{"title":"From “Lab Rats” to “Mad Scientists”: Cultivating Agentic Learning Through Student-Led Simulation Redesign","authors":"S. Forester, J. Jett, Bjorn Holtey","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523001142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523001142","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Simulations are increasingly prominent in classrooms, and research shows that such activities provide an array of benefits. In general, simulations tend to situate students as “lab rats” (Asal 2005) who get to discuss the experiment. We call for bringing students into a simulation not as lab rats but instead as “mad scientists.” We specifically propose using a simulation’s debriefing step as an opportunity for students to imagine how they might revise the simulation that they experienced and to defend their revisions using concepts from class. We argue that such student-led revisions cultivate agentic engagement, a form of engagement in which students recognize themselves as co-constructors of knowledge with and for their peers. To test this notion, we modified the “Isle of Ted” with an expanded post-simulation debriefing. We found that our approach cultivated student engagement and buy-in, required students to think of concepts dynamically, and was relatively simple to implement. Our study contributes to the literature on simulations as effective and engaging classroom tools, and it also emphasizes the potential for simulations to spark agentic learning.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"42 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139531930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Integrating Ethics, Methods, and the Dynamics of Power in Political Science Fieldwork","authors":"Virginia Sapiro","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523000999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000999","url":null,"abstract":"The articles in this symposium underscore at least three common points about understanding and combatting sexual harassment in the context of social science fieldwork:","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"50 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139531969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Violence in Political Science Fieldwork","authors":"Stacey Leigh Hunt","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523001002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523001002","url":null,"abstract":"Political scientists recently have taken great strides in addressing sexual harassment and assault in the discipline. Little has been said, however, about sexual violence that political scientists may confront during field research. Field research involves any data-collection activity that occurs away from a researcher’s home institution, including visiting a prominent archive, interviewing political elites, and conducting direct observation of political phenomenon, and fieldwork is widely considered essential to data collection and career development across political science subfields. Field researchers may experience numerous power disparities that put them at acute risk for sexual or gender-based violence in the field, and evidence suggests that such experiences are pervasive and professionally devastating. In an effort to reduce gender-based violence and discrimination across academic worksites, several disciplines and institutions have developed specific guidelines and protocols to prevent and address sexual harassment and assault during fieldwork (Berkeley PATH to Care Center 2020; University of California, Riverside 2018; University of Toronto, Department of Anthropology 2019; Woodgate et al. 2018). Political scientists, however, have largely failed to conceptualize field placements as work settings or to address gender-based violence during fieldwork in our curriculum, training, and policies. Instead, they rely on deeply held methodological fallacies that insist on a field researcher’s absolute privilege, trivialize experiences of sexual violence, and weaponize rape myths to portray survivors as professionally incompetent (Hunt 2022).","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"3 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139437973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Research Ethics and Ethical Responsibilities: Facing Up to Sexual Harassment and Assault During Field Research","authors":"Carol Mershon","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523000707","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000707","url":null,"abstract":"What are the ethical responsibilities that social science researchers have, not only to the people we study but also to ourselves as scholars and other scholars? This article argues that as political and social scientists, we need to expand our notion of research ethics, to adopt a notion that embraces treatment of our subject–participants and ourselves as researchers. This study is anchored in the still-growing literature on research ethics in fieldwork and draws on political science work on the ethical implications of the risks and realities of sexual violence for scholars who conduct fieldwork. The article looks beyond political science to feminist-informed research in the social sciences as it develops the argument about the ethical responsibilities of social scientists. In investigating the overarching question, the article addresses resources for survivors of sexual harassment and assault during field research.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139532170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Combatting Sexual Harassment in the Field Is Fundamental to the Research Enterprise","authors":"Rosalee A. Clawson","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523000951","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000951","url":null,"abstract":"Field research, defined as “leaving one’s home institution in order to acquire data, information, or insights that significantly inform one’s research” (Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read 2015, 1), is a beneficial research practice. It also is a practice with significant safety risks, including sexual harassment, that can undermine the research process and harm researchers. Thus, combatting sexual harassment in the field is fundamental to maintaining the integrity of the research enterprise.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"42 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139531926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Methodological Impasses: Facing Interrogation and Silence While Gathering Data on Sexual Violence in India","authors":"Aditi Malik, Poulami Roychowdhury","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523000690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000690","url":null,"abstract":"Feminist standpoint theorists highlight how relations of power and inequality impact our knowledge of the social world (Smith 1974). The hierarchical positioning of different social groups creates a world in which the experiences and perspectives of certain people are acknowledged while others are silenced (Hartsock 1998; Hekman 1997). Moreover, a researcher’s personal background—her race, gender, class, and sexuality, among other factors—condition what she is able to learn and how (Collins 2000). Together, this literature underscores how the social world—and who we are within it—shapes knowledge production.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"35 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139532241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Field Closeting: Navigating Fieldwork as a Queer Scholar","authors":"Campbell M. Stevens","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523000859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000859","url":null,"abstract":"Fieldwork is fraught with methodological and ethical concerns, particularly for those junior scholars seeking to establish themselves. There is a pressure to conduct research that pushes the boundaries of emerging techniques and brings our theories to bear on case studies that are underrepresented in the literature. Although this pressure is felt by nearly everyone, the barriers to accessing fieldwork and the premium of privilege lead to significant inequalities (Fujii 2016), which are becoming increasingly apparent as the academy diversifies. Being a white cis-male, I have benefited from overarching systems of privilege across my education, my career, and my international fieldwork. Yet as a gay man, international fieldwork poses potential challenges, illuminating additional realities with which researchers must contend.1","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139437592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What We Do and Do Not Know about Democratic Backsliding","authors":"Andrew T. Little, Anne Meng","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523001038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523001038","url":null,"abstract":"We are humbled by the quantity and quality of the commentaries on our article in this special issue. Our goal was not to answer definitively how global democracy has changed in recent years but rather to provoke a debate about how we collectively can improve the scholarship on this question. The range of viewpoints raised in this special issue have made important advances on this goal.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":"24 19","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139534240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Knutsen, Kyle L. Marquardt, Brigitte Seim, M. Coppedge, Amanda B. Edgell, Juraj Medzihorský, Daniel Pemstein, Jan Teorell, J. Gerring, Staffan I. Lindberg
{"title":"Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding","authors":"C. Knutsen, Kyle L. Marquardt, Brigitte Seim, M. Coppedge, Amanda B. Edgell, Juraj Medzihorský, Daniel Pemstein, Jan Teorell, J. Gerring, Staffan I. Lindberg","doi":"10.1017/s104909652300077x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s104909652300077x","url":null,"abstract":"During the past decade, analyses drawing on several democracy measures have shown a global trend of democratic retrenchment. While these democracy measures use radically different methodologies, most partially or fully rely on subjective judgments to produce estimates of the level of democracy within states. Such projects continuously grapple with balancing conceptual coverage with the potential for bias (Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Przeworski et al. 2000). Little and Meng (L&M) (2023) reintroduce this debate, arguing that “objective” measures of democracy show little evidence of recent global democratic backsliding.1 By extension, they posit that time-varying expert bias drives the appearance of democratic retrenchment in measures that incorporate expert judgments. In this article, we engage with (1) broader debates on democracy measurement and democratic backsliding, and (2) L&M’s specific data and conclusions.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":" 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139626029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Difficult to Count, Important to Measure: Assessing Democratic Backsliding","authors":"Yana Gorokhovskaia","doi":"10.1017/s1049096523001014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523001014","url":null,"abstract":"Assessing the state of democracy and freedom is an important but difficult task. The stakes are high, not only for researchers interested in uncovering the drivers of democratic consolidation or decline but also for policy makers, civil society organizations, journalists, activists, and citizens who work daily to promote and protect human rights at home and abroad. In light of the significance of the task, it is not surprising that the issue of how to measure democracy most accurately continues to be hotly debated.","PeriodicalId":515403,"journal":{"name":"PS: Political Science & Politics","volume":" 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139626570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}