2026 Short Course: Designing Civically Engaged Political Science Pedagogy -

Designing Civically Engaged Political Science Pedagogy

Half Day Short Course | Register here
2026 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition — Boston, MA
9:00 am – 1:00 pm

This short course is designed for political science instructors who seek to intentionally redesign their pedagogy to more fully support democratic citizenship and civic engagement. Political science has long held a dual mission: advancing students’ understanding of political institutions and processes while also preparing them for participation in democratic life (American Political Science Association 2011). In the contemporary political context—marked by polarization, declining trust in democratic institutions, widespread misinformation, and concern about democratic backsliding—many faculty are reflecting more deliberately on how their teaching can contribute to sustaining democratic capacity.

Civically engaged pedagogy is an approach to teaching that intentionally integrates disciplinary learning with the development of students’ capacities for democratic participation, creating structured opportunities to connect political knowledge with civic skills, judgment, and action. In political science, this approach positions civic engagement as a core educational outcome—preparing students not only to understand political institutions and processes, but also to participate thoughtfully, responsibly, and effectively in democratic life. Research in political science suggests that political knowledge alone is insufficient to foster durable civic engagement or democratic efficacy. Instead, students benefit from structured opportunities to practice deliberation across difference, evaluate political information critically, understand institutional accountability, and reflect on the emotional dimensions of political participation. When intentionally designed, civically engaged pedagogy enables political science courses to cultivate these capacities without sacrificing disciplinary rigor or conflating political analysis with political advocacy.

Many political science faculty already incorporate discussions, simulations, applied projects, or experiential learning into their courses. Yet the civic dimensions of these practices often remain implicit, unevenly developed, or difficult to assess. This short course supports instructors who wish to make civic learning more explicit, intentional, and pedagogically coherent—whether they are building on existing approaches or reconsidering their teaching in light of contemporary democratic challenges.

Grounded in the Democratic Citizenship Framework (Mathews-Schultz and Sweet-Cushman 2024), the course uses the framework as an organizing tool for translating civic commitments into intentional course design. The framework conceptualizes democratic citizenship as four interconnected capacities—knowing, caring, choosing, and doing—and operationalizes them through five citizenship competencies: institutional, participatory, deliberative, informational, and emotional. Together, these elements provide instructors with concrete targets for assignment design, instructional practice, and assessment.

Learning Objectives
In this course, participants will: (1) apply the Democratic Citizenship Framework to articulate civic learning goals for at least one political science course; (2) design or revise a course assignment aligned with one or more democratic citizenship competencies; (3) develop assessment strategies that make civic learning visible while remaining nonpartisan and consistent with disciplinary norms; and (4) construct an implementation plan appropriate to their instructional context.

Structure, Audience, and Outcomes
This course is intended for graduate students, early-career faculty, and experienced instructors seeking to refresh or deepen their civic pedagogy. Facilitation will blend brief interactive framing with hands-on design workshops that encourage participants to consider their own teaching contexts and capacities. Participants will leave with a ready-to-use civic engagement module, a preliminary assessment plan, and a transferable framework for scaling democratic citizenship across their curriculum. The course ultimately aims to strengthen political science educators’ ability to contribute to democratic capacity-building across subfields and teaching environments.”

• APSA Annual Meeting Pre-conference Short Courses are half- or full-day events that offer diverse professional development opportunities and allow attendees to connect with scholars from various backgrounds. This year’s pre-conference short courses will be held on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. Sponsored by APSA Organized Sections, Related Groups, and other affiliated organizations. All short courses require pre-registration to attend.
• Register here for the APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition »