2016 Election Reflection Series: Hearing the Other Side

Prior to the 2016 election, APSA’s Diversity and Inclusion Programs Office issued a call for scholarly reflections, original research notes, and classroom exercises that shed light upon diversity, political behavior, public opinion and the 2016 Campaign and Election. What resulted is an eight part series, 2016 Election Reflections, covering a range of election related topics and research methods.    

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Hearing the Other Side

 By Paul Djupe, Denison University

Tell us about how you have incorporated themes relevant to diversity, inclusion, equity, or representation and the 2016 campaign and election into your political science teaching, research and/or service? 

This post is part of a new data-driven blog using social science research methods to study the tiny society of Denison University. Central concerns of this post and several others is what diversity means on campus, who is represented in campus conversations, and whether our students truly are open to hearing the other side. Standard questions about democratic norms administered in a recent survey of students reveal that, amidst widespread support equal to the national average, strong Republicans and men are more likely to call for hearing the other side. Developing support for such norms is closely linked to the university’s mission statement and should begin a broader conversation about how and in what contexts they are fostered. The presidential election offered a perfect opportunity to see these abstract values in action and it is clear in coming posts that the value of hearing the other side is not the same thing as withholding dissent and expressing disapproval. A link to one such blog post is featured below:

Are Denisonians Open to Hearing the Other Side

Paul A. Djupe is in the Department of Political Science at Denison University and is, among other things, the coauthor of God Talk: Experimenting with the Religious Causes of Public Opinion (2013, Temple).

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The views expressed in this series are those of the authors and contributors alone and do not represent the views of the APSA. To learn more, visit 2016 Election Reflections.