Restoring Justice trough forgiveness, the case of children in Northen Ireland

Source: (2006) In, Dennis Sullivan and Larry Tifft editors, “Handbook of Restorative Justice” A Global Perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Taylor & Francis Group pp.311-319

The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to our recent work in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where we have been doing forgiveness education work in elementary school classrooms since the fall of 2002. We will first briefly review the published literature on the psychology of forgiveness, then turn to a brief discussion of how violence impacts children’s emotional health. We next turn to a discussion of the Northern Ireland problem and the place of forgiveness within education, alongside a quest for justice, in war-torn communities. (excerpt)