What makes a useful textbook, and can the use of textbooks boost active learning and student satisfaction in political science higher education? Drawing on the author's own experience of writing a textbook and a student survey, this article articulates some propositions on effective textbook-assisted teaching practice. In seeking to develop a…

Since first airing on HBO in 2011, "Game of Thrones" (GOT) has proven to be a fruitful text for teaching and studying politics. In 2022 the prequal to GOT-House of The Dragon (HOTD) debuted on HBO. This paper conducts discourse analysis on the entire first season with two goals in mind. First, we demonstrate how pop culture is impacted…

The rise in populism and movements that threaten trust in science and expertise has been labeled a post-truth world. What challenges does this environment present for higher education, and how should it respond? This article examines the characteristics of a post-truth world and how that challenges the fundamental purposes of higher education. It…

Contemporary liberal democracies face complex and disruptive challenges, such as toxic populism, culture wars, political polarization, religious fundamentalism, the climate emergency, global conflicts, and the influence of powerful social media platforms. This is the disconcerting world that young people are growing up in and need support in…

Some in our discipline have recently voiced the opinion that political science is a data science. What follows from this argument is that we as instructors are training the next generation of data scientists, especially professionals and researchers who will work with big data. This paper explores the implications for political science education,…

The field of communication has been working to reconcile its historic omission of race from research (Chakravartty et al., 2018) and pedagogy (Chakravartty & Jackson, 2020). The subfield of political communication has begun this process in its research (Freelon et al., 2023) but has yet to consider the implications of race missing from…

Researchers in higher education (HE) are a community of academics with backgrounds and experiences in a variety of scientific disciplines. For this reason, HE research is influenced by other disciplines from which HE researchers take theories, constructs and research methods. This article describes a large-scale analysis of the impact of different…

This article reports the results of an examination of 187 introductory political theory courses within political science departments across Canada from 2011 to 2016. While instructors and departments know what they are doing in their classrooms, this article provides a broad overview of the field of political philosophy in Canadian universities…

What is a good working definition of "Postmodernity" for the undergraduate in Political Science? "Postmodernism?" What are the differences? This article provides a number of definitions designed to help faculty and undergraduates understand the terms "Postmodernity" and "Postmodernism." The purpose of the…

How much should student effort matter in their course grades? How much does student effort actually matter? What is the link between student effort and student performance, especially when the effort is not specifically focused on a specific performance metric? This paper examines these questions normatively as well as by analyzing student data…

Political science is deeply but reluctantly involved in learning outcomes assessment. A 2013 survey reveals that political science departments are using assessment data strategically to satisfy mandates and obtain resources. By applying criteria developed by Frickel and Gross, outcomes assessment in higher education can be understood as an example…

Moving beyond the nominal recognition of Black lives toward a struggle for Black liberation raises several challenges, one of which is the critical role of political education. For this reason, this article explores Euromodernity's constructions and sustenance of apolitical educational arrangements that constrain political speech fundamental to a…

This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a 'frame analytic' approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history,…

This article describes the results of a game ("Zombie Federalism") created for a lower-level political science elective, State and Local Politics. This game was created to improve both retention of course material and enthusiasm in a historically underperforming course. In the game, students play the roles of officials in different…

Events of recent years both in the United States and around the globe have highlighted the fragility of democracy. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has prompted educators to seek evidence-based civic engagement methods for helping students understand the invasion and its implications. This paper offers a set of recommendations on how to teach the…