Amid a devastating pandemic and increasing polarization, how can US colleges and universities help students bridge divides, make their voices heard, and understand their responsibilities to others in a democratic society? This article is an interview of Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts…

Ample research has noted a positive sense of political efficacy associated with increased civic engagement. In turn, the role of service-learning in boosting students' civic engagement has been well documented. As civic engagement is a desirable goal for strengthening communities and empowering citizens, the role of service-learning in directly…

The scholarship of interdisciplinarity provides a potentially powerful response to anti-intellectual and anti-democratic impulses. It recognizes that proof and disproof are generally impossible, and that scientists can be biased in their evaluation of the evidence. Yet it proposes a set of strategies for transcending scholarly disputes in order to…

One of the biggest debates in South Africa is the use and usefulness of apartheid categories when analysing society and societal behaviour. This paper examines the process of learning and unlearning that took place when a political reporting lecturer and an academic staff developer sought to explain racially biased voting in South Africa and its…

One technology for education whose adoption is currently expanding rapidly in UK higher education is that of electronic voting systems (EVS). As with all educational technology, whether learning benefits are achieved depends not on the technology but on whether an improved teaching method is introduced with it. EVS inherently relies on the…

An overview of the experience of the opening two years of an institution-wide project in introducing electronic voting equipment for lectures is presented. Eight different departments and a wide range of group size (up to 300) saw some use. An important aspect of this is the organizational one of addressing the whole institution, rather than a…

An experiential political science course at the college level offers students a chance to volunteer their time to help in both national and local elections. Techniques and methods of evaluation are discussed. (JR)

Intended to aid teachers in presenting spatial modeling to students over a series of lectures and then applying it at various points during a political science course, this paper describes and explains the use of spatial models for understanding voting behavior based on microeconomic theories. (ND)

This paper reports the introduction of electronic handsets, like those used on the television show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? into the teaching of philosophical logic. Logic lectures can provide quite a formidable challenge for many students, occasionally to the point of making them ill. Our rationale for introducing handsets was threefold:…

A field experiment is described on the use of computer-related instruction at the college level in political science. The program modules are designed to: (1) teach a substantive body of knowledge in an introductory American government course; (2) introduce students to the basic methods of data analysis; and (3) teach elementary techniques of…