Faculty at many colleges and universities are redesigning courses to address differences in student learning preferences. In this study, the researchers surveyed students in two similar American Politics classes. In one, the instructor used a traditional large-class lecture format. In the other, lectures were supplemented with weekly small-group…

Student evaluations of quantitative methods courses in political science often reveal they are characterised by aversion, alienation and anxiety. As a solution to this problem, this paper describes a pedagogic research project with the aim of embedding quantitative methods by stealth into the first-year undergraduate curriculum. This paper…

Discusses instruction on communist systems and questions whether they should be taught as isolated groupings, given the resulting tendency to distortion. Suggests alternative integrative categories for these systems. Explores the difficulty of teaching these systems in a hostile and polemical environment and offers suggestions to compensate for…

Discusses classical theory as a modernist endeavor to apprehend the phenomenon of "unity of disunity." Presents three ways that classical theory approaches the philosophy views of Durkheim, Marx, and Weber. Concludes that postmodernism validates the relevancy of classical theory. (CFR)

Asserts that the end of the Cold War and new world realities present challenges to social studies teachers. Presents suggestions for helping students change their way of thinking about the world and the place of the United States within it. Encourages teachers to examine the existing social studies curriculum for relevance. (CFR)

The project's activities during the past year to develop a process for analysis of the working of pressure groups in the political decision-making process are discussed in this report. In addition, information is given on the organization and developmental processes which the team used in the formulation and adaption of a unit. In the first part…

This project's study of pressure groups in Canadian urban government proposes the development of an interdisciplinary social science cirriculum for the secondary school student in grades 9 through 12 which would give meaningful perspective toward the various decision-making structures and processes. Other major objectives are: 1) to enable the…

A survey was made to determine if American youth understands why and how the United States departed from the pre-Wilsonian policy of no permanent alliances to become allied with 47 different nations in 11 treaties in a period of only 12 years. The primary survey source was a questionnaire on both attitude and knowledge completed by nearly 200…

This paper presents a new approach designed to help students understand the concepts around which introductory social and political science courses are typically built. The social science course, "Problem Solving in Society," includes an exercise requiring the class as a whole to select, and develop proposals to alleviate, a social problem.…

This study evaluates the results of innovation in teaching methodology in an American government college course. The assumption of the study was that organizing a course into modules which required students to be tested for proficiency after each module was presented would maximize student factual knowledge gain and would result in improved…

The "International Society for the Social Studies Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. It contains the following papers: (1) Teacher Perceptions of Authentic Pedagogy: A Case Study of Professional Development in an African American High School's…