University of Amsterdam Summer School: Politics & Identity

This programme hosted by the Unversity of Amsterdam is designed for current high school students interested in political science, identity politics, and the social sciences in general. Every aspect of our lives is intertwined with political decisions, as is our identity. How can something as fluid and changeable as identity be the basis for political debate? What implications do our identities have on our political beliefs, interpretations, establishments and conversations?

In the first week of this summer programme, we will examine the concept of identity through an academic lens, and analyse how it intersects with other important concepts such as culture, class, race and ethnicity. In the second week, we will turn to current political debates that are strongly steered by ‘identity politics’, most dominantly those around populism, globalization and antiracist social movements.

In our lectures, the students will be given the theoretical background to participate in empirical discussions that will be the basis of our interactive online seminars and class debates. In these sessions, students will work together to disentangle empirical manifestations of identity politics, unravelling how both are so closely bound together. Students will use their home context as nodes that are deeply entrenched in local and global debates about democracy. 

Students will experience studying in a supportive international environment hosted by the University of Amsterdam. The lectures and all course materials are in English. Participants in the course will develop study skills and become acquainted with learning methods that will give them an advantage as they continue their education at university.