scholarly journals Integrating Gender into the Political Science Core Curriculum

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (02) ◽  
pp. 238-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin C. Cassese ◽  
Angela L. Bos ◽  
Lauren E. Duncan

The New Research on Gender in Political Psychology Conference brought together new and experienced teachers with interests in gender politics. The conference session “Teaching Gender throughout the Curriculum” generated a great deal of discussion concerning the pedagogical practice of gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming—the integration of gendered content into courses required for a major—was recognized as one of 11 recommendations for reforming the undergraduate political science curriculum in the 1991 APSA report “Liberal Learning an The Political Science Major: A Report to the Profession” (popularly referred to as the Wahlke Report). Little information is available on the prevalence of gender courses in the undergraduate curriculum, but the data that does exist suggest such courses are uncommon (Brandes et al. 2001). We found virtually no data on the practice of gender mainstreaming in political science and little data in the way of assessing the impact of gendered content when students are exposed to it. This absence of data suggests gender mainstreaming has not emerged as a serious priority for curricular reform.

1947 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon G. Rockwell

Recent concern with the liberal arts curriculum as evinced by the report of the Harvard committee on General Education in a Free Society, Colgate's adoption of a core curriculum, and a thorough reëxamination of their entire educational program by scores of other institutions sharpens the recurrent problem of attempting better integration within the constituent parts of the curriculum. Whenever political scientists, talking shop, lapse into general principles, there is inevitable discussion concerning the nature and focus of political science itself. Much hard thinking has been done on the subject. There is, however, as in every profession where individual specialties are earnestly pursued, a tendency toward intellectual myopia, a tendency to miss, by default rather than consciously, a synoptic view of the subject. This has resulted in a lack of integration, of comprehensive design, of sense of balanced purpose, in many political science curricula.The miscellany of unrelated, overlapping courses which one sometimes encounters in college or university catalogues, to say nothing of the neglect of important aspects of government, indicates that the political science curriculum has received inadequate analysis. Political scientists who teach are educators as well, and thereby have a dual professional responsibility to present their field of inquiry as an integrated, comprehensive whole, elucidated by specific course offerings. Only thus can political science realize its richest contribution to liberal education as well as to an understanding of the political process within and beyond academic halls.


1986 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Kitchin

Biopolitics should be offered as a separate, independent course in the undergraduate curriculum, and graduate training should be offered within the rubric of political science. The primary reason that biopolitical materials should be covered in the undergraduate, liberal arts curriculum is that there is a need to train students to be vigilant, i.e., to have a critical capacity to confront ideas. Since so much of their lives will be intertwined with the political and so much of the political is better explained by considering biopolitical variables than by not considering them, students need exposure and academic coverage of biopolitical concepts and findings. Biopolitics represents only minor change in the general behavioralistic framework of explaining political phenomena, but represents the introduction into political science of some concepts and variables more widely used in the life sciences. Because biopolitical materials are high in quantity and because they are per se important and increase the explanatory power of traditional behavioralism, a biopolitics course belongs in the political science curriculum. The preparation of qualified teachers and researchers argues for graduate training in biopolitics. Without such graduate training in political science departments, the biopolitical inquiry will primarily be undertaken in disciplines other than political science.


1987 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 12-13
Author(s):  
R. Michael Smith

In the Summer 1985 issue of the News for Teachers of Political Science, Peter Steinberger raises the perenially fascinating question of the appropriate purposes of the undergraduate political science curriculum. Professor Steinberger rejects two possible purposes, coverage, and the production of good citizens. He also questions the value of teaching subjects that might be learned outside the classroom. Instead, he argues the purpose of an undergraduate curriculum should be teaching one or more modes of thinking characteristic of political science, what might be called our strategies of inquiry. While I agree with Professor Steinberger that we should teach our students how we think, I believe the political science curriculum should have more purposes than this.


1983 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 13-14
Author(s):  
Leta A. Moniz

Integrating Women's Studies with any curriculum, political science or otherwise, is a formidable task. And like most changes in curriculum, the integration of Women's Studies material has not come about in orderly fashion. There are some dimensions to Women's Studies integration, however, that set it apart from other curriculum change.The thrust of Women's Studies vis a vis any discipline is to revise and reinterpret that discipline from a feminist perspective. Feminist philosophy has argued that traditional methodologies, theories, and manifest analyses have contained a patriarchal bias which has excluded the impact of women from the intellectual evolution of humankind. Thus, on the discipline and on the academy itself, the very premise of Women's Studies makes demands which are far-reaching and threatening to establishment doctrine.


Author(s):  
Anna М. Solarz

The 2015 immigration crisis revealed the weak cultural condition Europe finds itself in, given the adoption by a majority of states of a model for development that deliberately severs ties with common civilisational roots. However, while Poles do not really nurture prejudices against either Islam or immigrants, a decided majority of them voiced their unwillingness to accept new (mainly Muslim) arrivals, in the context of a solution to the above crisis the EU was intending to impose. A change of policy was thus forced upon the Union by Poland and other CEECs, given the latter’s strong guiding conviction that pursuit of a multicultural ideology leads to a weakening – rather than any improvement – in the condition of culture in Europe, and hence to a sapping of the continent’s power in the international relations sphere. As the crisis has made clear, the EU will probably have to start taking more account of preferences in this part of Europe. This means opportunities for the political science of religion to research the likelihood of a return to the Christian component of European identity, as well as the role this might play in improving the cultural condition of this part of the world.


Author(s):  
Alesha Doan

The impact of morality conflicts on the political landscape is widespread. These debates have involved political institutions at every level of government, impacted electoral outcomes, shaped agendas, and occupied significant space in citizen discourses. However, despite the historical and modern regularity of these debates, scholars have been slow to consider belief-laden conflicts within the purview of political science research. This chapter explores the development of the morality politics literature. Attention is given to the initial research in this field, as well as the studies that refined and challenged several of the early assumptions underpinning morality politics scholarship.


1942 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1142-1146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan P. Allen ◽  
Rodney L. Mott ◽  
Kenneth O. Warner ◽  
Francis O. Wilcox ◽  
E. M. Kirkpatrick

In these days of war, with democracy facing the greatest challenge in its history, it would be a sad mistake for anyone to assume an attitude of smug complacency. Such would be disastrous if not literally treasonable. Educators, therefore, along with labor and industry, business and agriculture, need to re-examine and revaluate their contribution to the common welfare of the community. Engaged in a war that threatens the very existence of freedom of thought, scholarship, and teaching, educational leaders have an obligation to see that the best possible use is made of one of democracy's outstanding institutions—a free educational system. If the democratic nations fail to train men in good moral and intellectual habits, fail to produce men of keen insight and critical judgment, fail to give us free minds that can join in our struggle toward a better life for all the people of the world, they will have failed in one of their most important obligations to the human race, no matter how the struggle upon the field of battle may end.


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