Abstract
Previous studies reported that children's first coherent utterances about peace and war were evident between the ages of 6 and 8, where verbalization of war preceded verbalization of peace. In the following years, children develop fairly well-defined ideas. This conceptual development was assumed to be part of and to reflect children's development of interpersonal understanding. In a longitudinal study, 44 Dutch children between the ages of 6 and 10 (i.e., three repeated measures through age ranges of 6.0 to 7.11, 7.0 to 8.11, and 8.0 to 9.11) were interviewed about conceptions of peace, war, and strategies to attain peace. The longitudinal data were consistent with earlier results that the concept of war developed prior to the concept of peace. Concrete aspects such as friendships, absence of quarrels, and absence of wars dominated images of peace, whereas weapons and soldiers, war activities, and consequences of war dominated images of war. A more abstract, norm-related level of reasoning was not evident.
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