Curricular Design, American Political Development, and the Future of the Undergraduate Political Science Major
By Joshua Plencner, and Allison Rank, SUNY Oswego
In this article we ground recent literature on “rethinking political science education” by offering faculty a practicable model for building more structured curricular pathways in their own undergraduate programs. Despite wide acknowledgement as necessary for deepened learning, curricular redesign entailing formal changes to major requirements can face significant bureaucratic obstacles, context-specific institutional constraints, and struggles related to faculty buy-in. Here, by discussing our recently designed and implemented American Political Development-focused undergraduate American politics curriculum, we show how faculty can use “loosely sequenced” coursework to collaboratively develop their own focused, structured curricula from the bottom up – without formal changes to requirements
The Journal of Political Science Education is an intellectually rigorous, path-breaking, agenda-setting journal that publishes the highest quality scholarship on teaching and pedagogical issues in political science. The journal aims to represent the full range of questions, issues and approaches regarding political science education, including teaching-related issues, methods and techniques, learning/teaching activities and devices, educational assessment in political science, graduate education, and curriculum development.