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Davidson College

Davidson College's course descriptions average 68.4 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Davidson College reads 0.8 points further left.

Liberal (100)center (50)Conservative (0)
Davidson College: 68.4 (likely range 67.1 to 69.7) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

1%Far left92–100
19%Left75–91
77%Center-left59–74
3%Center42–58
0%Center-right26–41
0%Right9–25
0%Far right0–8
149 plotted courses (the ones with a political framing). 100 = far left, 50 = the average American, 0 = far right.

See it for yourself

Underlined: words the model quoted from the description when we asked it, after scoring, to explain its score.

Furthest left

POL 432 · Racial Justice in Education100

Political Science

Instructor Murray This course is composed of academic writing, research methods, readings, and discussion focused on racial inequality in education. We take a critical analytic approach to understand how schools and school systems oppress…

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GSS 394 · Latinx Sexual Dissidence and Guerilla Translation (=LAS 394)92

Women's & Gender Studies

Please email Melissa Gonzalez ( megonzalez@davidson.edu ) if you are interested in this course. Instructor González Despite local differences and sociocultural contexts, there are also remarkable convergences in subcultural minority…

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SOC 355 · Queer Families91

Sociology

Instructor Kaufman This course disrupts traditional notions of "the family." More specifically, we will challenge binaries: gender, sexuality, family. We start with the general assumption that there is not one acceptable or even dominant…

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Furthest right

None. Davidson College has 149 left-framed courses and not one right-framed course.

Why this number, in plain words

Political lean of course descriptions. Average Framing score (0 = far right, 50 = center, 100 = far left) of the scored courses in the group.

50 is the survey-anchored center of US adults on each issue (the "moderate" place of the ANES/GSS/PRRI seven-label ruler), not the cohort midpoint; scores above 50 read leftward, below 50 rightward.

Counted: courses with a Framing score (categories L/R/B/C). The likely range (95% interval) is 67.1 to 69.7; a comparison whose range overlaps this one is not a reliable difference.

  • Most course descriptions carry no political lean at all and are not in this average; the "share described from the left" view counts them.
  • Readings are of catalog description text, not of teaching, syllabi or individual professors.
Davidson College by department (share of courses described from the left)
DepartmentLeft-framed shareCourses
Women's & Gender Studies61.5%26view
Ethnic & African American Studies58.2%55view
Sociology44.1%59view
English & Comparative Literature21.2%99view
History19.3%140view
Psychology15%60view
Art & Art History10.9%55view
Anthropology9.6%52view
Philosophy5.6%36view
Political Science4.6%109view
Economics0%43view
Religious Studies0%84view

Lean (mean Framing score) is not published per department within a school; only the left-framed share is. Department rows carry no interval.

Details: exact rows, definitions and method
NameMetricValue95% intervalnscored
Davidson Collegemean_bias_score68.467.1 – 69.7818149
All 100 schoolsmean_bias_score67.567.4 – 67.7124,29010,124
Formula
SUM(bias_score) / COUNT(bias_score)
Interval
normal approximation: mean +/- 1.96 * sd / sqrt(n), sample sd (n-1); undefined when n < 2
Model / prompt / snapshot
gpt-5.6-sol · r12 (2026-10-16-le49-r12) · 6df50b10
Metric caveats
Scored courses only (L/R/B/C); N and I carry no score and are excluded, so n here is smaller than the group's course count. Scores are model readings of catalog description text against a fixed anchored definition, not teaching or syllabi. The interval covers sampling noise in the mean only; it does not represent model reading error. Every value carries a `method` label: exact_rows or histogram_midpoint.

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