Political Science Educator: volume 29, issue 2
Teacher Scholar
By Elizabeth A. Bennion (ebennion@iu.edu)
Political science educators face an unusual paradox. Faculty are asked to cultivate informed, active citizens at the very moment when biology, psychology, and neuroscience increasingly reveal stable influences on political attitudes and behaviors. For many instructors, this raises an unsettling possibility: if traits like threat sensitivity, openness to experience, or preference for hierarchy are partly heritable and shaped by physiological states, can classroom practice really move the needle on civic engagement? The better question, I argue, is: How can thoughtful course design help students participate well across the spectrum of human temperament?
The last two decades of research make it clear that predispositions are starting points, not end points. Twin studies estimate a substantial heritable component in political ideology, indicating that genetic factors explain a meaningful share of variation in attitudes at the population level (Alford, Funk, and Hibbing 2005). Neuroscience offers complementary evidence—structural and functional differences in regions associated with threat detection and conflict monitoring correlate with ideological tendencies (Kanai et al. 2011; Jost et al. 2014). Physiological work shows that stronger autonomic reactions to aversive stimuli are associated with certain issue positions (Oxley et al. 2008). Hormone studies suggest state-dependent nudges among weak partisans, where fluctuations in testosterone and cortisol can shift warmth toward candidates or reduce identification with a party at the margins (Wagstaff, Wheatcroft, and Moran 2011). Additionally, early socialization matters as well. A natural experiment finds that men with younger sisters display more conservative gender-role attitudes and are more likely to identify as Republicans later in life (Healy and Malhotra 2013). Taken together, these literatures broaden our understanding of political behavior without fixing individual futures in place. They remind us that the classroom is not a laboratory for rewiring brains, but an institution for cultivating democratic practice in spaces of political difference.
Rather than framing civic education as an effort to convert students ideologically, the goal should be to cultivate capacities for democratic engagement by measuring success not by shifts in ideology but by growth in skills that enable high-quality participation across perspectives. These capacities include information literacy, argumentation, empathy, perspective taking, norms of democratic discourse, and institutional literacy—all of which can be explicitly taught, practiced, and assessed. When faculty pair content with low-threat, high-structure routines that respect students’ varied temperaments, we help our students build habits that democracy requires like listening with accuracy, questioning with curiosity, finding and weighing evidence, and identifying feasible policy options that acknowledge competing values.
Designing for human diversity is the key to maximizing our student reach. In practice, that means creating multiple pathways to engagement—debates, simulations, reflective writing, small-group deliberation, and anonymous polling—so students can select modes that match their strengths and provide opportunities to develop new skills. It means normalizing disagreement as a feature of democratic life rather than a failure of a discussion. Deliberative pedagogy, with structured protocols and rotating roles, helps students practice the rhythm of collective reasoning: summarizer, evidence-finder, questioner, and inclusion monitor. When classrooms feel psychologically safe—because norms are explicit, public shaming is off the table, shared civic purposes are foregrounded, and inquiry is framed around curiosity and stewardship—students are far more willing to explore complex ideas and revise positions over time (Jost et al. 2014). As Strachan (2021) emphasizes, instructors should intentionally foster inclusive norms and use strategies that ensure equitable participation and challenge patterns that silence marginalized voices.
One widely used civic learning exercise is Structured Academic Controversy, where students prepare arguments for and against a ‘Should…’ question, present those arguments without debate, switch sides to engage with the opposing perspective, and then drop roles to seek common ground—fostering deeper understanding of both content and democratic practice (Johnson & Johnson 1994). As noted by McMurtrie (2023), professors—like me—who teach students to understand why others think differently can help learners engage constructively across ideological divides and develop habits of curiosity and respect.
Assessment, consequently, should capture growth without making ideology the target. Rubrics can evaluate how effectively students locate and integrate credible evidence, how accurately they summarize opposing views, how usefully they bring in quality questions, and how coherently they synthesize areas of agreement and disagreement into plausible options. Formative checks—one-minute papers, exit tickets, and peer feedback—create low-stakes opportunities to course-correct. Summative artifacts (such as policy memos, deliberation portfolios, or community project reports) reveal how students connect ideas to action. Pre/post measures of civic agency, confidence, and institutional literacy can help measure change over time. Student reflection is central. When students can articulate how their temperament shaped their engagement and how they compensated for it with strategy and norms, they demonstrate the skills we intend to cultivate.
Fairness and accessibility require the same intentionality. Universal Design for Learning principles suggest varying the means of engagement and expression so students can demonstrate learning through multiple formats—infographics, memos, op-eds, podcasts, poems, slide-decks, and videos. Teachers can take several steps to create a positive learning environment: protect space for quieter voices with structured turn-taking, small-group work, and opportunities to submit ideas in writing; provide leadership roles for assertive students while explicitly coaching listening and synthesis; and discuss emotional regulation and metacognition as civic skills. Discomfort is not the enemy, but it should be carefully navigated. Most importantly, help students make sense of political disagreement by situating it in a broader account of how biology, family, culture, media, and education combine to shape attitudes (Settle and Detert 2018; Petersen 2015). When disagreement becomes normalized, the classroom can host genuine inquiry rather than ideological sorting.
What about pitfalls? One common error is essentializing biology—overreading correlational findings as individual fate. Heritability estimates are population-level, not predictive of particular students, and neural or physiological correlates indicate association, not inevitability (Alford, Funk, and Hibbing 2005; Kanai et al. 2011). A related mistake is treating persuasion and attitude change as a primary metric of success. When instructors expect enduring attitude change from brief exposure to new information, they miss the power of repeated practice in democratic competencies. Another pitfall is one-size-fits-all discussion formats that quietly reward a single temperament. Diversifying modalities and roles unlocks broader participation. Finally, instructors sometimes underemphasize institutional literacy—the concrete pathways for participation that include elections, public comment, contacting officials, serving on boards, and community problem-solving (APSA Presidential Task Force 2024). Mapping these routes makes agency visible and transferable beyond the course.
Communicating the science ethically is part of our charge. Instructors should be explicit about what the research supports and what it does not. Clarify that biological influences interact with experience and that predisposition is not destiny. Invite students to reflect on their own mix of nature and nurture, and to consider how intentional practice can widen their range of civic behaviors. This framing is especially important for students who feel politically marginalized or disengaged. When they see that civic skills are learned and that democratic participation does not require a particular ideology, engagement becomes attainable and meaningful.
The deeper point is that democracy depends on cultivation. Citizens do not arrive with the full repertoire of democratic habits; they acquire them. In an age of documented predispositions, the work of civic educators becomes more, not less, significant. By designing courses that work with human diversity—offering structured routines, multiple engagement modes, and assessments that honor process—we teach students how to engage across their differences and through institutions. The goal is not homogeneity of belief but quality of participation. Biology, life experience, networks, and socialization explain why students enter our classrooms differently. Civic education helps explain how they leave better equipped to listen, reason, collaborate, and act with integrity. They become better equipped to both defend and engage in democratic institutions and practices.
Program-level alignment amplifies these gains. Political science, as a discipline, should promote and support scaffolded civic skill development across the curriculum. When departments agree on a small set of civic outcomes—evidence use, deliberative competence, and institutional literacy—and thread role-structured discussions and community-based assignments across the curriculum, students can encounter repeated practice in different contexts. Methods courses can incorporate nonpartisan data collection for local partners. Internships can require civic action plans and reflective narratives that connect predispositions, context, and strategy. Capstones can showcase deliberative portfolios. This scaffolding ensures that democratic capacities grow cumulatively rather than episodically (Settle and Detert 2018). Through repeated exposure and practice students learn to participate wisely and well, allowing us to fulfill our role in creating the next generation of informed and engaged citizens for democracy.
References
Alford, John R., Carolyn L. Funk, and John R. Hibbing. 2005. “Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?” American Political Science Review 99(2): 153–167.
APSA Presidential Task Force on Rethinking Political Science Education. 2024. Rethinking Political Science Education. American Political Science Association.
Healy, Andrew, and Neil Malhotra. 2013. “Childhood Socialization and Political Attitudes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.” Journal of Politics 75(4): 1023–1037.
Jost, John T., H. Hannah Nam, David M. Amodio, and Jay J. Van Bavel. 2014. “Political Neuroscience: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship.” Political Psychology 35(S1): 3–42.
Kanai, Ryota, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth, and Geraint Rees. 2011. “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults.” Current Biology 21(8): 677–680.
Oxley, Douglas R., Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford, Matthew V. Hibbing, John L. Miller, Mario Scalora, Peter K. Hatemi, and John R. Hibbing. 2008. “Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits.” Science 321(5896): 1667–1670.
Petersen, Michael Bang. 2015. “Evolutionary Political Psychology: On the Origin and Structure of Heuristics and Biases in Politics.” Political Psychology 36(S1): 45–78.
Settle, Jaime E., and James R. Detert. 2018. Biology and Political Behavior. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, 2nd ed., eds. Leonie Huddy, David O. Sears, and Jack S. Levy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wagstaff, Graham F., Jacqueline M. Wheatcroft, and Aidan P. Moran. 2011. “Testosterone, Cortisol, and Political Preferences.” Brain and Behavior 1(1): 1–10.
Johnson, David W., and Roger T. Johnson. 1994. “Structuring Academic Controversy.” In S. Sharan (Ed.), Handbook of Cooperative Learning Methods. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
McMurtrie, Beth. 2023. “These Professors Help Students See Why Others Think Differently.” Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/these-professors-help-students-see-why-others-think-differently/
Strachan, Cherie. 2021. “Feminist Pedagogy and Deliberation.” In Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Disciplines, eds. Elizabeth C. Matto et al. American Political Science Association.
—
Elizabeth A. Bennion is Chancellor’s Professor of Political Science and Director of Community Engagement at Indiana University South Bend. A nationally recognized civic educator, and long-time author of the APSA Political Science Education Section’s Teacher-Scholar column, she directs public‑facing programs and teaches courses that prepare the next generation of informed citizens for democracy.
Published since 2005, The Political Science Educator is the newsletter of the Political Science Education Section of the American Political Science Association. As part of APSA’s mission to support political science education across the discipline, APSA Educate has republished The Political Science Educator since 2021. Please visit APSA Educate’s Political Science Educator digital collection.
Editor: Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College)
Assistant Editor: Colin Brown (Northeastern University)
Submissions: editor.PSE.newsletter@gmail.com
