Manifestations of Greek-Cypriot teachers' discomfort toward a peace education initiative: Engaging with discomfort pedagogically

This study sought to understand how teachers' discomforting emotions were manifest in a teacher education setting and how teacher educators might engage with discomfort pedagogically. A qualitative perspective was used with a group of teachers who participated in a series of peace education workshops in Cyprus. All of the workshops were audio- and video-recorded; in-depth interviews were also conducted with seven focal participants before and after the workshops. The findings show the manifestations of discomfort, the sources of discomfort, and the ways of handling teachers' discomfort pedagogically. The paper discusses how this study may inform teacher education.

► Teachers' discomfort is manifest in explicit and implicit ways.
► Teachers' discomfort has varied sources that need to be acknowledged and analyzed.
► Teachers' discomfort can be handled pedagogically in teacher education.