Within the span of a year, higher education?and indeed liberal education?lost two of its most prominent practitioners. John Rawls and Richard Neustadt, two scholars whose work provoked new engagement in areas of public policy, political philosophy, political leadership, and the study of government, died between November 2002 and November 2003.…

Analyzes graduate school ratings in three related disciplines - sociology, political science, and economics - from two rating sources: the National Research Council and "U.S. News and World Report." Hypothesizes three major components to ratings: perceived departmental quality, systematic error owing to the method of data collection, and…

During the past 35 years, Seymour Martin Lipset and his collaborators have generated a series of studies and reports on the political alignment in academia. They have all found the social sciences and humanities to be preponderantly Democratic. In the past decade there has been little scholarly inquiry into the political orientation of faculty.…

Pedagogical differentiation (i.e., tailoring instruction to each student's learning style, readiness level, and interest) has been applied to primary and secondary classrooms for over a decade but has never been formally applied to the undergraduate classroom. This paper explores the potential for differentiated instruction within the…

This chapter takes the somewhat unorthodox stance that the central purpose of an introductory political science course is not to prepare students for future political science courses but rather to prepare them for a lifetime of democratic citizenship. It suggests that the way to do this is not by primarily teaching content but by offering…

For the past decade the buzz words in teaching and learning have consisted of "the knowledge economy," "information literacy," and "transferable skills." The idea being; ensure students emerge from higher education with the skills needed to participate in the "knowledge economy." In response academics have…

This publication analyzes the reform movement in China before and after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989. In the aftermath of the cold war and because of recent mutual hostility, U.S.-Chinese relations are at a critical juncture. The events leading up to and encompassing the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and the brutal manner in…

This paper presents an innovative way to teach Introduction to Political Science by breaking with the convention of teaching a survey course of all political science subfields. Each student is invited to be a participant-observer and apply political science perspectives to the data collected from his/her personal polity. Readings, research, and…

This guide is designed to introduce high school teachers of American history to the most recent scholarship dealing with the origins of the U.S. Constitution. Surveys of recent scholarship on constitutional origins are organized by the following topics: historiography of the Convention, the Anti-federalists, The Federalist Papers, ratification of…

Using geographic criteria to assess the United States, two themes are apparent: 1) gulf between America's perception of conditions and reality, and 2) conflict between deeply rooted sentiment for isolationism and internationalism of a trade-oriented country. (ND)

Comparison of two-wave aggregate response-pattern results of political behavior study of continuity and change both across and within groups of 1965 high school seniors and their parents. Journal is available from American Political Science Association, 1527 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036. (ND)

Describes 10- to 14-year old children's responses to open-ended questions about political leaders in Britain, France, and United States in light of political socialization literature. For journal availability see SO 504 327. (ND)

The purpose of this paper is to sketch a useful taxonomy of how scholars have understood international relations and, in turn, which parts of these understandings have been transmitted to the classroom. (Author)

This paper examines the undergraduate beginning political science course offered in colleges and universities in the United States--what it has been, what research reveals it is, its relationship to the undergraduate curriculum, and its role in the discipline of political science as a whole--and especially speaking to the relationship between…

Suggests that political behavior instructors develop Q instruments because the atmosphere of experimentation, focus on self analysis and comparisons with peers, sense of group effort to extract meaning from Q-sort results, and intensity of debate produces rapid learning of major concepts usually presented in lectures. (Author/ND)