Knowledge Production and Student Learning in Political Science: Bhutan and The Politics of Happiness

Abstract

We experience increased pressure to publish in prestigious peer-reviewed journals within the context of limited time and resources for research and writing. The pressure to publish detracts from our teaching whereas teaching detracts from publishing high-quality articles. One way to deal with this challenge is to incorporate our research into our teaching. This chapter illustrates that approach. It provides a resource for political science faculty who want to increase their research productivity and teaching effectiveness in a time and resource-efficient way by integrating their research and teaching. Specifically, I show how I have embedded my research on Bhutan and Gross National Happiness in a second-year undergraduate course on the Politics of Happiness. Besides managing conflicting demands, student feedback has shown that embedding research in teaching also increases student engagement and learning. Although the chapter focuses on a specialized course, the approach can be adopted for generic courses as well.