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Bowdoin College · History

20.2% of Bowdoin College's History course descriptions are framed from the left. Across all 100 schools' History departments, it is 8.3%.

0%35%
Bowdoin College: 20.2% History at all 100 schools: 8.3% each other school in the comparison

Where History courses fall

7%Far left92–100
20%Left75–91
34%Center-left59–74
21%Center42–58
2%Center-right26–41
7%Right9–25
10%Far right0–8
61 plotted courses (the ones with a political subject). 100 = far left, 50 = the average American, 0 = far right. Subject places what a course studies, not the side it takes.

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Subject places what a course studies, not the side it takes. A course on slavery or the Holocaust lands far right and a course on Marx or the Soviet Union lands far left, whether the course praises, criticizes or simply describes it.

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

Furthest-left subjects

HIST 1013 · (c) The Red World: Socialism as Imagined and Lived in Russia, 1917-1932100

History

Just over a century ago, Russian revolutionaries promised to turn the capitalist world upside down and replace it with a modern socialist order based on the equality and dignity of all working people. Explores socialism in practice between…

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HIST 2109 · (c, IP) The Red Century100

History

The Russian Revolution ushered in the world's first socialist society. This course explores the origins, evolution, and eventual collapse of the Soviet experiment. Topics include: the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and Civil War; the "building…

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HIST 2862 · (c, IP) The Haitian Revolution100

History

Seminar. Examines one of the most significant and yet neglected revolutions in history. Between the years 1791-1804, Haitian revolutionaries abolished slavery and ultimately established a free and independent nation. Explores the…

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Furthest-right subjects

HIST 1015 · (c) Hitler's Germany0

History

Examines the German experience of Nazism from its origins in WWI through twelve years of Hitler's rule (1933-1945). Working with a diverse set of primary sources, including film, photography, art, posters, letters, diaries, and memoirs,…

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HIST 1242 · (c) Between Revolution and Rebellion: The United States, 1783-18610

History

Surveys the history of the United States from its founding in 1783 to the secession that sparked civil war in 1861. Topics covered will include the nature of the federal compact, the expansion of slavery, the divergence of South and North,…

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HIST 2366 · (c, DPI, IP) Apartheid's Voices: South African History, 1948 to 19940

History

The study of apartheid in South Africa, the system of racial and ethnic segregation that began in 1948 and ended with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Explores the many different facets of apartheid: how and why it emerged; its…

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Why this number, in plain words

Share of courses described from the left. Percent of all courses in the group whose Framing reading is leftward: the description frames its subject one-sidedly to the left.

Counted: all courses in the group, including N and I. No interval is published for this number.

  • Readings are of catalog description text, not of teaching, syllabi or individual professors.
Details: exact rows, definitions and method
NameMetricValue95% intervalnscored
Bowdoin College · Historybias_left_share20.2—114—
Historybias_left_share8.37.9 – 8.717,232—
Formula
100 * count(bias_cat = 'L') / n
Interval
Wilson score 95% (wilson_interval)
Model / prompt / snapshot
gpt-5.6-sol · r12 (2026-10-16-le49-r12) · 6df50b10
Metric caveats
Right-framed courses are almost absent (33 of 124,290); this run cannot tell catalog reality from model sensitivity. Compare schools with adjusted_ratio, not this raw share, because department mix differs.

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