In theory, the fact that American colleges and universities tend to be liberal-leaning should not be an issue. However, several studies document that political bias in today's college classrooms causes students to avoid discussing potentially controversial topics for fear of criticism and ridicule, lowered grades, and even physical harm.…

Research suggests that America today is more politically polarized and less capable of conducting civil public discourse than at least the last several decades. These greater cultural factors unsurprisingly seem to have trickled into American schools, as teachers report increased divisiveness and conflict, particularly directed toward…

In this report, we update our ongoing research on five school systems to reveal the academic, social, and political challenges posed by the pandemic and what system leaders and their staff are doing to address student learning loss. The report is part of the American School District Panel, a research partnership between the RAND Corporation and…

In teaching the causes of the Iraq War, the use of "virtual history" can be employed in a conference setting in which different individuals are assigned to different plausible counterfactuals they use to construct virtual histories. The Iraq War lends itself to the virtual history approach because of the availability of many plausible…

This article explores to what extent citizenship education for lifelong learning should be based on a more "political" or civic republican conception of citizenship as compared to a liberal individualist conception, which emphasizes individual rights, or a communitarian conception, which emphasizes moral and social responsibilities. It…

Students are well served by course simulations that employ active learning styles and student-driven interaction. For debate on political issues, particular public policies are quite effective in stimulating that discussion. We developed an in-class simulation of political debate on the issue of Social Security. We describe the simulation itself,…

This paper describes a pedagogical technique employed for an interdisciplinary course on Cold War America. Students had to "become" a fictional person and discuss how political and social changes during the Cold War era would have impacted that person. By doing a semester-long project that required primary source research, this…

Provides background information on simulations and active learning. Discusses the use of simulations in political science courses. Describes a simulation exercise where students performed specific institutional role playing, simulating the workings of a single congressional issue network, based on the reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act.…

In this essay, the author describes a judicial confirmation simulation she developed as an approach to feminist teaching. She also discusses the importance of active learning in the classroom, as well as simulation background and teacher preparation for the simulation. Students are asked to sign up for various roles in the simulation. These are:…