An Argument for Integrative Learning Within Political Science: Rethinking an Undergraduate Course in European Government and Politics

Abstract Political science is ideally positioned to advance integrative learning, an initiative in higher education that fosters students’ abilities to integrate different fields of study in exploring complex real world problems. This essay focuses on ways integrative learning can be incorporated into undergraduate political science classes by developing a narrative of revisions to the curriculum of an introductory European government and politics course. Center the position of the Muslim immigrant experience in Europe while promoting an integrative form of political science that crosses subfields within the discipline, and integrates differing modes of inquiry invites students to think critically about immigration, the rise of the populist right, Liberalism and its limits, and the future of European integration. While this redesigned focus, I suggest, provides a useful model for rethinking approaches to the teaching of European politics, the main focus of the article is on promoting the foregrounding of integrative learning course design practices that can be adapted to other introductory undergraduate political science classes.