We have a fantastic student team based at the University of St Andrews, who are taking part in our research via their participation in a ‘Vertically Integrated Project‘.
A Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) is an ongoing research project led by an academic supervisor and made up of a team of students from any level of study (the ‘vertical’ aspect). The team of students can come from different subject areas with diverse backgrounds and skills across both arts and science. Students can earn credits and receive a grade for the project. They may be able to remain on the project for several semesters if this can be accommodated in the curriculum.
Our VIP team is contributing to our research on Teaching Ancient War and Peace by exploring:
- Current practice/trends in teaching ancient war/warfare (and their impacts)
- Current practice/trends in teaching ancient peace/conflict resolution (and their impacts)
- Examples of good practice in teaching war/peace in other disciplines beyond Classics
- War and Peace teaching beyond the classroom (e.g. in the museum setting, via tourist sites, etc)
- The influence of popular culture (e.g. gaming, fiction) on students’ learning and/or teaching practice
- Creative pedagogies for teaching ancient and modern war/peace (including speculative history, critical fabulation and gaming)
- Diversifying voices/sources/themes for teaching ancient war/peace
- Relating ancient war/peace teaching to modern contexts (challenges and opportunities)
- Opportunities for employing ancient case studies to deliver contemporary war/peace education in diverse settings
The team has two main goals: to enhance the treatment of conflict in ancient-world studies, and to explore what use can be made of ancient case studies to enhance how war and peace are taught in other subject areas. Team members will conduct research across primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors in the UK and beyond). Drawing on scholarship in Education Studies, Peace Education, Classics, War Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies, activities will include the study of current curricula and assessment approaches, surveys and focus groups with teachers and learners, and the design and pilot-testing of new teaching resources. We will draw on pedagogic theory as well as practice, and our work will be informed by relevant research in a wide range of disciplines that map trends in how we understand and approach war and peace.
Over the course of three years, the VIP team will work towards the following outputs:
- an extensive online bibliographic resource on teaching war and peace (ancient and modern) which will be of value to all educators, across multiple disciplines and learning contexts
- data-gathering at scale with learners and teachers in different contexts, to map current patterns and future opportunities for teaching ancient and modern war and peace (published as a series of reports and data visualisations on our project website)
- a series of peer-reviewed publications based on the above, co-authored with VIP students, in e.g. a Routledge Handbook of Teaching Ancient War and Peace, The Journal of Classics Teaching, Peace Education journals, the Journal of Citizenship Teaching
- a portfolio of pilot-tested teaching resources and school workshops based on our findings and co-designed by team members, for dissemination via our website and via the teacher-learner networks which our project will forge
- pilot-tested teacher training materials and workshops to support the use of our new teaching resources, co-designed by team members
- a series of jointly-authored recommendations for curriculum designers (in national education systems, museum spaces, education-focused NGOs), to drive positive change based on our findings
- an online game, co-developed with a specialist Gaming Lab, designed to teach ancient war and peace differently for the future