Student Activism and Curricular Change in Higher Education

While higher education is still far from universal in the United States, it plays an increasingly large role in shaping our collective understanding of what knowledge counts as legitimate and important. Therefore, understanding the college curriculum and how it is changed and shaped helps us to understand the overall dynamics of knowledge in contemporary society. This book considers the emergence of three curricular fields that have developed and spread over the past half century in American higher education - Women's studies, Asian American studies and Queer/LGBT studies. It details the broader history of their development as knowledge fields and then explains how, when, and why individual colleges and universities may choose to adopt such innovations. Based on in-depth case studies of curricular change processes at six colleges and universities across the United States, the book demonstrates that social movements targeting colleges and universities play a major role in curricular change and sets forward a new model for understanding what it takes for social movements targeting organizations to make an impact.

Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rhode Island College, USA

Part I Introduction; Chapter 1 The Promise (and the Threat) of Curricular Change; Chapter 2 Interdisciplinary Studies in Context: The Births of Women's Studies, Asian American Studies, and Queer Studies; Part II Six Cases; Chapter 3 A Place to Become Women: Abigail Adams College; Chapter 4 Our Work is Never Done: Promenade University; Chapter 5 Reaching for Tomorrow: Technopark University; Chapter 6 Fighting the Good Fight: Jeffrey University; Chapter 7 Fanning the Flames of Knowledge: Sagebrush University; Chapter 8 Understanding Human Experience: The College of Assisi; Part III Analysis; Chapter 9 Moving Curricular Change: The Process and Product of Change Campaigns; Chapter 10 Curricular Change and Collective Action: A Conclusion;