Ethical Mediation and Peace Education: Teaching Conflict Memory through Hiroshima for Post-Conflict Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article examines how Hiroshima’s peace education mediates traumatic historical memory through structured ethical and pedagogical practices. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted in 2026 with retired and current junior high school teachers, peace practitioners, and memorial guides, together with analysis of students’ experiential reflections on peace learning activities in Hiroshima, the study explores how atomic-bomb survivor testimony is presented to young learners. The findings show that emotional engagement with difficult history is moderated through age-appropriate narrative framing, guided classroom dialogue, and collaboration between schools and memorial institutions. Students’ reflections indicate a movement from emotional response toward commitments to peace and intergenerational responsibility. The article argues that ethical mediation operates as a structured pedagogical mechanism through which traumatic memory is transformed into moral and civic learning. By conceptualising this process, the study contributes to peace education scholarship and offers analytically grounded insights for post-conflict societies such as Sri Lanka.