Instructor: Dr. Valerie Lehr
Home Phone 262-2884 (before 10:00pm)
Office Phone 229-5677
Office Address 84 Park Street, #203
E-mail vlehr@stlawu.edu

Required Texts

Gimpel, Ley, and Schuknecht, Cultivating Democracy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America, Brooking Institute Press, 2003.

Eisner, Jane, Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in Our Democracy, Beacon Press, 2004.

Punch, Keith, Introduction to Social Research, Second Edition, Sage Press, 2005

Course Objectives

This course has three primary objectives:
1) To introduce you to some ideas about why youth are increasingly disengaged from traditional politics and to introduce you to some proposals for addressing this disengagement;
2) To introduce you to different conceptions of the discipline of political science and the methodological implications of these different conceptions; and
3) To have you develop a literature review and research proposal about a topic connected to youth and political engagement. In doing this, you will, in part, work as part of a research team in order to understand the ways by which knowledge is constructed through communities of scholars.

Tentative Schedule

1/22 Introduction

1/24 Eisner, prologue, Chapters 1, 2, 3

1/29 Eisner, Chapters 4, 5, 6

1/31 Gimpel, Levy, and Schuknecht, chapters 1, 2, 3

2/5 Gimpel, Levy, and Schuknecht, Chapters 4, 5

2/7 Gimpel, Levy, and Schuknecht, Chapters 6, 7

2/12 Gimpel, Levy, and Schuknecht, Chapter 8

2/14 Essays on Youth and Rights - These will be in Angel. You will each be expected to report on key points in the essays that you are assigned.

2/19 Essays on Youth Subcultures - These will be in Angel. You will each be expected to report on key points in the essays that you are assigned.

2/21 Essays on Education and Democracy - These will be in Angel. You will each be expected to report on key points in the essays that you are assigned.

2/26 You should each bring a one-page paper in which you discuss the question that you want to explore. Your question must be connected to one of the four research areas that we have defined.

2/28 Meet in the library.

3/5 Read two essays on your topic and annotate them and read Punch, Chapter 1.

3/7 Read Punch, Chapters 2 and 3 and one additional essay on your topic. Written Assignment #1 is due

3/12 Read Punch, Chapter 4 and come to class prepared to discuss the essay assigned by Shelby.

3/14 Punch, Chapters 5, 6, 7. Written assignment #2 due.

3/26 Group Disscussion #1. Matt will assign essays to Dan, Taylor, Dan, Lyndsay. Each person will read a different essay on Matt's topic.

3/28 Group Discussion #2. Megan will assign essays to Ben, A.J., Aubrey, Hadley. Each person will read a different essay on Megan's topic. Written Assignment #3 due.

4/2 Read Punch, Chapters 8 and 9.

4/4 Read Punch, 10 and 11. Your literature review draft is due on Friday.

4/9 Conferences

4/11 Zoe and Chris will discuss research methods and their paper. Methods drafts are due by Friday.

4/16 Panel 4 will present their papers. Panel 1 will respond to these papers. All members of panel 4 should provide their assigned responders with a draft of their literature review and methods draft by Friday, 4/13. Panel 3 will provide written and oral feedback on the presentations.

4/18 Panel 3 will present their papers. Panel 2 will respond to these papers. All members of panel 3 should provide their assigned responders with a draft of their literature review and methods draft on Monday 4/16. Panel 4 will provide written and oral feedback on the presentations.

4/23 Optional: reserach Methods Review

4/25 In-class Research Methods exam.

Thursday, April 26th at 7:00 pm -- You must attend Government Department Thesis Presentations in Lee Lounge.

4/30 Panel 2 will present their papers. Draft of full paper is due. Panel 4 will respond to these papers. All members of panel 2 should provide their assigned responders with a draft of their literature review and methods draft by Friday, 4/27. Panel 1 will provide written and oral feedback on the presentations.No class, but you must attend thesis presentations. Dates will be announced.

5/2 Panel 1 will present their papers. Panel 3 will respond to these papers. All members of Panel 1 should provide their assigned responders with a full draft of their paper on Monday 4/30. Panel 2 will provide written and oral feedback on the presentations.

Course Requirements

1) Response writing and speaking from throughout the semester, including some responses to your peers' work that will be completed in class. Each response will be graded with a check plus, check, or check minus. I will then average them to determine your grade on this portion of the course. Failure to turn in one assignment will reduce your grade by 1.0; failure to turn in two assignments will result in a 0 on this segment of your grade. 20% of your final grade.
Check plus = 4.0
Check = 2.75
Check minus = 1.5

2) Research Work Presentation: You have each been assigned a date on which you will present some aspect of your work or help someone else to present their work. 10% of your final grade.

3) Research Proposal: You will do this in a series of steps. I will give you feedback on all steps, but you will receive a grade for the entire project. If you do not turn in any assignment along the way, you will automatically receive a .5 deduction on your project grade. If you fail to turn in two assignments, you will receive a 0 on the project. Turning in any of these assignments late will reduce your overall project grade by .10 for each day that any assignment is late. Component assignments include:
1) critical reading analysis paper
2) draft of literature review
3) draft of methods section
4) draft of complete paper
5 ) complete proposal paper.
The research proposal will be 40% of your final grade.

4) Presentations: You will both present your own work and read and comment on the work of two of your peers. 15% of your final grade. One responder will be responsible for making connections between the two papers that s/he reads and the other will be responsible for noting key points and making suggestions for how the papers might be improved. Each responder should be prepared to spend about 5 minutes commenting. You will also each provide feedback to two presenters.

5) Exam on research methods. 15% of your final grade. Your exam is scheduled for 5/11 at 1:30 pm.

Attendance Policy

As should be clear from other assignments, you will be responsible for making the class work, whether presenting your work, working in groups, or through providing useful feedback to your peers. You may not miss more than 2 classes. If you miss more that 2 classes, your final grade will be reduced by .5 for each additional class that you miss. If you miss more than 4 classes without a very, very compelling reason, you will fail the course.

Academic Integrity

Since one of the primary goals of this course is to teach you to define research questions and think about how to answer them, it is critical that you understand yourself as belonging to a community of researchers. In order to gain credibility in this community, you must meet norms of academic integrity. Failure to familiarize yourself with these norms and act in accordance with them in all of your work is to violate fundamental norms of conduct that are critical to intellectual work. If you violate these norms, you will be referred to the academic honor council.

Having said that, I do expect that you come into this class with a perfectly clear understanding of concepts like plagiarism. If you are unsure, please ask me. The following publication, from the Munn Writing Center, is also helpful: http://www.stlawu.edu/writing/handouts.html#citing