Abstract
Student Activism and Curricular Change in Higher Education involves case study analyses of three disciplines of study within higher education: Asian American studies, women’s studies, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT)/queer studies. Through an in-depth analysis of cases at six universities, readers are given a behind-the-scenes look into what may have attributed to the successes and failures of student efforts to engage curricular changes at these institutions. The case studies are situated within the frameworks of contentious politics and social movements, where contentious politics is used to explain the dynamics that occur beyond students’ desire to see a change that would have an impact on the outcomes (e.g., the politics that exist within the university and the larger public sentiment on the issue).
Overall, the book is structured in such a manner that the introduction of contentious politics and social movements sets the overall tone and baseline knowledge needed by the reader to follow along with the events that are chronicled in the case studies. This material, in addition to a broader discussion of the history of the three disciplines in higher education, composes the first of three parts to this book. The second part of the book focuses on the six universities that were selected for case studies. For the protection of the institutions analyzed, they were given pseudonyms so it is not possible to trace the specifics back to the original institutions. All six of the universities selected for review are four-year institutions; however, the author includes three public and three private institutions in order to analyze how the different disciplines did or did not emerge, relative to how they fit with the overall mission of the institution in question and the campus climate. In presenting the events that occurred on each campus, the demographics and location of the universities are also provided as a means to highlight not only what may have made the situations unique to a given university but also how even institutions that are seemingly different can have commonalities in their experiences. These demographics include region, campus setting, student-to-faculty ratio, cost of attendance, acceptance rate, and ranking. Each institution has a chapter dedicated to its case, and the formatting of each case tends to follow a similar pattern. An overview of the campus is provided in terms of location, history, and campus life. Following this overview, the progression of activism on campus is detailed, such as whether or not curricular change was attempted in the areas of Asian American, women’s, and LGBT/queer studies and if those attempts resulted in successful outcomes. Last, in the third part of the book, the focus is on a comprehensive analysis of all of the cases. In total, there are 10 chapters that cover the overview of the process that the author takes with the case studies, the individual case studies of each of the six institutions, and the analysis of the case studies. The purpose of the analysis of each institution is to determine what factors into the success or failure of students’ efforts to enact curricular change. The utility of this knowledge is to be able to apply the cumulative findings of all six cases to future cases on campuses.
Student Activism and Curricular Change in Higher Education covers a wealth of information. This is a book that would best be utilized in upper-division undergraduate courses or as a supplementary text for a graduate-level course. While at face value this is a text that would primarily be utilized in the context of either a Social Movements, Sociology of Education, or Research Methods course, it speaks to a much broader audience. There is the potential to apply this material in courses that address issues of race and ethnicity in addition to gender and sexuality. This text could be utilized as an instructional aid to illustrate how social movements can and do evolve in addition to what helps determine their success or failure. In an education course, this book would be useful to demonstrate how curricular change occurs and the broader impacts that these changes can have on campuses (e.g., student engagement and/or the retention of both students and faculty). Arguably, the material covered in this text could be used in a number of courses, but it would be best utilized by instructors who take an intersectional approach to their teaching and who acknowledge that curricular change is dependent on a wide range of factors (e.g., university administration, the type of institution, and the demographics of the campus and community). It would also be useful in a graduate methods course to illustrate not only how to execute and write up case studies but also how research can be packaged for those beyond academia. The format of the book would also be useful for graduate students who are looking for examples of how to format their own dissertations or theses, or how to transition them into a book format.
The structure of the book is very user-friendly. While some of the concepts and literature may be new (e.g., contentious politics, broader social movements literature, or institutionalization in a college setting), especially for students who are just being introduced to social movement literature, they are clearly defined and often have tangible examples to go along with them. For instance, in Table 9.5, the author clearly lays out the different elements of institutionalized versus non-institutionalized structures of newly implemented programs (p. 154). The case studies tend to flow nicely in a chronological discussion of the presence or absence of the areas of Asian American, women’s, and LGBT/queer studies on all six campuses (e.g., whether or not attempts were made to bring these programs to campuses and how each campus went about trying to implement these changes). The analysis and subsequent conclusions are clearly presented for the reader to see the potential applications of the results of these case studies. For example, Table 9.2 (p. 138) and Table 9.3 (p. 140) demonstrate different means of looking at how the missions of the institutions and the openness of administrations on campus may or may not lead to curricular changes. The additional methodological section in the back of the book is beneficial for readers who want a more in-depth understanding of the methodological approach as well as the overall sample that these six cases were drawn from. This would be useful for graduate students who are using case studies in their own research or are looking for guidance on how to structure a research project.
While the primary focus of the book is on curricular change (i.e., the introduction of certificates, minors, or majors in the three disciplines), it would have been beneficial to see a discussion of how these curricular changes can or did spark larger discussions about inclusivity on campuses. This was something that continually came to mind considering the more recent social movements that have revolved around social class (Occupy Wall Street) and race (Black Lives Matter). While these may not be issues directly related to the establishment of fields of study on campus, they highlight the continual need to strive to be inclusive in course content and campus climate. The advent of the Black Lives Matter movement and the growing discussions about discrimination on college campuses and communities highlight the need to apply some of the findings of this book to this area of social change. Following the shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June of 2015, a syllabus was created by a faculty member at the University of Iowa and Wayne State University to create a dialogue about minority students on campus and their experiences (Wexler 2015). This was a syllabus that was later adopted by student protestors at Brandeis University to encourage faculty to open the door to these conversations in light of the sit-in that was occurring on campus, an event that is only one of many highlighting discrimination toward minority students on college campuses and the students who are advocating for change (e.g., University of Missouri football players; Wexler 2015). This is just one of many areas in which the applications of Student Activism and Curricular Change in Higher Education could be expanded on in the classroom to address not only current events that are occurring both on and off college campuses but the active role that students can and do take in these dialogues.
The utility of Student Activism and Curricular Change in Higher Education spans not only courses directed at education and social movements but courses that address methods and inclusivity in the classroom. For instance, instructors might find this useful as a tool to illustrate how to conduct case study research or as discussion prompt for why it may be beneficial to have more inclusive curriculum on campus and dispersed throughout courses. As stated by the author, this research highlights the fact that students have been activists more recently than the 1960s and 1970s. Hopefully, research that illustrates the effectiveness of student efforts may encourage students and faculty alike to speak out for continual changes in curriculum and campus climates.