Teaching Political Theory

Political theory deals with profound questions about human nature, political principles, and the limits of knowledge. In Teaching Political Theory, Nicholas Tampio shows how political theorists may take a pluralistic approach to help students investigate the deepest levels of political life.

Oxford Handbooks of Political Science are the essential guide to the state of political science today. With engaging contributions from 51 major international scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory provides the key point of reference for anyone working in political theory and beyond.

Teaching Research Methods in Political Science brings together experienced instructors to offer a range of perspectives on how to teach courses in political science. It focuses on numerous topics, including identifying good research questions, measuring key concepts, writing literature reviews and developing information literacy skills.

With a focus on providing concrete teaching strategies for scholars, the Handbook on Teaching and Learning in Political Science and International Relations blends both theory and practice in an accessible and clear manner. In an effort to help faculty

This pioneering volume is devoted to the analysis of education from the perspective of political science, applying the full range of the discipline’s analytical perspectives and methodological tools. The contributions demonstrate how education policy can be explored systematically from a variety of political science perspectives: comparative politics, public policy analysis and public administration, international relations, and political theory. By applying a governance perspective on education policy, the authors explore the changing institutional settings, new actors’ constellations, horizontal modes of interaction and public-private regulatory mechanisms with respect to the role of the state in this policy field. The volume deals with questions that are not merely concerned with the content or outcomes of education, but it explicitly takes a political science view on how education politics work. Including country case studies from the Americas and across Europe, institutional analyses of education policy in the EU and the WTO/GATS as well as normative reflections on the topic, the volume provides a grand overview on the diversity of issues in education policy. Dealing with a so far neglected field of policy, this book provides a comprehensive and accessible analysis of a rapidly changing topic. Education in Political Science will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, education, sociology and economics.

To teach political issues such as political struggle, justice, interstate conflict, etc. educators rely mostly on textbooks and lectures. However, many other forms of narrative exist that can elevate our understanding of such issues. This innovative work seeks new ways to foster learning beyond the textbook and lecture model, by using creative and new media, including graphic novels, animated films, hip-hop music, Twitter, and more. Discussing the opportunities these media offer to teach and engage students about politics, the work presents concrete ways on how to use them, along with teaching and assessment strategies, all tested in the classroom. The contributors are dedicated educators from various types of institutions whose essays span a variety of political topics and examine how non-traditional "texts" can promote critical thinking and intellectual growth among students in colleges and universities. The first of its kind to discuss a wide range of alternative texts and media, the book will be a valuable resource to anyone seeking to develop innovative curricula and engage their students in the study of politics.

Provides an overview of the disctinctive thinking of a fascinating mix of educational pioneers and thinkers from the canon of philosophers and philosophical schools from the classical, medieval, early modern and modern. Includes: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Humboldt, Utopian socialists, J.S. Mill, Carpenter and Dewey.

Antonio Gramsci and his concept of hegemony have permeated social and political theory, cultural studies, education studies, literary criticism, international relations, and post-colonial theory. The centrality of language and linguistics to Gramsci's thought, however, has been wholly neglected. In Gramsci's Politics of Language, Peter Ives argues that a university education in linguistics and a preoccupation with Italian language politics were integral to the theorist's thought. Ives explores how the combination of Marxism and linguistics produced a unique and intellectually powerful approach to social and political analysis. To explicate Gramsci's writings on language, Ives compares them with other Marxist approaches to language, including those of the Bakhtin Circle, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt School, including Jürgen Habermas. From these comparisons, Ives elucidates the implications of Gramsci's writings, which, he argues, retained the explanatory power of the semiotic and dialogic insights of Bakhtin and the critical perspective of the Frankfurt School, while at the same time foreshadowing the key problems with both approaches that post-structuralist critiques would later reveal. Gramsci's Politics of Language fills a crucial gap in scholarship, linking Gramsci's writings to current debates in social theory and providing a framework for a thoroughly historical-materialist approach to language.