It has been 20 years since Ishiyama, Breunig, and Lopez published ‘A Century of Continuity and (Little) Change in the Undergraduate Political Science Curriculum’ in the APSR, in which they discussed the ebbs and flows of academic attention to teaching and learning in our discipline. Since the publication of the piece, we have seen an inexorable rise in attention to, and innovations, within Politics and International Relations curricula; it is fair to say we are clearly in a state of some sustained ‘flow’.

 

Today, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in our field is a well-established subdiscipline, shaping how we conceptualise, innovate, deliver, and evaluate education. Moreover, curricula are markedly changed from those of two decades ago, with active learning and advances in assessment just some of the defining features of the contemporary Politics and International Relations classroom. Running alongside this transformation has been the growth of the education track: whilst this initially came about as a result of changing institutional financial and workload pressures, the education track has matured such that these posts are often held by colleagues deeply committed to advancing pedagogical practice and embedding educational innovation within the discipline.

 

In June, UCL’s Centre for the Pedagogy of Politics is teaming up with the ASPIRE network to host an event taking place at a pivotal moment in the ongoing transformation and development of education in our discipline. We invite papers, and / or panel proposals, around these themes:

 

• How can we keep flowing and avoid the possibilities of ‘ebb’ that Ishiyama, Breunig, and Lopez warn of?

• What are the unique perspectives and forms of expertise that education track colleagues can contribute to our discipline?

• Does Politics and International Relations, with its attention to power and social change, imbue education track colleagues with a set of special skills for analysing (potential) changes to teaching and learning practices?

• What are the existing areas in pedagogical scholarship on Politics and IR in need of further development? How can we address these areas and insufficiencies to facilitate the disciplinary flow ‘onwards and upwards’?

 

Please send submissions – in the form of abstracts of up to 300 words – to JP Salter (john-paul.salter@ucl.ac.uk) and Jeremy Moulton (jeremy.moulton@york.ac.uk) by 17th April 2026. Please also drop us an email if you wish to attend but not present (the more the merrier!).

 

We hope to see you there!