Teaching comparative politics entails much more than comparing the formal political structures of selected countries.

This rapidly changing field also involves consideration of the influences of broad transnational themes, such as political competition, globalization, democratization, ethnic conflict, economic restructuring, and the role of nongovernmental actors. The global economic and financial crisis, competition for energy resources, and the need to deal with global environmental problems accentuate all these themes. New comparative tools are needed to understand how these forces interact to shape contemporary government and politics within different nations.

This workshop is designed to help teachers of AP* Comparative Government and Politics courses strengthen their understanding of this sub-discipline and add to their knowledge of the six countries covered in the AP* curriculum: China, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, and the United Kingdom. A major emphasis of the class will be questions about concepts, pedagogy, and resources. Each participant will develop two concept-based lesson plans to share with other teachers and the group will construct a glossary of important concepts by the end of the week,.

Participants who attend this session for a second time will be expected to prepare and teach a substantive lesson based on one or more important concepts in comparative politics, preferably a lesson they have used with AP* Comparative Government and Politics classes.

Ken Wedding, former AP* government teacher and consultant to the College Board*, Carleton Alum of '67, studied comparative politics at Carleton; taught the AP* course from 1985 to 2002; read AP* exams from 1991-2003.