u/GlobalAffairsClass

Hi all — long-time lurker, first post here.

I teach history, social studies (samhällskunskap), and International
Relations at a Swedish gymnasium (high school equivalent). I've been
working on a conflict-analysis framework with my students for about
8 years now, and I wanted to share it here in case it's useful — and
to get pushback from teachers in other systems.

It's called AIODP:

- Actors — who is involved (state, sub-state, non-state)
- Interests — what does each actor want
- Origins — what long-term structural conditions enabled this
- Dynamics — what short-term moves are escalating
- Perspectives — how would different observers explain this

The thing I've found useful: it scales. I introduce one letter at a
time in lower grades, layer up across units, and by the time my
students reach the equivalent of AP World / IB History HL they can
apply all five letters to any conflict — historical, current, or
counterfactual.

The principle I lean on hardest: "Explanation is not justification."
Students learn to explain why things happen without endorsing them.
I've found this is the single hardest thing to teach in topics like
Rwanda 1994, Hiroshima 1945, or contemporary intervention debates,
but also the most transferable.

I've used this framework across imperialism, the world wars, the
Cold War, and current cases (Ukraine, Hormuz, Taiwan).

Two questions for this sub:

1. For those of you teaching AP/IB at US or international schools —
   does AIODP map to your rubrics? I designed it for the Swedish
   curriculum but I'm increasingly using it with English-speaking
   students, and I want to know if it survives translation to
   AP LEQ / IB Paper 2 grading.

2. What's your equivalent? I'd genuinely like to see how other
   teachers structure causation analysis. SPICE, PERSIA, the AP
   themes — I've read about them but haven't seen them in action.

Happy to share the one-page worksheet I use with students (Sweden's
NATO accession as a case study) if anyone's interested — just say
the word in the comments.

Thanks for reading.