A pedagogical framework for global citizenship education: themes, objectives, and methods for teaching conflict at the secondary level

A strong rationale exists for the creation of learning objectives for secondary global citizenship education in North America, specifically pertaining to conflict, war, and terrorism. This pedagogical framework proposes themes, objectives, and methods/attitudes for teaching and consists of two parts. Themes and learning objectives contained in this framework include humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention, gender and conflict, conflict's colonial origins and legacies, Western complicity in global conflict, the role of identity and ideology in conflict and terrorism, and cultural demystification as conflict prevention. Methods and attitudes for teaching conflict include the following: challenging students' assumptions; shifting binary ways of thinking; contextualizing conflict and connecting the global to the local; teaching to think versus teaching to act; and addressing the complexity of conflict.