5: Teaching the Cold War in Chinese International Schools: A Lesson About Political Socialization to Promote Reflective Learning

This chapter shares an interdisciplinary lesson about youth political socialization in the Cold War, and the second author taught it to Psychology and Modern World History classes at a Chinese international school. Because of this unique, transnational school context, this lesson focuses on two learning objectives: subjectification and historical empathy. The compelling question of the lesson plan asks students to consider how understanding political socialization affects how they think about others and themselves. Learning tasks include a salon-style activity, in which students meet international perspectives of youth in five nations, discussion, and written reflection. This chapter includes the teacher’s reflection and a description of how students responded to the lesson. Although this lesson specifies a topic and school context, it may serve as a model to inspire other topics for lessons across school contexts.