Suchergebnisse

Education stands as a potent predictor of political attitudes; however, the underlying mechanisms and moderators of this relationship are not well-understood. We hypothesize that the liberalizing effect of education is moderated by discipline, and that the scientific ethos that serves to guide empirical inquiries facilitates the development of more liberal political attitudes via concerns about fairness and equality. As predicted, being educated in a science-related discipline, as opposed to a non-science discipline, was associated with greater political liberalism; importantly, this effect could not be accounted for by self-selection (Study 1). Furthermore, concerns about fairness and equality, as captured by an individual's social dominance orientation, mediated the relationship between studying science and political liberalism (Study 2). Study 3 replicated these findings and attest to their generalizability. Study 4 directly assessed the underlying mechanism, endorsement of the scientific ethos, and replicated the mediational model; those who endorsed the scientific ethos more strongly reported more liberal political attitudes, and this was mediated by their lower social dominance orientation.

The scene is a familiar one: two graduate students, alike in most respects, but headed down divergent paths. Both students entered the Ph.D. program in political science at the same time with similar credentials and similar goals. While having coffee one day, the two reminisced about their graduate experiences and their respective futures. Graduate Student X was lamenting that after four full years in the Ph.D. program, he still hadn't reached the dissertation stage. Graduate Student Y, on the other hand, was in very good spirits—she had finished the dissertation and secured the job of her choice. What distinguishes these two very similar individuals who achieved very different results?

Two perspectives have dominated the analysis of regionalist movements in Western Europe: the uneven structural development perspective on the one hand, and the individualist electoral approach on the other. A third perspective is proposed here, one based on the concept of place. This last approach is used to analyze Scottish nationalism. It shows that local territorial cultural settings explain, in part, variations in the support obtained by the Scottish National Party.

Ever since 1988 when Mr. Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of the reform and opening-up policy, proposed that "science and technology are the primary produc-tive forces", China emphasized the contribution of science and technology to the development of economy and society. Therefore, science and technology associa-tions (S&T associations,科技社团, kejishetuan) organized by scientists and techni-cians have been encouraged by the government to serve the nation's development strategy. On the one hand, the integration of science and public affairs calls for the collaboration between the government and S&T associations in order to implement the administrative reform that limits the government and optimizes government functions. On the other hand, in the international innovation-oriented competition, the construction of an innovative country also depends on S&T associations to take over the tasks of gathering science and technology talents and improving science literacy of the entire population.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have been considered by some observers as a powerful media opportunity to improve learning. The Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) was the first Belgian university to deliver a political science MOOC, in French, entitled "Discovering political science". This MOOC brings about new challenges for both supply and demand sides. The objective of this paper is threefold: 1- from the faculty members' perspective to present the deep transformations in conceiving a political science introductory course for first year students. 2- to what extent introducing MOOC in the classroom affects students' learning outcomes. 3- Finally, we also show how a MOOC can create opportunities to offer a wider variety of learning assignments, taking advantage of new media possibilities, of online peer-assessment and, in the classroom, by fostering active learning and work groups with instant feedback.