The author of this article expands the background theory of voting to incorporate the undergraduate majors of members of Congress. Examining nine votes on trade across the 109th and 110th Congresses reveals that economics majors are the only category of college major to vote in favor of free trade in a predictable way. Controls for a variety of…

We describe a non-statistics, data-based activity developed by the author for an interdisciplinary course on mathematics and politics that uses actual ballot data from the City of San Francisco, California. The assignment is appropriate for a general education audience and develops students' ability to work with data, improves their understanding…

Political participation is seriously unequal. For example, young adults who finish college vote at almost three times the rate of contemporaries who have dropped out of high school. That gap translates into disparities by race and class. Effective civic education can reduce such inequality and make our democracy more representative. Teaching…

In this article, the author's share some ways that voters--and specifically educators--can advocate for their views on an ongoing basis and make those views known to the elected officials who make decisions that directly affect teachers. These policymakers generally are not educators by training and, consequently, lack the in-depth knowledge…

I present a unit on voting theory and social choice taught as the beginning of a liberal arts mathematics course for undergraduates. In this unit, students voted on the final grade calculation formula and topics to cover during the semester and then analyzed the results using various voting systems. I believe that by allowing my students to…

Many readers may recall that this author wrote an open letter to President Obama in 2010 where he took issue with the emphasis on math and science education resulting in the marginalization of social studies and citizenship. In this column, he has selected and written about websites that focus on the election process. The author hopes this will…

If educators recall hating homework as students, why then would they continue to subject their students to similar experiences? The authors believe that, by finding ways to leverage learning opportunities outside of school, the curriculum could become more dynamic and personal. Their intent in writing this article is to reveal how one can maintain…

One technique for identifying and addressing common student errors is the method of classroom voting, in which the instructor presents a multiple-choice question to the class, and after a few minutes for consideration and small group discussion, each student votes on the correct answer, often using a hand-held electronic clicker. If a large number…

Clickers and classroom voting are used across a number of disciplines in a variety of institutions. There are several papers that describe the use of clickers in mathematics classrooms such as precalculus, calculus, statistics, and even differential equations. This paper describes a method of incorporating clickers and classroom voting in a…

There are many approaches that schools could take to prepare and encourage young people to vote. These approaches may be less dramatic than linking registration to graduation, but they are more comprehensive and likely even more effective in the long term. In this article, the author encourages educators, particularly the social studies community,…

In the United States courses on civics or government are often marginalized in most states' social studies curricula in favor of courses in United States or world history. The origins of this history-dominated approach have roots in the debates between the American Historical Association and the National Education Association at the turn of the…

This teaching case discusses the analysis of an electronic voting system. The development of the case was motivated by research into information security and management, but as it includes procedural aspects, organizational structure and personnel, it is a suitable basis for all aspects of systems analysis, planning and design tasks. The material…

In early July, the country of Sudan, wracked by civil war since the 1980s, officially split into two separate nations, Sudan and South Sudan. Six months earlier, over a seven-day period, the people in southern Sudan had voted in a national referendum on whether to secede from the North. The voters had two choices: "Separation" or…

The 2012 elections are the perfect opportunity to help students make sense of and visualize their role in the democratic society. In this article, the authors examine the benefits of building a class museum centered on the theme: "Government of the People, for the People, and by the People." They provide steps and examples to show how to build a…

"Democracy thrives because it helps individuals identify with the society of which they are members and because it provides for legitimate decision-making and exercise of power." With this statement, the Council of Europe raises for us some fundamental questions: what is the practice of democracy, its merits and its limitations? A…