Listening to Hiroshima: Ethical Mediation and Intergenerational Peace Learning in Hiroshima’s Peace Education

This article examines how Hiroshima’s peace education mediates young people’s engagement with the memory of the atomic bombing through survivor testimony, narrative pedagogy and participatory learning. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with 18 educators, peace practitioners and university students conducted in Hiroshima between October 2025 and July 2026, together with analysis of 45 student reflections from a published Peace Tour programme spanning elementary school through high school, the study investigates how learners across the school years and into early adulthood, encounter and interpret narratives of war. The findings identify a patterned progression in student responses, moving from emotional engagement with survivor testimony to ethical reflection and, in some cases, expressions of personal responsibility. The article advances the concept of ethical mediation to explain how educators structure encounters with difficult history in ways that transform affective responses into reflective and constructive outcomes. In this context, students are positioned not only as learners but also as participants in the intergenerational transmission of memory. By demonstrating how traumatic pasts can be taught through guided narrative and experiential learning, the Hiroshima case provides insights into the pedagogical conditions under which peace education can foster both understanding and ethical engagement.