Steven L. Lamy

Challenging Hegemonic Paradigms and Practices: Critical Thinking and Active Learning Strategies for International Relations

I argue in this paper that one possible way of addressing the critical issue of preparing students for their future role as citizens in a global society is to integrate active learning exercises such as case studies and problem-based learning scenarios that focus on international issues and events and significant global conditions. These provide an opportunity for students to practice the skills that are essential for participation in modern democratic societies. In this brief discussion paper, I present two very practical strategies for introducing students to global realities and exposing them to different cultural and ideological ways of “seeing the world.” Both strategies emphasize skills that are essential for analysis, evaluation and, eventually, problem-solving.

Teacher Training in Global Perspectives Education: The Center for Teaching International Relations.

ditions; however, the majority of our population was not cognizant of the costs and benefits of interdependence until the OPEC oil embargo forced most of them to wait longer and pay higher prices for their gas and oil. Numerous other events have emphasized the interdependence of our global community and have also reaffirmed the necessity for change in our educational system. Global conditions suggest that Americans can no longer afford to confront issues such as the control of energy resources, overpopulation (and corresponding food shortages), terrorism, arms control policies, and questions of human rights and basic human needs with policy responses limited by parochial, nationalistic interests and ethnocentric biases.

The Search for Community in Cross-Disciplinary Conversation.

Edward O. Wilson’s book can help us design general education curricula by providing a model of interdisciplinary thinking, pointing to the frames of reference with which a generally well-educated person should be familiar, and presenting an argument to be tested against a wide range of data and theoretical perspectives.

The U.S. Arctic Policy Agenda: The State Trumps Other Interests

This chapter explores the recent national debates within the Arctic states about the economic, political and human security challenges presented by climate change, growing competition for resources and new political and economic realities. The study identifies how the Arctic arena fits with the larger foreign policy approach of the state in question. Utilizing an analytical framework developed by Stephen Krasner to explain U.S. raw materials investment policy the study suggests that U.S. policy is best explained as being statist meaning the state and its central decision makers are autonomous actors and their choices serve the interests of those actors. The study interprets that the issue leaders are the key actors who define the debates about military, environmental and human security issues that define the Arctic policy agenda.