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Teaching Biopolitics in a Professional Curriculum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Patrick G. O'Hara
Patrick G. O'Hara*
Affiliation:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, New York, New York 10019
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Abstract

This article considers the ways in which teachers of public administration can address biopolitical issues within an established professional curriculum. The author distinguishes between the teleological and instrumental aspects of a belief system, holding that biobehavioral explanation can be pedagogically useful and can provide public administrators with a model for assessing and responding to workplace phenomena. The article proposes that undergraduate and graduate teaching impose different standards on an instructor seeking to introduce biobehavioral and biostructural concepts. The different standards arise out of the explicit and focused career instrumentality of graduate study in public administration, as well as age graded differences in receptivity to particular propositions about human nature. Finally, this article details some ways in which biobehavioral explanation can be introduced in organizational behavior classes and in classes that consider the structure of public organizations and their decision-making processes.

Type
Specific Courses in Politics and the Life Sciences
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , August 1986 , pp. 59 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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