The major in political science offers students the opportunity to examine politics from a variety of theoretical, cultural, and methodological perspectives. By raising fundamental questions about politics, courses encourage students to reflect carefully a bout the behaviors, institutions, ideologies and dynamics of political life. Students are asked to re-examine their commonsense assumptions regarding politics, and to learn to think and write critically about political questions. As the study of politics is inherently multicultural and multidisciplinary, courses stress the importance of the diversity of the political experience, including a global range of cultural issues that address the role of race, class, ethnicity, sexualit y, and gender in political life.