Focusing on community colleges as a unique structure within American higher education, this text investigates the specific ways in which these institutions have been impacted by a global increase in neoliberal education policies. Analyzing the effects neoliberalism has had on community colleges, the text charters discourse relating the erosion of faculty voice in academic governance, and decision making; the vocationalization of curriculum; and the impact that these factors have had on the ability of community colleges to provide students with an education that supports a democratic society. Exposing a movement away from the historical aims of community-based education, the text evidences a hijacking of community colleges to serve the objectives of the corporate elite. There has been a decline in community college faculty engagement in shared governance and their loss of recognition as academic and curricular leaders, and the book discusses the potential for redistribution of decision-making power back toward faculty. This text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, professionals and policy-makers in the fields of Higher Education, Education Policy and Politics, Sociology of Education, Higher Education Management and Education Politics.

The word fundamentalism usually conjures up images of religions and their most zealous followers. Much less often the word appears in connection with political economy. The phrase “free market” gives the connotation that capitalism is freedom. Neoliberalism is the rise of global free-market fundamentalism. It reaches into nearly every aspect of our daily lives as it seeks to dominate and eliminate the last vestiges of public domains through wanton privatization and deregulation. It degrades all that is public. The good news is that a global community of resistance continues to struggle against neoliberal oppression. Formal and informal education entities contribute to these struggles, offering visions and strategies for creating a better future. The purpose of this volume is twofold. Several contributors will highlight how the neoliberal agenda is impacting educational policy formation, teaching and learning, and relationships between institutions of higher education and communities. Other contributors will highlight how the global community has gradually become conscious of the ideological doctrine and how it is responsible for human suffering and misery. The volume is needed because the growing body of educational research linked to exploring the impact of neoliberalism on education and society fails to provide conceptual or historical understanding of this ideology. It is also an important scholarly intervention because it provides insights as to why educators, scholars, and other global citizens have challenged the intrusion of market forces over life inside universities and colleges. Teaching faculty, research faculty, and anyone who yearns to understand what is behind the debilitating trend of commercial forces subverting humanizing educational projects would benefit from this volume. Activists, educators, youth, and scholars who seek strategies and visions for building democratic higher education and a more democratic society would consider this volume essential reading.

This book examines seven higher education organizations, exploring their interconnected lines: organizational change and organizational stability. These lines are nested within historical, social, cultural, and political contexts of two nations—the US and Canada—two provinces and three states: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Hawai’i, and Washington. The author studies the development of the community college and the development of the university from community college origins, bringing to the forefront these seven individual stories. Addressing continuity and discontinuity and identity preservation and identity change, as well as individual organizations’ responses to government policy, Levin analyzes and illuminates those policies with neoliberal assumptions and values.

This book aims to deepen public understanding of the community college and to challenge our longstanding reliance on a deficit model for defining this important, powerful, and transformative institution. Featuring a unique combination of data and research, Sullivan seeks to help redefine, update, and reshape public perception about community colleges. This book gives serious attention to student voices, and includes narratives written by community college students about their experiences attending college at an open admissions institution. Sullivan examines the history of the modern community college and the economic model that is driving much of the current discussion in higher education today. Sullivan argues that the community college has done much to promote social justice and economic equality in America since the founding of the modern community college in 1947 by the Truman Commission.

This edited collection combines quantitative content and critical discourse analysis to reveal a shift in the rhetoric used as part of the neoliberal agenda in education. It does so by analysing, uncovering, and commenting on language as a central tool of education. Focussing on vocabulary, metaphors, and slogans used in strategy documents, advertising, policy, and public discourse, the text illustrates how concepts such as justice, opportunity, well-being, talent, and disadvantage have been hijacked by educational institutes, governments, and universities. Showing how neoliberalism has changed discourses about education and educational policy, these chapters trace issues such as anti-intellectualism, commercialization, meritocracy, and an erasure of racial difference back to a contradictory growth in egalitarian rhetoric. Given its global scope, this volume offers a timely intervention in the studies of neoliberalism and education by developing a holistic vision of how the language of neoliberalism has changed how we think about education. It will prove to be an essential resource for scholars and researchers working at the intersections of education, policymaking, and neoliberalism.

Focusing on non-traditional students in higher education institutions, this new book from renowned scholar John Levin examines the extent to which community college students receive justice both within their institution and as an outcome of their education.

Community college student mental health is a critical topic among community college leaders, faculty, and staff. Mental health concerns among community college students are more prevalent and more pronounced than among students at four-year institutions. The recent pandemic has further amplified students’ mental health concerns. Poor mental health can negatively affect student success outcomes such as persistence within courses, grade point average, and credential completion. Even though the research in this area is growing, additional work is necessary to fully grasp the scope and details of the issue. Within this book, Latz outlines the contours of the issue by explaining what is already known. She then uses data from a study involving interviews with community college faculty to further explain the issue from their unique and important vantage points. Readers will learn about both the professional lives of community college faculty and their experiences with and perspectives of their students, many of whom navigate mental health issues. The book is concluded with robust recommendations for community college leaders who are seeking ways to better support their students.