Whiteness Power And Resisting Change In Us Higher Education

This edited volume connects the origins of US higher education during the Colonial Era with current systemic characteristics that maintain white supremacist structures and devalue students and faculty of color, as well as areas of study that interrogate Whiteness. The authors examine power structures within the academy that scaffold Whiteness and promote inequality at all levels by maintaining a two-tier faculty system and a dearth of Faculty and Administrators of Color. Finally, contributors offer systemic and collective solutions toward a more equitable redistribution of power, primarily among faculty and administration, through which other inequities may be identified and more easily addressed.

This edited volume explores and deconstructs the possibilities of higher education beyond its initial purpose. The book contextualizes and argues for a more robust interrogation of persistent patterns of campus inequality driven by rapid demographic change, reduced public spending in higher education, and an increasingly polarized political landscape. It offers contemporary views and critiques ideas and practices such as micro-aggressions, implicit and explicit bias, and their consequences in reifying racial and gender-based inequalities on members of nondominant groups. The book also highlights coping mechanisms and resistance strategies that have enabled members of nondominant groups to contest primarily racial- and gender- based inequity. In doing so, it identifies new ways higher education can do what it professes to do better, in all ways, from providing real benefit to students and communities, while also setting a bar for society to more effectively realize its stated purpose and creed.

Sharing the new and evolving approaches to higher education leadership that foster liberatory systemic change. Higher Education Leadership offers a groundbreaking exploration of leadership in higher education. Rozana Carducci, Jordan Harper, and Adrianna Kezar challenge traditional paradigms and ideologies that hinder progress—advocating instead for liberatory systemic change. The authors highlight new and evolving interdisciplinary leadership approaches for resisting and dismantling oppressive systems, including neoliberalism and white supremacy, within and beyond higher education organizations. This comprehensive textbook synthesizes decades of leadership scholarship and dissects the limitations of hierarchical and individual-centered models prevalent in higher education. Through critical analysis, the authors unveil process-centered, shared-power, and equity-oriented approaches that prioritize liberation. By translating classic and revolutionary theories, they empower current and aspiring higher education leaders to reimagine their roles to create more meaningful impact. The authors bring theory to life by exploring the specific context of higher education and providing practical applications. Their survey also identifies gaps in knowledge and methodologies and provides ideas for future leadership research. They invite readers to view leadership as both a problem to be interrogated and dismantled as well as a pathway to a more liberatory future. By recognizing these dual possibilities of leadership, the authors open the door to powerful insights while also offering a cautionary tale. With enriching case studies, vignettes, and discussion questions, Higher Education Leadership serves as an essential resource for graduate classrooms and professionals seeking to critique existing leadership practices and forge new pathways that foster equity and systemic transformation. This thought-provoking textbook offers a new vision for higher education scholars and leaders committed to fostering inclusive, anti-racist, and equitable universities.

Queer Precarity in Higher Education looks at queer scholars pushing against institutional structures, and the queer knowledge that gets pushed out by universities. It provides insight into the work of, in and beyond academia as it is un-done in the contemporary (post)Covid moment, not least by queer academic-activists. This radical un-doing represents cycles of queer precarity, pragmatism and participation both situating and questioning the 'queer arrival' of institutionalized programmes and presences (e.g. queer and gender studies degrees, prominent and public feminist academics). In this book, the contributors push back against contemporary educational precarity, mobilizing queer insight and insistence; and push back against confinement of the University, socially and spatially. The collection brings together academic-activist perspectives to extend understandings of experiences of marginalization and inequality in higher education. It also documents the diversity of tactics with which queers negotiate and resist the various, shifting and interconnected forms of precarity and privilege found on the edges of academia. Contributors consider these issues from inside/outside academia and across career course, challenging the 'queer arrival' as emanating outward from the university to the community, from the academic to the activist, or from a state of privilege to a place of precarity.

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on current important issues pertaining to college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology and other key aspects of higher education administration. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.

This book offers counternarratives from People of Color (POC) engaged in varied departments, faculties, and institutions in higher education to interrogate and challenge the construct of whiteness as an ideological form reproduced across campuses throughout the United States. Documenting individuals’ lived experiences, the text uses narratives, personal stories, and autoethnographic approaches to explore how social and racial injustices manifest themselves at both a macro- and micro-level through structures and ideologies of whiteness, as well as personal and group interactions. This book, divided into four valuable parts, offers reconceptualizations of racial diversity in higher education, and further explores identity politics within the academy to ultimately posit that a varied approach is necessary to combat the equally varied ideological forms of whiteness. This text will benefit scholars, academics, and students in the fields of higher education, race and ethnicity studies, and academic librarianship more broadly. Those involved with the multicultural education, education policy and politics, and equality and human rights in general will also benefit from this volume.

This book explores political cynicism as a driving force at the heart of the current crisis of democracy in the United States, focusing on the crisis and the role of education, popular culture and news media in fostering and fighting cynicism. In this unique text, Van Heertum draws on historical and contemporary data, policy, and current events to map the growth of a cynicism that risks undermining the democratic principles upon which American society is built. Tracing the philosophical, social and historical origins of an “ubiquitous cynicism” cultivated in political discourse, media and educational policy, the chapters then explore avenues to challenge cynicism and restore hope through a more affirmative discourse, aesthetic education, media and educational reform, challenging rampant inequality, and methods to rein in corporate power. The book ultimately advocates for a radical democracy that can restore the power of the people to have a meaningful say in the decisions that affect their lives. A timely and useful contribution to the field of education, this book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of educational policy and politics, the sociology of education and American studies.

This book offers a unique grounded analysis of recent crises and transformations in academic work. It charts international and Australia-based efforts to overcome academic fragmentation and precarity, and to advance agendas for the public university. It is based on extensive qualitative interviews with academics and managers across several universities in Australia. It finds new grounds for ‘universal’ universities, with decent jobs, to serve the public good. The book is aimed at students and scholars from sociology, education, politics and industrial relations, and a wider readership concerned about the future of universities. Analysis centres on a trade union-led initiative in Australia aimed at decasualising universities, and ensuing debates about the impact of academic fragmentation. The authors argue for strengthening the teaching/research nexus as the foundation-stone for public purpose universities.