Political Attitudes in the Classroom: Is Academia the Last Bastion of Liberalism?

‘How Much Politics Is There’? Exploring Students’ Experiences of Values and Impartiality from an Epistemic Perspective

“…Lundholm (2018) describes this as part of a meta level of all disciplines, which might be made more or less explicit in teaching. Already in 1944, Felix Kaufmann (1944 described controversy relating to values as the greatest methodological problem found in all social sciences, however there is still little research on students' experiences of values, viewpoints and impartiality in political science (LaFalce and Gomez 2007). As stated earlier, there has generally been a focus on studies that analyze how teaching and learning in political science may shape students' political values and standpoints (Hildreth 2006;Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2008;Latimer and Hempsen 2012;Martin, Tankersley and Ye 2012;Smith 2012).…”

“…As mentioned, research has studied values and normative questions as a potential problem, i.e. something that may create a biased education (Dey 1996;Horowitz 2007;LaFalce and Gomez 2007;Peters and Droddy 2003) or as a potential outcome of teaching and learning in political science where political science teaching may shape the political values and standpoints of the students (Hildreth 2006;Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2008;Latimer and Hempsen 2012;Martin, Tankersley and Ye 2012;Smith 2012). However, Lundholm (2018) concludes, "Learning in the social sciences has two inherent components; both the value dimension of the discipline, and the values and emotions that students hold", which makes values particularly challenging and relevant to consider in relation to political science education.…”

“…The importance of focusing on political science students' understandings of knowledge and knowledge production is due to lack of research in this area, and thus, how students experience conflicting epistemologies, what challenges this poses, and, how it potentially affects learning, is important. When epistemological issues have been discussed, it has generally been done in relation to fear of a biased education that, for example, only allows certain perspectives to serve as "truths" (Dey 1996;Horowitz 2007;LaFalce and Gomez 2007;Peters and Droddy 2003) or that education is not able to cultivate the right kind of knowledge, a political knowledge that may shape the political values and standpoints of the students in a preferable way (Hildreth 2006;Kelly-Woessner and Woessner 2008;Latimer and Hempsen 2012;Martin, Tankersley and Ye 2012). We wish to add to this literature a broader focus on students' understanding of knowledge and knowledge production in the discipline and to explore if they see the nature of knowledge in the discipline as something problematic and if so, how they deal with these problems.…”