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Teaching the Iraq War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Russell A. Burgos
Russell A. Burgos
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

The last time members of the graduating class of 2008 lived in a nation at peace, they were in the first month of their high school sophomore year. Because they are not subject to conscription; because the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being fought by a professional army that has separated itself in many respects from civil society; and because the government has asked little of society in the way of sacrifice for the wars, today's undergraduates have little direct experience of conflict, the armed forces, or those people most affected by it. What do we teach students about the war? Political scientists are often reluctant to teach current events—aside from the fact emotions can run high and classroom discussion can be hijacked by unproductive ideological debates, in real-time we lack the kinds of patterned data that lend themselves to systematic analysis and prediction.

Type
THE TEACHER
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 173 - 178
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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