, 23). Ensuing conversations were less ambitious, featuring a number of different Protestant denominations, all interested in missionary work and seeking to reduce misunderstanding to advance a common Christian cause. But exchanges ultimately broadened to include other Christian groups, including Eastern Orthodox. And after World War I, the mood shifted, with growing recognition that all major religions had value and could usefully converse, particularly against a common threat of global secularism (and, some would soon add, communism). Thus a missionary conference in 1938 stressed the importance of nonwestern religions and the need for broader mutual understanding, though indigenous faiths were still excluded (until the 1990s). The Second Vatican Council, in 1962, proved a crucial step in opening Catholicism not only to participation but to active leadership in interfaith discussions of various sorts (Siddiqui, 1997). The ideals of the 1893 Parliament flowered in the postwar years as the study of religious pluralism expanded.

The importance of dialogue in education gained new attention, particularly with