Tri-Co Philly: Philadelphia and the 2024 Election
This course will cover, as the title suggests, the role of people and political organizations in Philadelphia in the 2024 Election as it is happening. We will work together to understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.
This course will cover, as the title suggests, the role of people and political organizations in Philadelphia in the 2024 Election as it is happening. We will work together to understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.
SOCI 056 | Monday, 12-3 p.m.
Daniel Laurison, Swarthmore College
This course will cover, as the title suggests, the role of people and political organizations in Philadelphia in the 2024 Election as it is happening. We will work together to understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.
We will use the 2024 elections as a case study for understanding some of the most pressing issues in American democracy: the stark inequality in political participation, the sense many people have that electoral politics doesn’t represent them, and the ways in which the rules & structure of our electoral system skew representation towards those with more resources. In the first third of the course, we will read existing studies of political behavior with a particular focus on the role of class and race in shaping how people relate to politics. In the middle third, we will read work on how political elites and institutions affect and respond to political participation. In both these sections of class, scholarly readings will be paired with following news and polling about the Presidential and other elections in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. We will discuss the extent to which these accounts reflect (or ignore) social scientific understandings of how elections work. The last third of the semester will have a lighter reading load in order to allow time to focus on our research project; we will read about research methods and continue deepening our understanding of the social science on elections.
We will be embarking on a collective research project over the course of the semester to better understand how political messaging and campaign-related organizing and canvassing affect the ways regular people (i.e., non-elite/poor and working-class people) make sense of and engage with politics. Every member of the class will be part of recruiting for, organizing, and conducting focus groups with people in communities across Philadelphia, as well as analyzing and reporting on our results.
The course will give students both a broad understanding of the social science of campaigns, elections and voting behavior as well as a hands-on sense of how these dynamics are playing out in 2024 in Philadelphia. Assignments will include weekly reading reflection papers and a final paper based on our collaborative research. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program.