Teaching American Politics: Civic & Political Engagement in Introductory Courses

Student Populations 

It is important to consider the student population when identifying civic and political learning activities. Not only do student populations vary significantly across institutional types–community colleges, small liberal arts colleges, large universities–but institutions have different missions and campus-wide learning goals and, at times, legislatively mandated curricula. Equally important are potential cultural, economic, regional, and geographic differences among different student populations. For example, student needs may determine whether it is reasonable and equitable to expect students to engage in civic or political activities outside of regular class time (attending public meetings, working on Election Day, participating in campaigns, etc.)  

Classroom Environment 

We do not always have control over the configuration of our teaching spaces, yet it is an important consideration relating to the choice of civic and political activities that are possible in the classroom. Classrooms that are well-suited to active learning in the classroom include moveable furniture and, frequently, high-tech and low-tech methods for involving students in the learning process. Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs), which have unique physical space requirements, support co-learning, co-creation, and open discussion; at their best, ALCs increase student involvement in content sharing, building knowledge, engaging students, and generating ownership of learning. This stands in contrast to more traditional classrooms built on a more passive learning or lecture model, where instructors stand and deliver content to students who sit and listen. These typical lecture classrooms have limited mobility and inflexible layout can, absent some creativity, hamper interactions between students, instructors and content. Whatever your classroom environment, engaging students in civic and political activities in the classroom includes finding ways to create meaningful opportunities for students to generate information, develop knowledge, solve problems and apply textbook content to the real world. Space is an important consideration.

Navigating Student Expectations & Occasional Push Back 

Most students start college before they have formally engaged in the political system (e.g., voting) and with modest political knowledge (Owen and Riddle 2017). With K-12 teachers and families avoiding polarizing dialogue (Dunn et al. 2019), most college students have even less experience engaging in meaningful dialogue about politics and may have internalized politics as associated only with division and deep ideological polarization. Similarly, students may expect and be overly comfortable with being passive participants in the classroom. Requiring students to write or call an elected official, attend a town hall meeting, engage in voter registration drives–these are unfamiliar activities for the vast majority of undergraduate students in introductory American politics courses. Although there is good evidence that these kinds of high-impact practices facilitate student learning and the development of transferable civic skills, student push back (even in places such as standardized teaching evaluations) is not unheard of.