AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE AssOCIATION n TasK FORCE REPORT, OCTOBER 2011 Report of the Task Force on Political Science Political Science in the in the 21st Century 21st Century Political Science in the 21st Century Report of the Task Force on Political Science in the 21st Century OCTOBER 2011 AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE AssoCIATION 1527 New Hampshire Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036-1206 Copyright © 2011 by the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-878147-39-4 Task Force On Political Science for the 21st Century Task Force Members Luis Ricardo Fraga, University of Washington, Co-Chair Terri E. Givens, University of Texas at Austin, Co-Chair Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame President, APSA, 2007-08 Manuel Avalos, University of North Carolina, Wilmington David Covin, California State University, Sacramento Frances Hagopian, University of Notre Dame Lisa García-Bedolla, University of California, Berkeley Juan Carlos Huerta, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi Vincent L. Hutchings, University of Michigan Michael A. Jones-Correa, Cornell University Fae L. Korsmo, National Science Foundation, Federal Liaison Taeku Lee, University of California, Berkeley Mark Q. Sawyer, University of California, Los Angeles Sherri L. Wallace, University of Louisville ii APSA • Political Science in the 21st Century Acknowledgements This report could not have been completed without the generous assistance of a number of individuals. We are thankful to all Task Force members for their insights and guidance. We are especially grateful to the chairs of our working groups: Lisa García-Bedolla, Research; Juan Carlos Huerta and Sherri Wallace, Teaching and Pedagogy; and Manuel Avalos, Access and Inclusion. Your leadership made the completion of the report possible. We would like to thank Lucius Barker, Robert Putnam, and Theda Skocpol, former presidents of the APSA, for their careful reading of an earlier draft of our essay. This final report was greatly influenced by your insights and constructive critique. We also acknowledge the financial support provided by Brian Humes, Program Director, Political Science, at the National Science Foundation. A grant from the NSF funded research assistance and production of the final report. We are also grateful to the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association for their support of our work. Your funding covered travel and other meeting costs that allowed us to come together on a number of occasions. We are especially grateful for the support of Kimberly Mealy, Director, Educational, Professional, and Diversity Initiatives at the APSA. Her commitment and dedication to the profession no doubt makes us all better political scientists than we would otherwise be. We could not have completed this report without your administrative and professional guidance. We are also grateful for support provided by Michael Brintnall, Executive Director, APSA; Sean Twombly, Director, Member Services and Technology, APSA; and Shaunda Ragland, Program Associate, Educational, Professional, and Diversity Initiatives, APSA. Finally, we want to acknowledge the critical work completed by a number of research assistants. Sergio García and Christopher Towler, University of Washington, were masterful in identifying, analyzing, and graphing data. Other research assistants who worked with us were: Ann Frost, University of Washington, and Javier de Paz, University of California Berkeley. Luis Ricardo Fraga Co-chair Terri E. Givens Co-chair Dianne M. Pinderhughes President, APSA, 2007-08 Task Force on Political Science in the 21st Century iii Table of Contents TASK FORCE MEMBERS ............................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................................iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................iv EXECUTIVE SUmmARY ............................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 6 RESEARCH ................................................................................................................................................. 12 Political Science Research: Training and Production .............................................................. 13 Possible Explanations: Identity and Epistemology ................................................................... 17 Identity as an Analytical Category ..................................................................................... 17 Social Science Epistemology ................................................................................................ 18 Possible Solutions .............................................................................................................................. 21 Associational Approaches .................................................................................................... 21 Institutional-level Approaches ............................................................................................ 24 Departmental-level ...................................................................................................... 24 University-level ............................................................................................................. 24 TEACHING AND PEDAGOGY .................................................................................................................27 Changing Demographics of Student Enrollment ..................................................................... 28 Undergraduate Majors in Political Science ................................................................................. 30 Diversity and Inclusion in the Undergraduate Teaching of Political Science .................... 30 Reflections and Recommendations from the APSA Teaching and Learning Conferences (TLC) ............................................................................................................................ 35 Approaches to Teaching Political Science: Lectures, Seminar, and Service Learning ..................................................................................................................... 35 Political Science and Current Issues of the Day .............................................................. 35 The Inclusiveness of the Political Science Curriculum ................................................. 36 Teaching and Learning in Political Science ................................................................................ 38 iv APSA • Political Science in the 21st Century Table of Contents ACCESS AND INCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 39 Political Science Faculty, 1980-2010 ............................................................................................. 39 What We Know: The Challenges of Diversifying the Professoriate ...................................... 47 Mentoring ................................................................................................................................. 49 Recent Multi-institutional Studies .................................................................................... 50 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................ 51 BUILDING A MORE INCLUSIVE POLITICAL SCIENCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ................................................................................................................................. 53 The Lack of Data ............................................................................................................................... 53 Current Practices and Programs within the APSA ................................................................... 55 Expanding the Capacity of Political Science .............................................................................. 55 ENDNOTES ................................................................................................................................................... 57 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 59 AppENDIX 1 ..................................................................................................................................................64 AppENDIX 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 65 This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1037020. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Task Force on Political Science in the 21st Century v Executive Summary Is political science positioned to embrace and incorporate the changing demographics, increasing multicultural diversity, and ever-growing disparities in the concentration of