Bridging the Gap Between Genocide and Human Rights Scholarship and Secondary School Education

The Zoryan Institute is pleased to announce that Genocide Studies International (GSI), published by the University of Toronto Press, will be releasing educational supplements tailored to secondary school educators, utilising past and new papers published in the journal.

The educational supplements aim to help bridge the knowledge gap between academics and the public, particularly high school students. Each educational supplement seeks to raise awareness about genocide and other atrocity crimes among future generations, and inspire students to act as engaged global citizens, by providing a lesson plan and worksheet on content from the journal for teachers to use in their classes. Speaking to the significance of this new undertaking, Dr. Jennifer Rich, the GSI co-editor who will be spearheading the project, stated,

“We’re aware of the gap between knowledge created by and for researchers, and knowledge consumed by a broad audience, including high school students, and we wanted to begin to build a bridge between the two. It’s our hope that this supplement, and the others that follow, will bring the latest research about genocide and human rights to anyone who would like to access it, and allow the next generation of human rights leaders to participate in the conversations and debates happening today.”

With GSI’s long standing reputation of producing quality work for scholarly audiences, it will become the first academic journal of the genocide studies field to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and the general public, by placing genocide education front and centre. We are thrilled to be able to bring the journal’s existing work and scholarship to new audiences, and have it used as a valuable teaching resource for educators, and the general public.

Antonia Pop, University of Toronto Press Vice President, had this to say about the launch of this new initiative:

“Genocide Studies International’s (GSI) new initiative expands the opportunity for our future leaders for essential learning and informed discourse about human rights. University of Toronto Press is enthusiastic about the launch of the GSI Education Supplements—GSI’s quality scholarship is exceptional, and this initiative will support bridging this learning gap to engage youth, as the global citizens they are, in these essential issues.”

The first Educational Supplement is now available on the Genocide Studies International UTP website and on Zoryan Institute’s High School Genocide Education Resources Page. This inaugural supplement has been designed  to serve as a teaching tool for educators to use on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on January 27th of each year. This supplement will use three timeless papers published in GSI, that have been carefully selected for their  important content and to introduce broader themes, like genocide denial, to classroom conversations.

Click Here to Access the Educational Supplements

The Zoryan Institute would like to heartily thank the GSI’s four co-editors, Dr. Alexander Alvarez, Dr. Henry Theriault, Dr. Jennifer Rich, and Dr. Adam Muller, not only for their tireless work and dedication to the operation of the journal, but for their ingenuity and their invaluable contributions to genocide education as a whole.
If you are an educator, and you are interested in receiving updates from the Zoryan Institute about the Educational Supplements and teaching resources, please contact Megan Reid at zoryan@zoryaninstitute.org.  For feedback and questions about this initiative, please contact Dr. Jennifer Rich at jrich@genocidestudies.org.