Why electoral systems matter for democracy

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Politics.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of political scientists Professor André Blais, from the University of Montreal in Canada, and Professor Damien Bol, from King’s College London in the UK, who have joined forces to examine how different electoral systems affect voter and party behaviour.
• This resource also contains interviews with André and Damien. If you or your students have a question for them, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. André and Damien will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on André and Damien’s research, and tasks them to run an experiment to assess different electoral systems.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!