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Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College's course descriptions average 68.3 on the 100-to-0 ruler: clearly left of center. Across all 100 schools, the average is 67.5, so Swarthmore College reads 0.7 points further left.

ShowCompared withDepartments

Liberal (100)center (50)Conservative (0)

Swarthmore College: 68.3 (likely range 67.0 to 69.5) All 100 schools: 67.5 each other school in the comparison

Where its courses fall

3%Far left92–100

18%Left75–91

71%Center-left59–74

8%Center42–58

0%Center-right26–41

0%Right9–25

0%Far right0–8

182 plotted courses (the ones with a political framing). 100 = far left, 50 = the average American, 0 = far right.

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Framing Subject

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

Furthest left

BLST 094A · Student Run: Freedom Dreaming: Black Radical Insurgency and Abolitionist Imaginings100

Ethnic & African American Studies

Students Fighting for Transformative Justice, Abolition, and Revolution (STAR) cultivates campus spaces that find ways in which we can join the global fight to abolish the carceral state. The goal of this student-designed and student-run…

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PHIL 034 · Marx and Marxism96

Philosophy

Few figures have inspired as much admiration and detestation-and even fewer have had as global a reception-as Karl Marx. Movements for justice and emancipation throughout the 20th century embraced Marxist ideals as alternatives to the…

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SOCI 035B · Anti-Capitalism, Revolution and Resistance in the "Third World"96

Sociology

This class will introduce students to the long history of struggle in the so-called third world. We will read and analyze the various movements that have sought to resist and challenge the imposition of the oppressive systems of capitalism,…

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Furthest right

None. Swarthmore College has 182 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 67.0 to 69.5; 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.

Swarthmore College by department (share of courses described from the left)

Department	Left-framed share	Courses
Ethnic & African American Studies	49.0%	49	view
Sociology	46.4%	56	view
Anthropology	37.1%	35	view
Religious Studies	18.8%	85	view
English & Comparative Literature	17.5%	275	view
Political Science	15.7%	83	view
Women's & Gender Studies	12.5%	48	view
Art & Art History	11.5%	113	view
History	10.8%	120	view
Psychology	9.1%	44	view
Philosophy	8.1%	62	view
Economics	2%	50	view

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

Name	Metric	Value	95% interval	n	scored
Swarthmore College	mean_bias_score	68.3	67.0 – 69.5	1,020	182
All 100 schools	mean_bias_score	67.5	67.4 – 67.7	124,290	10,124

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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