Giving It the Old College Try: Academic Departments and Undergraduate Curriculum Change in Political Science, 2009–2019
By Fletcher McClellan, Kyle C. Kopko, Amanda Hafler, Elizabethtown College
Thirty years after the last APSA-sponsored recommendations on the structure of the undergraduate political science major (Wahlke 1991), new efforts to “rethink” curriculum reform are under way (Ishiyama 2022). As a prelude to how the profession might respond, we examined how political science departments made undergraduate curriculum changes during the 2010s. Based on a survey of department chairs in 2019-20, one-half of political science programs changed major requirements in the previous five years and 70% made revisions during the decade. Most changes involved adding courses or tracks and modifying course sequences within the prevailing model of subfield distribution.
Assuming departments are rational actors seeking to improve student learning and respond effectively to the educational marketplace, various explanations of curriculum change were tested. Structural variables (institutional type and departmental factors) had no significant effects. Nevertheless, the survey revealed learning-based (acquiring disciplinary knowledge, developing intellectual skills) and market-based (concern about enrollments) motivations for change, as well as institutional constraints. Among curricular alternatives to the distribution model, evidence indicated greater support for promoting liberal learning and job-related skills such as data analysis. Moreover, over one-third of the respondents reported an increase in civic engagement opportunities, reflecting the influence of the student engagement movement(Kuh 2008) on the discipline (McCartney et al. 2013) and higher education.
Aside from promoting global and intercultural learning, few departments adopted changes that engaged students with diversity, issues of social justice, or moral and ethical reasoning. It may be that political scientists believe they are already doing a good job teaching diversity and inclusion. On the other hand, why departments would not want to build on this strength is surprising, given the increased heterogeneity of the student population and the salience of diversity and inequality topics during the Obama and Trump presidencies.
Based on our findings, we believe there is extensive but not transformative change happening in political science education. Discussions of what we teach, why, how, and whether it best serves our students are well under way at departmental and program levels. It remains to be seen whether the Rethinking Political Science Education project will lead to a reframing of the goals, assumptions, and structure of the undergraduate major.
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.