QCE Religion & Ethics Religion & Ethics - Unit 0 - Option E · Peace

Peacebuilding, reconciliation and evaluation

Design a peace-promotion project using dialogue, truth-telling, advocacy and accountable evaluation.

Part of the free QCE Religion & Ethics notes library for Unit 0: Option E · Peace.

Updated 2026-08-08 - 6 min read

Design a peace-promotion project using dialogue, truth-telling, advocacy and accountable evaluation. This lesson is built for active use: first construct the mental model, then examine evidence, follow a worked application, identify the trap and complete a transfer check.

Build the mental model

Peacebuilding addresses relationships, structures and narratives before, during and after visible conflict. Begin by defining the religious, spiritual or ethical question and locating each source in its tradition, community and context. Identify who has authority to speak, whose perspective may be absent, and which principle or practice gives the evidence meaning.

Truth-telling and reconciliation require safety, recognition, responsibility and material or relational repair rather than forced closure. Do not compress a tradition into one universal viewpoint or substitute personal opinion for inquiry. Compare contextualised perspectives, connect claims to authorised evidence and principles, and test the judgment against rights, consequences, responsibilities and affected stakeholders. Self-advocacy and inclusive institutions help correct power imbalances. That is the move that converts recall into reasoning a marker can follow.

The relationships you must be able to use

• Peacebuilding addresses relationships, structures and narratives before, during and after visible conflict.
• Truth-telling and reconciliation require safety, recognition, responsibility and material or relational repair rather than forced closure.
• Self-advocacy and inclusive institutions help correct power imbalances.
• Nonviolent action uses strategy, participation and moral or political pressure rather than passivity.
• A project maps conflict, stakeholders, risks, desired change, action sequence and safeguards.
• Evaluation checks whether safety, voice, fairness and durable relationships improved for those most affected.

Current syllabus scope for this lesson

• Describe principles of effective structures aimed at overcoming power imbalances, including self-advocacy, truth-telling, reconciliation.

These ideas form a sequence rather than six isolated facts. A useful workflow is: frame → represent → analyse → infer → verify → communicate. Frame the exact problem and boundaries. Represent the important relationships using the most informative diagram, quotation, data display or decision framework. Analyse the representation for pattern, mechanism or implication. Infer only what the evidence supports. Verify through a second method or source. Communicate the decision in the conventions of Religion & Ethics.

Worked example — from prompt to defensible answer

Notice that the answer is not a one-line conclusion. It shows the intermediate decision that makes the conclusion inspectable. If the context changed, retain the reasoning structure but replace the evidence, conditions and implications.

Common mistakes and how to repair them

A second common mistake is to overstate certainty. Use precise verbs: *shows* for directly displayed evidence, *suggests* or *is consistent with* for a supported inference, and *causes* only when a justified mechanism and evidence support causation. A third is to add material that is true but irrelevant. Every paragraph, calculation or design element should help answer the command.

Classroom deep dive — make reconciliation structural, safe and measurable

Peacebuilding acts before, during and after visible conflict. It can prevent escalation, protect people, repair relationships, transform institutions and reduce the conditions that reproduce harm. Self-advocacy supports affected people to define needs and exercise agency. Truth-telling creates an accountable record of experience and responsibility; it requires consent, trauma-aware support, protection from retaliation and a plan for what institutions will do with the testimony. Reconciliation is not forced harmony, quick forgiveness or forgetting. It may involve acknowledgement, remedy, changed power, restored relationship where desired and guarantees against recurrence.

Map the power imbalance before designing a project. Who controls the venue, information, rules, funding, timing, public narrative and final decision? Who can refuse participation without penalty? A dialogue process can deepen harm if affected people must repeatedly prove their experience to those with greater authority. Protective structures may include independent facilitation, confidential reporting, advocates, preparation and support, separate listening pathways, interpreters, transparent decision rights and escalation to formal remedies. Co-design means participants influence the question, method, safeguards and use of findings rather than merely commenting on a finished plan.

Evaluation needs a theory of change. State the activity, the mechanism it is meant to trigger, the short-term indicator and the longer-term condition. Attendance and reduced complaints can be misleading: silence may reflect fear, fatigue or lack of trust. Disaggregate evidence where safe and appropriate, and combine quantitative indicators with participant accounts of agency, dignity, safety, access and institutional response. Monitor whether agreed actions occurred, whether decision-making power changed and whether harm recurred. Build review thresholds and an exit or referral pathway before the project begins. A defensible conclusion distinguishes what improved, for whom, according to which evidence, what remains unresolved and how affected participants retain authority over the next step.

Exam and assessment transfer

Use this five-part response check:

1. Task: Have you answered the exact command and named the required context?
2. Evidence: Is the evidence precise, relevant and correctly represented?
3. Reasoning: Can a reader see the mechanism, relationship or interpretive chain?
4. Judgment: If evaluation or action is required, are the criteria and trade-offs explicit?
5. Verification: Have you used source authority, an alternative perspective and ethical criteria?

Deliberate practice — deepen the transfer

Practise with a perspective matrix. For each source or participant, record context, authority, key principle or practice, evidence, and what the source cannot establish. Compare traditions through a shared question while preserving differences in meaning and internal diversity. When applying an ethical framework, explain why the principle matters in this situation, who carries obligations, which people may be unheard, and what consequences or rights create a genuine tension. A project response should convert these findings into a specific action and evaluation plan. Check dignity, consent, cultural authority, safety, participation and the possibility that your preferred action creates a new exclusion.

Sources

• QCAA Religion & Ethics 2024 v1.2 syllabus
• Australian Bureau of Statistics religious affiliation
• AIATSIS ethical research guidance
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16

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