2026 TLC at APSA

APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition | Boston, MA | Saturday, September 5, 2026
Theme: “(Re)building Precarious Democracy Through the Classroom“

The proposal submission system is CLOSED.

In keeping with the overall conference theme of “Democracy Under Threat: How to Understand, Protect, and Rebuild,” the 2026 TLC APSA theme is “(Re)building Precarious Democracy Through the Classroom,” on Saturday, September 5, 2026.

“(Re)building Precarious Democracy Through the Classroom”

We seek to address the following questions:

• How do civic education and political literacy repair democracy and make it more resistant? 
• How can classrooms become laboratories for democratic practice rather than only spaces for theoretical discussion? 
• What role does the classroom play in combating misinformation and disinformation? How can teachers foster civil discourse in polarized environments? 
• What strategies can educators use to teach the importance of rule of law and constitutional principles? 
• How can schools prepare students to recognize and resist authoritarian tendencies? What role does experiential learning (e.g., service learning, simulations, nondisposable assignments, and OER-engaged pedagogy) play in rebuilding democratic engagement? 
• How can classrooms approach Habermas’s “ideal speech situation” as one way of addressing public debate and strengthening democratic participation?
• What innovative pedagogies can help classes be more accessible and foster better belonging for students? What role should technology, like generative artificial intelligence, play in these formulations? 

We turn towards these questions as teacher-scholars that wish to protect the democratic and transform the undemocratic through civic engagement, critical thinking, deep reading, difficult conversations, epistemic humility, information literacy, intersubjective role-taking, media literacy, and problem-solving. Our wishes, though lofty, occur in a difficult context of decreased trust, resources, hopes, and commons in the world. Our work focuses on repair through the political science classroom at the micro, meso, and macro scale of politics.

To this end, we invite you to participate in the day-long program which will feature workshops, panels, presentations and networking opportunities for teacher-scholars. TLC at APSA aims to promote scholarly reflection and dissemination of tools, strategies, and pedagogical approaches that enable educators to develop and promote inclusive and democratic forms of political science pedagogy, civic literacy, and engagement—both in the classroom and the public sphere.

‣ About the APSA Teaching & Learning Conference

The APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) and the annual TLC at APSA conferences focus not only on the exchange of ideas but also on building a community of teacher-scholars within APSA, who support one another, promote best practices in teaching and learning, and innovate pedagogical theory and evidence-based practices through research. The conference fosters an exchange of ideas about creating a more diverse, inclusive, and engaging classroom. By building connections with colleagues from a variety of subfields, experiences, institutions, and identities, the 2026 TLC at APSA will empower educators to reflect, innovate and imagine how to confront the perils and promises of the project of democracy.

We invite proposals for four types of submissions:

(1) Teaching and Learning workshops provide opportunities to practice meeting the varied challenges of understanding, protecting, and rebuilding democracy through the classroom and with the class engagement with the broader community. (2) Roundtables focus participants on discussion and debate on a specific topic, facilitated by a group of roundtable participants. (13) Paper presentations investigate these themes through research. (4) Pedagogy Café submissions will be part of the morning Pedagogy Café session, a series of thematic tables with discussions facilitated by the submitters.

In contrast to previous years, tracks will emerge from the topics of the submissions rather than be pre-determined. Accepted proposals will be grouped by the TLC co-chairs into tracks that thematically relate programming across the content of the track and provide a way for faculty of similar interests and pedagogies to productively engage each other through mutual aid, where giants in the field, experts, and newcomers might find equal space intellectually and socially.

Each year, TLC at APSA features:

‣ Thank You to the 2026 TLC at APSA Program Committee

Thank you to the 2026 TLC at APSA Program committee for their hard work and dedication in planning this year’s TLC at APSA.

• Co-chair: Matt Evans, Northwest Arkansas Community College
• Co-chair: Dale Mineshima-Lowe, Parami University
• La Della Levy-Edwards, College of Southern Nevada
• Kim Lopez-Gallagher, New Mexico State University-Alamogordo
• Rafael Alexandre Mello, Bates College
• Liz Norell, University of Mississippi

Questions? Email us at teaching@apsanet.org