Reflections on Asia: Borrowing Lessons from the Humanities in Social Science Coursework

Abstract

What lessons can political science classes borrow from the humanities? This paper presents the results of a multi-year study on teaching about Asia as part of a general education program. Given the challenges of meeting common learning outcomes while also teaching discipline-specific lessons, political science courses often underperformed in assessments when compared to benchmark expectations. While our initial conclusion—that a greater focus on multimodal assignments would promote deeper learning and reflection—proved unfounded, explicitly emphasizing students’ reflection on their own process of democratic engagement, in comparison to that of their counterparts in Asia, did seem to address the shortcomings of the previous approaches by giving students context and guidance in their understanding of how democracy works at home and abroad. Data from reflective essays, collected over two years, provide evidence for this finding.