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11 Pol'y Stud. J. 8 (1982-1983)

handle is hein.journals/plyssjnl11 and id is 1 raw text is: 8 ARTICLES OF GENERAL INTEREST TEACHING PUBLIC POLICY IN THE INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT COURSE Robert C. Sahr, Purdue University INTRODUCTION Public policy has become an increasingly emphasized topic in the introductory American government course. Traditionally, policy topics appear to have been included in American government textbooks primarily to describe the range of government activities, but more recently policy is included for one or both of two reasons: (1) to illustrate how institutional and other characteristics of American government and politics work together to produce outcomes, that is, to show the process, or (2) to focus on policy results as the payoff of American politics, that is, to focus on policy substance. Either approach offers distinct improvement over earlier primarily descriptive orientations toward American government activities. As Table 1 indicates, many texts now devote chapters to examination of a number of substantive policy areas. Moreover, since the Table omits civil liberties and civil rights, which many consider a policy area, it actually understates the total policy content. In addition, it shows only chapter-length coverage, and many texts include shorter than chapter- length discussion of some policy areas. American government text emphasis on presenting many policy areas appears, though, to overlook the advantages possible with more thorough analysis of a single issue area. When students confront a large number of policy areas, they cannot deal with any of them in much detail so may find each confusing, uninteresting, or both. They may also fail to see how the processes of American politics and government actually operate in practice because of insufficient development due to the need of the text and the instructor to cover a number of policy areas. The argument here is that significant advantages result from adoption of a complexity of choice framework in relation to public policy in the introductory American government course: examining only one or two areas of public policy, but each in more detail than is currently done. This framework allows and attempts to stimulate a number of results: students begin to understand how the substance of a particular policy area and the process by which the policies are developed interact to have specific effects; students become aware of the uncertainties and complexities involved in public policy formation and implementation; students develop critical ability in relation to news media and similar reports about public policy and also in relation to the limits of many