scholarly journals Labour Studies, the Liberal Arts, and the Sociological Imagination

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-568
Author(s):  
Richard Wells
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
Worker Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us

In the US, the value of liberal arts is in question as neo-liberal reformers push for a more instrumentalist form of higher education. Older traditions of worker education, however, along with more recent university-based labour studies programs, offer a compelling counter-narrative concerning the social and political purpose of higher education. Taking its cue from C.W. Mills’ notion of the sociological imagination, labour studies has the potential not only to re-energize the transformational mission of popular worker education, but reclaim the idea of higher education as a public good.

scholarly journals Centering the Margins: Knowledge Production in the Introductory Archaeology Course

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Quave ◽  
Shannon Fie ◽  
AmySue Qing Qing Greiff ◽  
Drew Alis Agnew
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Course Structure ◽  
Student Reflection ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Full Picture

Teaching introductory archaeology courses in US higher education typically falls short in two important ways: the courses do not represent the full picture of who contributes to reconstructing the past and do not portray the contemporary and future relevance of the archaeological past. In this paper, we use anti-colonial and decolonial theories to explain the urgency of revising the introductory archaeology curriculum for promoting equity in the discipline and beyond. We detail the pedagogical theories we employed in revising an introductory archaeology course at a small liberal arts college in the US and the specific changes we made to course structure, content, and teaching strategies. To examine the impacts on enrolled students and on who chose to enroll in the revised archaeology curriculum, we analyze student reflection essays and enrollment demographics. We find that students developed more complex understandings of the benefits and harms of archaeological knowledge production and could articulate how to address archaeology’s inequities. We also found that enrollment in archaeology courses at the college shifted to include greater proportions of students of color. These results support the notion that introductory archaeology courses should be substantially and continually revised.

Reimagining Indian Higher Education: A Social Ecology of Higher-Education Institutions

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
William G. Tierney ◽  
Nidhi S. Sabharwal
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Social Ecology ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
The Social ◽  
Indian Higher Education ◽  
Definition Of

Background/Context Developing countries desire institutions ranked as “world-class,” and want to increase postsecondary participation. Limited public monies require decisions that usually augment the welfare of one objective at the expense of another. An additional conundrum concerns the need for quality assurances. Research needs to be rigorous; students need to be well trained. The authors suggest that the social ecology of higher education has a crucial role to play in India. The challenges are whether to accommodate rapid expansion, how to improve the overall quality of the system, and invest in a research infrastructure. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study The article's purpose is to ask if the social ecology of postsecondary education that has been created in India is in its best interests. Social ecology refers to the universe of postsecondary organizations that account for the 35,357 institutions in India. Insofar as the ecology is “social,” the citizens and government determine the shape of the ecology. The authors first offer a traditional definition of what has been meant by the public good and then turn to a consideration of India's social ecology of higher education. The article's purpose then, is specific to India and more generalized to postsecondary education in a globalized world. The text situates the institutions and systems of higher education into a social ecology that until recently has been framed by the idea of a public good. Setting The study took place in India during 2015–2016. Research Design The text is an analytic essay that utilized secondary texts pertaining to the structure and quality of the postsecondary system in India. Conclusions/Recommendations The authors suggest that the “'alphabet soup” of institutional forms that currently exists in India does not serve the country well; the taxonomy tends to obscure, rather than clarify, roles and responsibilities. They argue that a new social ecology of higher education needs to be put forward that streamlines relationships, clarifies roles and regulations, improves data analysis, and focuses on quality rather than quantity.

Academic Glossolalia? Pentecostal Scholarship, Multi-Disciplinarity, and the Science-Religion Conversation

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos Yong
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractAs more and more Pentecostal institutions of higher education are being transformed from liberal arts colleges to universities, an increasing number of degrees in the social and natural sciences are being offered. At the same time, Pentecostals working and teaching in science and religion departments have not been engaged in the science-and-religion conversation in any measurable way. This essay attempts to chart the prospects for such an engagement by way of entering into dialogue from a Pentecostal perspective with three recent publications. Throughout, the importance and necessity for Pentecostal presence in the science-and-religion discussion is emphasized, especially with an eye toward revitalizing Pentecostal education, scholarship, and praxis for life in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Building a Liberal Arts Tradition in India

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-137
Author(s):  
Takako Mino
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Culturally Relevant Education ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
Indian Context ◽  
The Us ◽  
Education In India ◽  
Indian Higher Education ◽  
Relevant Education

Postcolonial nations often struggle with the legacy of higher education systems built by and for the benefit of former colonizers. In India, several visionaries have endeavored to design new approaches to higher education that are suitable to India’s unique context while taking inspiration from the US liberal arts college model. Interest in the liberal arts has grown - in an interconnected world, where a broader scope of understanding is required to craft solutions to societal challenges, young Indians are seeking an alternative to the specialized university model that has dominated the Indian higher education landscape since colonial times. This paper explores the practice of the liberal arts in India through three questions: How does the liberal arts approach fit within the Indian context? How have Indian universities built their own liberal arts tradition? What tensions do these universities navigate? I collected data through a document analysis and interviews with founders, faculty, students, and alumni at three new liberal arts universities in India. While communicating the practical value of the liberal arts to a largely unfamiliar population, the universities built their own liberal arts tradition to help students appreciate, analyze, and develop a commitment to improving the Indian context. At the same time, universities faced numerous tensions: responding to pressures to produce highly employable graduates while remaining true to their institutional ideals, balancing wisdom from both the western liberal arts model and indigenous Indian traditions, and fostering greater inclusion while maintaining financial sustainability. The study’s findings contribute to the field of higher education in India and other postcolonial countries seeking to create new culturally relevant education traditions.

scholarly journals Impact of Covid-19, Economic, Racial and Political Tensions on Chinese Student Pursuit of Education in US

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69
Author(s):  
Brian A Swanson ◽  
Huan Wang ◽  
Jeremy Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Chinese Student ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
China Trade ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trade War ◽  
Social Upheaval

Chinese international students account for a significant portion of the US higher education system. This impact is amplified by the fact that many of these students are paying higher out-of-state tuition fees, that many universities rely on to meet their pecuniary needs. This past year has seen significant changes in the area of China-US relations which could jeopardize the prior model used by US universities. This article examines four of the current key political issues affecting the China-US relationship and measures the extent Chinese students are influenced by these factors when deciding to pursue higher education in the US. The four factors analyzed are the US Covid-19 situation, the US-China trade war, the social upheaval associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the most recent political tensions between the US and China. Key findings indicate that only about half as many students are willing to consider studying in the US and that Covid-19 seems to be the most influential factor in most students’ reasoning.

Common thread: The Fifth Discipline from a liberal arts college perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Schneper
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Organization ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Learning Principles

Purpose Liberal arts colleges (LACs) have played a crucial role in the foundation and development of the US higher education system. Today, these schools face numerous organizational and environmental challenges that threaten their performance and even survival. This paper aims to examine whether Senge’s (1990) vision of the learning organization can serve a useful function in responding to these challenges. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual analysis was conducted based on research relating to learning organizations, LACs and the liberal arts tradition. Findings The paper identifies significant congruence between learning organization and liberal arts/liberal learning principles. LACs may benefit from applying and modifying Senge’s (1990) framework to their own unique situations. Originality/value While The Fifth Discipline has certainly contributed to the lexicon of higher education, the role that Senge’s (1990) framework plays in LACs has received scant research attention. This paper investigates the applicability of Senge’s approach to an underexplored context.

scholarly journals What I Have Learned from Conservative Students Teaching American Politics at a Predominantly White Institution (PWIs): Reflections of a Minority College Professor

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Earnest N. Bracey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
College Professors ◽  
The Social

<em>Disruptive, conservative college students are a symptom of a larger problem that we have in higher education today. Also, many of our students are unprepared academically, but some think that they should pass American politics—and other controversial courses—anyway, without doing the necessary work. Of course, this higher education issue has taken on new gravity, given that liberal college professors are being verbally attacked and threatened by these conservative, college students, especially if they are from a minority group, or if they are African Americans at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Their major complaint is always about there being a liberal bent in academia, but many are tricked into thinking in a certain, conservative way. These are carefully crafted, politically motivated attacks, because some of these students don’t respect or believe in the veracity of anything told by minority professors, particularly their diversity of ideas about current political issues. As we might imagine, for example, the social injustices and racial terrorism of the past toward minorities, in the United States, just doesn’t register with some of these conservative students, with latent prejudices, because they mostly want to just rail against liberal professors of all stripes, ratcheting up the divisions we have at the higher education level. Moreover, these conservative students also applaud the tactics and rationale behind their verbal, classroom attacks and threats, as they monitor certain (liberal) college professors. Perhaps they have a prevalent belief that most liberal professors are somehow evil. Finally, these disruptive students believe what they want to believe, which isn’t the best way to consider important policy matters today. Indeed, these misguided students should think more critically about the social and political issues, without blindly following someone because they tell the best story, or because of their conservative values. In the final analysis, we must wonder if the traditional ways of teaching students at Liberal Arts College and Universities are dead.</em>

Commitment to pro- versus counter-attitudinal behavior and the dynamics of social representations

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tafani ◽  
Lionel Souchet
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Cognitive Restructuring ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Dimensional Model ◽  
Students Attitudes

This research uses the counter-attitudinal essay paradigm ( Janis & King, 1954 ) to test the effects of social actions on social representations. Thus, students wrote either a pro- or a counter-attitudinal essay on Higher Education. Three forms of counter-attitudinal essays were manipulated countering respectively a) students’ attitudes towards higher education; b) peripheral beliefs or c) central beliefs associated with this representation object. After writing the essay, students expressed their attitudes towards higher education and evaluated different beliefs associated with it. The structural status of these beliefs was also assessed by a “calling into question” test ( Flament, 1994a ). Results show that behavior challenging either an attitude or peripheral beliefs induces a rationalization process, giving rise to minor modifications of the representational field. These modifications are only on the social evaluative dimension of the social representation. On the other hand, when the behavior challenges central beliefs, the same rationalization process induces a cognitive restructuring of the representational field, i.e., a structural change in the representation. These results and their implications for the experimental study of representational dynamics are discussed with regard to the two-dimensional model of social representations ( Moliner, 1994 ) and rationalization theory ( Beauvois & Joule, 1996 ).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document