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Elizabeth A. Worden Director, International Training and Education Program and Associate Professor 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 current project focuses on teacher agency, citizenship education, and the legacy of educational reform in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Her work questions the actual power that schooling has in changing deep-rooted values and beliefs. 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. Dr. Worden’s 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’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
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • EDU-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: Comp & Int'l Education

  • EDU-642 Adult Learning/Training Design

Spring 2025

  • EDU-385 Globalization and Education

  • EDU-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring

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

Worden, E.A. 2014. National Identity and Educational Reform: Contested Classrooms. New York: Routledge.

Select Journal Articles

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

Miller-Idriss, Cynthia and Elizabeth Anderson Worden. 2010.“Internationalization in U.S. Higher Education: Studying the Middle East in the American University.” Globalisation, Societies, and Education 8 (3): 393-409.

Anderson, E. A. 2005. “Backward, Forward, or Both? Moldovan Teachers’ Relationship to the State and the Nation.” Journal of European Education (Fall) 37 (3): 53-67.

Select Book Chapters

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson and Cynthia Miller-Idriss. 2017. “Beyond Multiculturalism: Conflict, Co-existence, and Messy Identities,” in Critical Trends in Comparative and International Education.Ìę Annual Review of Comparative and International Education: International Perspectives on Education and Society, edited by Alex Wiseman, 289-311. London: Bloomsbury.

Worden, Elizabeth Anderson and Jeremy Browne. 2016. “Trends in Arabic Language Learning on U.S. Campuses,” In Producing Knowledge on World Regions: Middle Eastern Studies in Critical Perspective, edited by Seteney Shami and Cynthia Miller-Idriss, 225-250. New York: New York University Press.

Worden, E.A., 2014. “Worden, E.A. 2014 “Education in the Republic of Moldova: Challenges and Promises,” In Education in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. London: Bloomsbury.

Gardinier, Meg P. and E.A. Worden. 2010. “The Semblance of Progress Amidst the Absence of Change: Educating for an Imagined Europe in Moldova and Albania” In Post-Socialism is Not Dead: (Re)reading the Global in Comparative Education, edited by Iveta Silova, 183-212. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.