Student Activism in the Academy: Its Struggles and Promise is a wide-ranging, provocative survey of student activism in America’s colleges and universities that critically analyzes the contentious problems and progress of a movement that has stirred public reaction in and out of academe. Its fundamental purpose is to engage diverse publics in both reasoned and passionate reflection and soul searching on vital issues that surround campus protest, including:strategies ...

Post-Truth’s Assault on America’s Schools and Colleges presents a wide-ranging analysis of the psychological, historical, philosophical, and socio-political perspectives on how the post-truth age has become a serious peril to American life and polity in general, and to our schools and colleges in particular. Confirmation bias, religious and political fanaticism (e.g., White Christian nationalism), and disinformation and propaganda (especially in social media) are among the main cu...

This book provides a more overarching, inclusive, appraisal of “human flourishing,” especially as it applies to the larger society and higher education. In an increasingly fractured world, it is imperative that both internal (individual) attributes of that notion be juxtaposed with external (social, economic, and political) factors that may either enhance or constrain development toward a more fulsome realization of “human flourishing.” The text focuses more on external contingencies since...

"This impressive anthology presents the reader with an introduction to a gallery of public intellectuals through the critical eyes of a wide array of contributing writers from various academic fields. Both the latter and the public intellectuals themselves are responding to the state of American higher education. Importantly, most of them (there are a few public intellectuals in the book who cling closer to the status quo) do not separate colleges and universities from the political, econo...

The last half century has created deep tensions in how we analyze educational and social change. Educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens have had to cope with competing belief systems in evaluating and acting upon school policies and practices. This illuminating book untangles many of the roots of those persistent debates that have divided the nation for so long. It offers readers a critical opportunity to reflect on our continuing ideological struggles by examining popular books t...

Higher education and society are becoming increasingly intertwined. Both act as a transmitter of culture, yet many colleges and universities also ideally seek to create a more perfectible society and more enlightened, engaged citizens. When the connections between social structures and post-secondary education are closely entangled, the university’s aims can take on a contentious struggle for identity in a vexing web of competing external interests – especially in light of scarce economic ...

Focusing on crucial issues in higher education, this book challenges readers to go beyond taken-for-granted assumptions about America’s colleges and universities and instead critically examine important questions facing them in today’s troubled world. Each chapter presents divergent perspectives, that is, "pro" and "con" views, in the hope of stimulating reasoned dialogue among students, faculty, administrators, and the public at large. Readers will explore how internal factors in the acad...

America’s undergraduates truly represent a mind-boggling diversity. Today’s College Students: A Reader looks at a wide variety of student groups and identities, which sets it apart from other texts on contemporary college students that do not cover such a broad spectrum. The editors and contributors also invite students, their instructors, and other college/university practitioners to be mindful of the crucial, yet sometimes overlooked, connection between extra-curricular campus a...

Today’s colleges and universities are facing mounting criticism from both internal and external interest groups and constituencies. While strident calls for reform accelerate, resources for higher education have weakened. Thus, demands to improve college education abound amidst hard times. This timely book, Making College Better: Views from the Top, offers more rational and practical responses to that public outcry by allowing college presidents and chancellors from a wide variety...

This award-winning guide to social justice education is appropriate for students from high school through graduate school.Based on the authors’ extensive experience in a range of settings in the United States and Canada, the book addresses the most common stumbling blocks to understanding social justice. This comprehensive resource includes new features such as a chapter on intersectionality and classism; discussion of contemporary activism (Black Lives Matter, Occ...

A rethinking of American democracy that puts caring responsibilities at the centerAmericans now face a caring deficit: there are simply too many demands on people’s time for us to care adequately for our children, elderly people, and ourselves.At the same time, political involvement in the United States is at an all-time low, and although political life should help us to care better, people see caring as unsupported by public life ...

John W. Budd's The Thought of Work provides a much needed and highly eloquent statement of the meanings and orientations to work across time and nations. It is essential reading for students of work from senior scholars to beginning undergraduates.— Randy Hodson, Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences The Ohio State University and past editor ― American Sociological ReviewBy drawing explicit attention to diverse, implici...