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Photograph of Elizabeth A. Worden

Elizabeth A. Worden Professor and Faculty Co-Lead for the Encounters First Year Program SOE Faculty

Degrees
PhD, International Education, New York University, Steinhardt School of Education


MA, International Education, New York University, Steinhardt School of Education


BA, History, The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee

Languages Spoken
Romanian
Bio
Dr. Elizabeth Anderson Worden is a comparative and international education scholar who examines how governments foster identities and belonging through education during social and political transition. Her most recent project focuses on teacher agency, citizenship education, and the legacy of educational reform in post-conflict Northern Ireland. This research has been funded by a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship and a four-year appointment as a visiting professor to the School of Education and UNESCO Centre at Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. She recently published the book Citizenship Education in a Divided Society: Lessons from Curricula and Practice in Northern Ireland (Routledge 2023) from this research. Dr. Worden’s first book National Identity and Education Reform: Contested Classrooms (Routledge 2014) examines these issues in the context of Post-Soviet Moldova. Her work has appeared in Comparative Education, Journal of European Education, Globalisation, Societies, and Education, and Comparative Education Review.

Dr. Worden is a senior advisor with the Polarization, Extremism, Research, and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at AU. She is studying and writing about the implementation of PERIL’s Developing and Using Critical Comprehension program, a digital literacy program for k-12 students.

Dr. Worden’s larger research interests include history teaching, history textbooks, memory, citizenship education, education and transitional justice, nationalism and national identity, and international exchange. Some of courses she teaches at AU include Comparative and International Education, International Education Exchange: Policies and Practices, and Education and Transitional Justice. Dr. Worden is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Moldova 1997-1999) and she enjoys having fellow RPCVs in her classes.
See Also
School of Education
International Training & Education Program
For the Media
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Teaching

Spring 2025

  • EDU-385 Globalization and Education

  • EDU-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: Education/Transitional Justice

Fall 2025

  • CORE-102 Encounter AU

  • EDU-280 Social Justice & Urban Educ

Partnerships & Affiliations

  • Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK
    Visiting Professor 2015-2019

  • George Mason Univ., Program on History, Memory, and Conflict
    Affiliated Faculty

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

Dr. Worden’s larger research interests include history teaching, history textbooks, memory, citizenship education, education and transitional justice, nationalism and national identity, and international exchange.

Selected Publications

Books

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson, 2023. Citizenship Education in a Divided Society: Lessons from Curricula and Practice in Northern Ireland. New York: Routledge.

 

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson, 2014. National Identity and Educational Reform: Contested Classrooms. New York: Routledge.

                Reviewed in European Education (2015) and Comparative Education Review (2015)

 

Select Journal Articles

O’Connor, Una, Elizabeth Anderson Worden, Jessica Bates and Vanessa Gstrein. 2020. “Lessons learned from 10 years of citizenship education in Northern Ireland: A critical analysis of curriculum change.” The Curriculum Journal 31 (3): 479-494.

 

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson, and Alan Smith. 2017. “Teaching for democracy in the absence of transitional justice: The case of Northern Ireland.” Comparative Education 53 (3): 379-395.

 

Bellino, Michelle, Paulson, Julia, and Elizabeth Anderson Worden. 2017. “Working through difficult pasts: toward thick democracy and transitional justice in education.” Comparative Education 53 (3): 313-332.

 

Friedman, Jonathan Z., and Elizabeth Anderson Worden. 2016. "Creating interdisciplinary space on campus: lessons from US area studies centers." Higher Education Research & Development 35 (1): 129-141.

 

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson 2011. “The ‘Mock Reform’ of History Curriculum in Moldova: Actors versus the Script.” Comparative Education Review 55 (2): 231-251.