The Promise and Peril of "U.S. in the World"
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: American and Canadian Studies
Abstract
Debates around U.S. foreign relations are once again at the forefront of contemporary discussions about international affairs and the global system. The dramatic international challenges that have confronted the United States since it launched ill-fated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s and the transformative presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, albeit through diverging approaches to foreign relations, have had a catalytic effect. Understanding how the U.S. exerts power and influence abroad - politically, diplomatically, economically, culturally, ideologically - have become increasingly urgent.
These discussions have coincided with significant scholarly changes in U.S. foreign relations history, especially the way it is conceptualised, researched, and taught. Historians of U.S. foreign relations now embrace global and transnational perspectives, and incorporate methodologies from cultural and social history, which has resulted in a vastly expanded field that is home to different approaches and considers a range of state and non-state actors. This shift has led to the field effectively being renamed, replacing the more prosaic and limited moniker of "Diplomatic History" with more expansive, inclusive term, "U.S. in the World." This has not only had a significant intellectual impact on the field, but has also transformed the way historians research and teach U.S. global power. The ramifications for teaching before university, as well as the popular understanding of U.S. foreign relations, has been given less attention. The network considers the promise and peril of "U.S. in the World."
This network draws together scholars in the "U.S. in the World" based in the U.K., U.S. and Europe from multiple intellectual disciplines, as well as figures in the wider learning and teaching community - including school teachers, exam boards and learned societies - to consider the opportunities and dangers of these dramatic changes in U.S. foreign relations history. It analyses the impact that new approaches have for how the topic is researched and findings conveyed to non-scholarly audiences. The key goals are to: explore the new ways U.S. "power" has come to be defined; consider how big and small histories of U.S. foreign relations are written in an increasingly diverse field; analyse the nature of sources and the identities of scholars writing this history. The result will be a critical assessment of the field that examines how "U.S. in the World" is researched, taught, and explained.
The network will hold two workshops and a teachers event. The first workshop will see three different clusters working around three central themes of i) changing definitions of "power"; ii) synthesis and complexity in a fracturing field; 3) issues of identity and archives. Each cluster will work with a world-leading figure in the field of "U.S. in the World." The second workshop, where more formal papers will be presented, will form the basis of a "conversation" roundtable from the clusters that will be submitted to a leading international academic journal. This workshop will also feature a dedicated session on conveying the diversity and richness of the field in an accessible manner to audiences beyond Universities. The final gathering will be dedicated to a teachers event, focused on the way that changes in the field have affected how modern U.S. history and foreign relations is taught in schools and colleges to AS and A-Level students. This session will feature teachers, exam board representatives, and members of the network, focusing on the pedagogical and methodological implications that changes in academic history have on how the topic is taught to students before University.
These discussions have coincided with significant scholarly changes in U.S. foreign relations history, especially the way it is conceptualised, researched, and taught. Historians of U.S. foreign relations now embrace global and transnational perspectives, and incorporate methodologies from cultural and social history, which has resulted in a vastly expanded field that is home to different approaches and considers a range of state and non-state actors. This shift has led to the field effectively being renamed, replacing the more prosaic and limited moniker of "Diplomatic History" with more expansive, inclusive term, "U.S. in the World." This has not only had a significant intellectual impact on the field, but has also transformed the way historians research and teach U.S. global power. The ramifications for teaching before university, as well as the popular understanding of U.S. foreign relations, has been given less attention. The network considers the promise and peril of "U.S. in the World."
This network draws together scholars in the "U.S. in the World" based in the U.K., U.S. and Europe from multiple intellectual disciplines, as well as figures in the wider learning and teaching community - including school teachers, exam boards and learned societies - to consider the opportunities and dangers of these dramatic changes in U.S. foreign relations history. It analyses the impact that new approaches have for how the topic is researched and findings conveyed to non-scholarly audiences. The key goals are to: explore the new ways U.S. "power" has come to be defined; consider how big and small histories of U.S. foreign relations are written in an increasingly diverse field; analyse the nature of sources and the identities of scholars writing this history. The result will be a critical assessment of the field that examines how "U.S. in the World" is researched, taught, and explained.
The network will hold two workshops and a teachers event. The first workshop will see three different clusters working around three central themes of i) changing definitions of "power"; ii) synthesis and complexity in a fracturing field; 3) issues of identity and archives. Each cluster will work with a world-leading figure in the field of "U.S. in the World." The second workshop, where more formal papers will be presented, will form the basis of a "conversation" roundtable from the clusters that will be submitted to a leading international academic journal. This workshop will also feature a dedicated session on conveying the diversity and richness of the field in an accessible manner to audiences beyond Universities. The final gathering will be dedicated to a teachers event, focused on the way that changes in the field have affected how modern U.S. history and foreign relations is taught in schools and colleges to AS and A-Level students. This session will feature teachers, exam board representatives, and members of the network, focusing on the pedagogical and methodological implications that changes in academic history have on how the topic is taught to students before University.
Planned Impact
The main non-academic beneficiaries of the network will be threefold: the AQA exam board; AS and A-level history teachers and students; and general audiences via popular writing. Thus, the network's work will speak to how evolving scholarly trends influence and affect school-level teaching, as well as engaging non-academic audiences. In addition, AQA will serve as an official Project Partner to help inform the aspects related to school-level teaching and assessment.
i) AQA Exam Board
Having AQA as an official project partner will facilitate more detailed discussions of the relationship between academic research on the history of U.S. foreign relations and the way it is taught and studied in schools; it will also enable broader reflection on the sorts of skills and sources that underpin the curriculum and the extent to which they are influenced by emerging trends in academic scholarship. AQA is the largest examination board for history and, of the 44,900 students taking A-level History in 2018, approximately 22,000 are taking the AQA A-level (with over 6,000 taking modules relating to American history). Involving AQA in the second and third network events will enable discussions between them and network members, opening up conversations about the extent to which new approaches to the academic study of "U.S. in the World" translates into how U.S. foreign relations is taught and examined in schools. It will enable both network members and AQA to reflect on issues relating to teaching, pedagogy, and the methods students are taught. This, in turn, will establish the groundwork for further discussions with AQA, as well as other exam boards, about future funding bids that support work into the broader relationship between the academic study of history and school-level teaching and examining. Overall, the relationship with AQA will facilitate their discussions over curriculum development and help to further develop the dialogue between A/S and A-level exam boards and academics about cultivating the necessary skills to be a successful historian.
ii) AS and A-Level Teachers and Students
Involving a group of history teachers and subject leaders in the network's final event will enable discussions about the network's findings and their relationship to the way that the subject is taught in schools. Two sessions within local schools will also be organised toward the end of the project that make use of existing contacts of Nottingham and UEA. For teachers, this will provide an opportunity to a) engage with the network's findings and key conclusions in a direct fashion, and b) outline their own experiences teaching the history of "U.S. in the World" to their students. It will also provide a forum where network members and teachers can discuss sources, historiography, methodologies, and to consider the extent to which academic research influences school-level teaching. For students, the schools sessions will allow them to take part in discussions about broader forces informing learning and the ramifications for the questions they encounter in studying history.
iii) Knowledge Exchange for Interested Members of the General Public.
Finally, the network will disseminate key findings, particularly those relating to contemporary debates about American power, through prominent general publications and blogs. Network members have previously published pieces in the New York Times, The Nation, and the Washington Post, and their contacts will be used to place pieces during the project. In addition, we will place a piece in a popular history outlet such as History Today or BBC History articulating the network's findings for a more general audience. This will enable audiences beyond Higher Education to consider the network's key questions and will stimulate public debate for those interested in the U.S. role in the world in both the past and the present.
i) AQA Exam Board
Having AQA as an official project partner will facilitate more detailed discussions of the relationship between academic research on the history of U.S. foreign relations and the way it is taught and studied in schools; it will also enable broader reflection on the sorts of skills and sources that underpin the curriculum and the extent to which they are influenced by emerging trends in academic scholarship. AQA is the largest examination board for history and, of the 44,900 students taking A-level History in 2018, approximately 22,000 are taking the AQA A-level (with over 6,000 taking modules relating to American history). Involving AQA in the second and third network events will enable discussions between them and network members, opening up conversations about the extent to which new approaches to the academic study of "U.S. in the World" translates into how U.S. foreign relations is taught and examined in schools. It will enable both network members and AQA to reflect on issues relating to teaching, pedagogy, and the methods students are taught. This, in turn, will establish the groundwork for further discussions with AQA, as well as other exam boards, about future funding bids that support work into the broader relationship between the academic study of history and school-level teaching and examining. Overall, the relationship with AQA will facilitate their discussions over curriculum development and help to further develop the dialogue between A/S and A-level exam boards and academics about cultivating the necessary skills to be a successful historian.
ii) AS and A-Level Teachers and Students
Involving a group of history teachers and subject leaders in the network's final event will enable discussions about the network's findings and their relationship to the way that the subject is taught in schools. Two sessions within local schools will also be organised toward the end of the project that make use of existing contacts of Nottingham and UEA. For teachers, this will provide an opportunity to a) engage with the network's findings and key conclusions in a direct fashion, and b) outline their own experiences teaching the history of "U.S. in the World" to their students. It will also provide a forum where network members and teachers can discuss sources, historiography, methodologies, and to consider the extent to which academic research influences school-level teaching. For students, the schools sessions will allow them to take part in discussions about broader forces informing learning and the ramifications for the questions they encounter in studying history.
iii) Knowledge Exchange for Interested Members of the General Public.
Finally, the network will disseminate key findings, particularly those relating to contemporary debates about American power, through prominent general publications and blogs. Network members have previously published pieces in the New York Times, The Nation, and the Washington Post, and their contacts will be used to place pieces during the project. In addition, we will place a piece in a popular history outlet such as History Today or BBC History articulating the network's findings for a more general audience. This will enable audiences beyond Higher Education to consider the network's key questions and will stimulate public debate for those interested in the U.S. role in the world in both the past and the present.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Bevan Sewell (Principal Investigator) | |
| Kaeten Mistry (Co-Investigator) |
| Description | The award began in January 2020 and, as a result, was greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. This required us to suspend the project for eighteen months, and then to rethink it-both logistically and intellectually-as we adjusted to a post-Covid landscape. Though this was a considerable challenge, not least because it upended the plans we had initially put together and affected some of the original participants' availability, it also offered an opportunity to think afresh about the state of the field and the way it has evolved over the last two decades. In particular, it challenged us to think more carefully about questions around positionality, travel, environment, and resources; and, in doing so, the project evolved in a series of ways that offered new intellectual opportunities. These new directions complemented the project's original objectives, but they also went beyond them in important ways. The discussions that our group had about the wider state of the field was sharpened by the fact that the pandemic had made many of the things that we used to take for granted-travel to conferences and archives in the U.S. and elsewhere, for example-far more difficult. At the same time, the group's discussions in two workshops-one online due to travel restrictions, the other in person in May 2023-were identifying the fact that, for all the talk of "Internationalising" the field in the last quarter of a century, it was in fact being steadily re-Americanised and that this process had been accelerated by the pandemic. It is a trend typified by the recently published, four-volume series, The Cambridge History of America and the World-a collection whose general editor, as well as nine out of ten volume editors, are based in the United States, as indeed are the vast majority of the individual contributors. These findings have raised a series of questions about the place of scholars of the U.S. in the World based in the UK and Europe, their relationship to a field that is increasingly being refocused on the United States, and the particular challenges and opportunities that this offers. Clearly, a sense of isolation from the field's key institutions and protagonists can be problematic, particularly in terms of prominence in the discipline and leadership roles in related organisations. But, at the same time, the project's activities demonstrated that scholars based outside of the U.S. can offer something fresh and distinctive in terms of both intellectual engagement and teaching and that there is a need for this to be further explored. This, in turn, offers an opportunity to think afresh about the realities of researching and teaching the U.S. in the World from outside the United States, and to identify an opportunity to embrace our students' interests and preferences when it comes to engaging with the field. Rather than trying to position ourselves in a field dominated by scholars and institutions in the U.S., then, there is instead the possibility of reorienting the field in ways that emphasise the opportunities provided by researching and teaching the U.S. in the World from the UK and Europe. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes of this funding would be useful to two groups: a) scholars seeking to interrogate the U.S. in World, especially those not based in the United States, who could follow on with work rethinking issues around methodology and positionality in the field; and b) scholars, teachers, and groups working to bridge the gap between secondary and higher education - the network initiatives and work with exam board and teachers serves as a potential model for collaboration rather than merely top-down advising. |
| Sectors | Education Security and Diplomacy |
| URL | https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/centre-for-u.s.-in-the-world-studies/centre-for-us-in-the-world-studies.aspx |
| Description | From the outset, this project had a strong impact component due to the AQA exam board being an official project partner. The intention here was to identify ways of collaborating with them to facilitate engagement with schools and teachers and to strengthen links between Universities and the ways that American and U.S. in the World history is taught at GCSE and A-level. Toward the end of the initial grant, we held a workshop with AQA and a series of schoolteachers that served as a scoping exercise to establish possible opportunities moving forward for the network to provide sessions of considerable value to both teachers and exam boards. This formed the basis for a series of further meetings and discussions with AQA and an additional session with a group of schoolteachers that was funded by an AHRC Impact Accelerator Award through the University of Nottingham. This has enabled a productive relationship between the project and AQA, with the network's findings and their work coalescing around three core issues. 1) The desire to provide CPD-style sessions for schools and teachers, which deliver insights into latest developments in academic studies of U.S. and U.S. in the World history and how they relate to what's being taught at GCSE and A-level. 2) It has enabled a series of conversations-between the project, AQA, and teachers-over students' transition from School to University and the fact that, in terms of knowledge and skills, this gap seems to have widened in the last ten years, something that is of increasing concern to teachers and academics, and which provides important opportunities to find ways of addressing and interrogating that issue. 3) These events and workshops have led to discussions around possibilities of curriculum review. The new government is presently undertaking an evaluation of existing curriculums and is due to report soon on the scale and scope of a forthcoming overhaul and how extensive it is likely to be. In the meantime, we have begun creating a curriculum reform focus group, with the intention of having it convene to determine what a future American history curriculum might look like and, in particular, to establish what skills, topics, teaching, forms of assessment, and mark schemes that would require. All of these areas are ongoing via the relationship with AQA. Moreover, a forthcoming workshop at the University of Nottingham-which is being run by the Centre of U.S. in the World Studies, created as part of the award, and the University's School of Education-will further pursue discussions around tackling the gap that exists between Schools and Universities. This has had an impact on the way that AQA's History team are thinking about forthcoming curriculum review opportunities as we work to develop a curriculum focus group. It has also impacted positively on the teachers we have worked with so far and the ways that they understand American history and the way it is taught in Universities. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | AHRC Impact Accelerator Award -- University of Nottingham |
| Amount | £2,470 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2024 |
| End | 01/2025 |
| Description | Funding for CPD Luncheon with American Studies Staff |
| Amount | £310 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Sussex |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2024 |
| End | 01/2024 |
| Description | Historians Across Borders Revisited: the Question of Positionality in Researching US History in Europe |
| Amount | £1,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Rothermere American Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2025 |
| End | 02/2026 |
| Description | Historians Across Borders Revisited: the Question of Positionality in Researching US History in Europe |
| Amount | £700 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Association for American Studies |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2025 |
| End | 03/2026 |
| Description | CPD Working Lunch with American Studies Department, University of Sussex |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This CPD lunch was sponsored by the Department of American Studies at the University of Sussex. It was intended to provide a forum for network members to reflect on the network's findings and to think through the ways that discussions over the state of the field intersected with those about University teaching. The event also provided a forum in which members of the American Studies department at Sussex could share their own views and experiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Conference Panel on Teaching the U.S. and the World in the UK; Historians of Twentieth Century United States Conference, University of Northumbria, June 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a roundtable session at the Annual HOTCUS Conference. It featured four members from the project steering group, reflecting on different aspects of teaching the U.S. in the World in the UK. The purpose of this session was to build on work that we had done for a co-written chapter (for a forthcoming publication) and to offer a reflective and wide-ranging assessment of the ways that the wider field is taught in British Universities. We wanted to touch on what we teach, how, what readings and sources we assign, and the different ways in which we assess and engage students. There were approximately 50 people in attendance and the plenary discussion at the end was extensive and raised a number of important questions about pedagogy, modes of assessment, forms of teaching, and the relationship between University teaching and that at GCSE and A-level. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Conference Panel on The Promise and Peril of the U.S. and the World in the UK; Historians of Twentieth Century United States Conference, University of Edinburgh, June 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We organised this panel for the Annual HOTCUS Conference at the University of Edinburgh in June 2022. It featured 3 members of the network steering group and David King (University of Indiana). The panel took the form of a roundtable and each person spoke about an aspect of the evolution of the fields of American history, Diplomatic History, and U.S. in the World. The key aims were to develop a broader sense of how the field got to its present position and where, in the future, it might go next. The audience featured contributors to the Cambridge History of America and the World and the larger discussion afterwards developed a series of engaging ideas about the parameters of the field, different terminologies, and the way that scholars based in the UK and Europe can offer distinctive contributions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Interview and quotes France24 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Intrerview and quotes with France24 on national security of new U.S. administration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.france24.com/fr/am%C3%A9riques/20241115-%C3%A9tats-unis-la-s%C3%A9curit%C3%A9-nationale-... |
| Description | Interview and quotes, Heart Radio (Jan 2025) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interview and quotes on Trump inauguration and presidency for Heart Radio (20 Jan 2025). Available via Global Media Player, Heart Radio: Norfolk & Suffolk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | Interview and quotes, Heart Radio (Nov 2024) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interview and quotes on U.S. Election 2024 for Heart Radio (6 Nov 2024). Available via Global Media Player, Heart Radio: Norfolk & Suffolk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Interview with Miami Herald |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Kaeten Mistry was interviewed by the Miami Herald newspaper. Quotes appeared in the article "JFK was killed 60 years ago. Why are his assassination records still sealed?" on 21 November 2023. The reporter noted increased reader interest in the topic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article282163648.html |
| Description | Invited talk, University of Oxford |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk at Rothermere American Institute at the Oxford University in November 2023. Entitled "The Culture of Exposure: State Secrets and Disclosures in Cold War America." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Op Ed in The Conversation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On 20 Nov 2023, Kaeten Mistry published an Op Ed in 'The Conversation,' entitled, "The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection." There were numerous comments and online discussions about this piece, which was one of the highest viewed articles in November 2023. It led to follow up enquiries from other media outlets. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://theconversation.com/jfk-assassination-60-years-on-seven-experts-on-what-to-watch-see-and-rea... |
| Description | Postgraduate Work in Progress Session, University of Nottingham |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The project PI ran a reading group session with postgraduate students in American and Canadian Studies and History at the University of Nottingham. It used four key readings from the field, which had been utilised in the network's workshop, to talk about the evolution of the field, the nature of researching the U.S. in the World from Europe, and the challenges and opportunities that recent developments offer. This was both an intellectual, state of the field type session, which asked students to reflect on their own engagement with related topics, and a skills-based event that saw us discuss how we research and conceptualise research projects while bearing in mind issues like logistics, positionality, and identity. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Talk by Katharina Rietzler, "Women on the Right and the United States in the World," at Brighton School -- November 16 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This talk, by a member of the Network's steering group, was delivered to an audience of secondary students, History and Politics A-level, about 50 in total. There was a post-talk Q&A and the questions ranged widely from intersectional feminism, Donald Trump's China policy, right-wing tik tok influencers to electoral politics in the US and France. One thing one of the teachers said afterwards was that they appreciated the evidence-based approach in answering questions and engaging with points raised. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Workshop on Engagement and Knowledge Exchange, University of Nottingham, December 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The session was part of a series put together by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham, which features academics presently undertaking Impact and Knowledge Exchange work delivering sessions that reflect on their experiences and provide insight into the ways that their projects have evolved. Their intention is to identify things that worked well, things that were more challenging, and to give an overarching sense of how Impact projects come together. The PI for this project participated in one of these sessions in December 2023, in which he was asked to talk about this network and the work it was doing with the AQA exam board and local schoolteachers (this was in reference to a workshop the network ran in July 2023). The discussions focused on how the project had developed, what difficulties had been confronted, and where it might develop further. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Workshop on Teaching American History and Curriculum Review |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We ran a workshop with the AQA Exam board--who are a project partner--and a group of 6 secondary school teachers from across the northern UK (Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria, Lincolnshire). The first part of the session was on CPD-style training and development around the latest features in academic research on American history and how that relates to what is being taught at GCSE and A-level. The second part was a group conversation on potential review of the national curriculum, which is presently being explored by the Government, and what emphases the teachers, AQA, and academics present felt that ought to have. There has been subsequent follow-up after this session with the intention of hopefully developing a curriculum review focus group and further developing conversations around CPD and bridging the widening gap between schools and univerisities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Workshop on Violence and the American Century |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a workshop organised by the Universities of Sheffield and York, which the project PI and CI both participated in. The focus was on the topic of Violence and the American Century and saw participants submit written pieces for workshop discussion and further reflections. It provided an excellent opportunity to engage with people in the field not in the existing network and to develop further discussions about the state of the field and how this would affect our project as it further developed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |