Elizabeth A. Bennion

The Cost of Convenience An Experiment Showing E-Mail Outreach Decreases Voter Registration

Lower transaction costs have shifted voter registration activities online and away from traditional modes of outreach. Downloading forms may impose higher transaction costs than traditional outreach for some people and thereby decrease electoral participation. A randomized, controlled experiment tested this hypothesis by encouraging treatment participants via e-mail to use online voter registration tools. The treatment group was 0.3 percentage points less likely to be registered to vote after the election. A follow-up experiment sent reminders via text message to randomly selected people who had downloaded registration forms. The treatment increased rates of registration by 4 percentage points, suggesting that reminders can ameliorate many of the negative effects of directing people to downloadable online registration forms.

Caught in the Ground Wars: Mobilizing Voters during a Competitive Congressional Campaign

This project examines the effectiveness of a nonpartisan voter mobilization drive in Indiana’s fiercely contested Second Congressional District. A student-based, non-partisan voter mobilization coalition conveyed nonpartisan get-out-the-vote messages through door-to-door canvassing in three South Bend precincts on the weekend before the November 2002 election. These get-out the vote efforts took place during a competitive election season—one that included door-to-door partisan campaign efforts by interest groups, political parties, and candidate campaigns. While the nonpartisan mobilization campaign did little to increase the likelihood of voting among older voters, it had a strong effect on voters younger than thirty—the voters least likely to be contacted by partisan campaigns.

Civic Education and Citizen Engagement: Mobilizing Voters as a Required Field Experiment.

This article explains the benefits and challenges of requiring undergraduate political science students to act outside the classroom to mobilize voters. Although several published articles 1 describe student engagement with social service agencies, policy research, community outreach, and classroom simulations, this article fills a gap in the political science literature on civic education and service learning: the value of involving students directly in electoral politics.

I Will Register and Vote, If You Teach Me How: A Field Experiment Testing Voter Registration in College Classrooms

College students are young, have little or no history of voting, and are residentially mobile, which makes them a population in great need of registering to vote. Universities have a civic, pedagogical, and legal obligation to register their students to vote. In 2006, we conducted a controlled experiment across 16 college campuses to test the efficacy of classroom presentations to increase voter registration. The 25,256 students across more than 1,026 classrooms were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a control group receiving no presentation; (2) a presentation by a professor; and (3) a presentation by a student volunteer. Verifying registration and voter turnout from a national voter database, we found that both types of presentations increased overall registration by 6 percentage points and turnout rates by approximately 2.6 percentage points. These results demonstrated that universities can take simple steps to engage their students in politics.

Community-based Learning I Track Summary

Community-based learning (CBL) reflects the principle that political science courses should do more than simply teach students about politics. As participants in the community-based learning track, we believe that courses in our discipline should equip students with the combination of knowledge, skills, and values required to engage in a life of active citizenship. Designing a course that meets these goals is not impossible. Community-based projects include several different types of experiential learning, including: service-learning, community-based learning, and community-based research. We believe that all of these forms of learning about, from, and with the community inspire and encourage students to live an active political life.

2006 APSA teaching and learning conference track summaries

The seventh annual Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from February 5 to 7, 2010, with 224 attendees onsite. The theme for the meeting was “Advancing Excellence in Teaching Political Science.” Using the working-group model, the TLC track format encourages in-depth discussion and debate on research dealing with the scholarship of teaching and learning. In addition to the 12 working groups, there were workshops on various topics. The 2010 Teaching and Learning Conference also featured three plenary events, including a presidential round table on “Teaching Political Science during Hard Economic Times,” with APSA president Henry Brady as moderator. Rogers Smith of the University of Pennsylvania delivered the Pi Sigma Alpha Keynote Address, entitled “Teaching as Redemption,” and former governor of Florida and current Senator Robert Graham delivered the opening session address, “Salvaging Citizenship: A Partnership for Pols and Scholars?” The 2010 TLC included a number of new features: the aforementioned plenary roundtable, which also included a lunchtime discussion and question/answer period for the attendees, and the use of remote participation technology. Through the use of this technology, the three plenary sessions were broadcast live via the Internet for an additional audio and visual component. Therefore, individuals who were not able to attend the meeting were able to join us virtually. This technology was made available by Derrick Cogburn (former chair of the APSA Information Technology and Politics section and 2010 TLC moderator) and his lab, the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (COTELCO; at Syracuse University and American University). The sessions are currently available for viewing at www.apsanet.org. Finally, one new workshop track, Strategies for Teaching at Community Colleges, was introduced, as was a new paper track, Teaching Political Theory and Theories. APSA would like to thank the following individuals who served on the 2010 Teaching and Learning Conference Programming Committee: Tim Meinke, Lynchburg College, chair; Marcus D. Allen, Wheaton College; Mitchell Brown, Auburn University; Erin Richards, Cascadia Community College; Stephen Salkever, Bryn Mawr College; and Deborah Ward, Rutgers University. These six committee members, along with the following six individuals, also served as the 2010 Track Moderators: Alison McCartney, Towson University; Chad Raymond, Elon University; Derrick Cogburn, American University and Syracuse University; Daniel E. Smith, Northwest Missouri State University; John Ishiyama, University of North Texas; and Candace C. Young, Truman State University. The following track summaries were written by 2010 TLC track participants and detail the key themes which emerged in each track. Kimberly A. Mealy, Director of Education, Professional Development and Minority Initiatives TRACK: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT I

Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890–1938

Historian Laura Lovett provides five carefully-researched case studies to support her thesis regarding the pervasive expression of pronatalism associated with American agrarianism and the modernist conviction that society, including reproduction and population, could be regulated. She highlights the work of five historical figures: Mary Lease, Florence Sherbon, George Maxwell, Theodore Roosevelt, and Edward Ross. These case studies document the ways in which romantic agrarianism, scientific racism, and eugenics each appealed to the common ideals of home, motherhood, and the family to foster an exclusionary pronatalism based upon the ideal of the rural, white, agrarian family. In Chapter 1, Lovett discusses her central thesis that early 20th century campaigns for reclamation, conservation, country life, and eugenics were expressions of American pronatalism. She explains that the nation’s investment in the reproduction of its citizens did not take the form of legislated child allowances or baby bonuses, but instead relied upon social pressure and conventions. She contrasts American pronatalism in the form of public campaigns for land reclamation, playgrounds, and suburban development with more overt pronatalist policies in countries such as France and Germany. Ultimately, she argues that from 1890 to the 1930s nostalgic idealizations of motherhood, family, and home were used to construct and legitimate political agendas and social policies concerning reproduction. In Chapter 2, Lovett argues that Populist reformer Mary Elizabeth Lease contributed to the idealization of the farm family while promoting a maternalist ideology that essentialized women as mothers. Lease embraced the Populist political agenda designed to benefit agrarian producer families instead of the bankers and tycoons who exploited them. Lease claimed a right as a mother to speak out against policies that that harmed the family and children, and threatened the potential for virtue and improvement that came through working the land. In Chapter 3, Lovett argues that George Maxwell’s National Irrigation Association was both an experiment in hydrological engineering, designed

The Case for Mainstreaming Gender Politics Studies

Swers, Michele L. The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 194.

The Importance of Peer Mentoring for Facilitating Professional and Personal Development

45.00 hardbound,

Politics Across the Curriculum: Teaching Introductory Political Science Courses in Learning Communities

16.00 softbound. Borrelli, Mary Anne. The Presidents Cabinet: Gender, Power and Representation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002. Pp xii, 270.