John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education

by Harbour, Clifford P.

• ISBN13: 9781441172921
• ISBN10: 1441172920
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-12-18
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Today, community colleges enroll 40% of all undergraduates in the United States. In the years ahead, these institutions are expected to serve an even larger share of this student population. However, faced with increasing government pressure to significantly improve student completion rates, many community colleges will be forced to reconsider their traditional commitment to expand educational opportunity. Community colleges, therefore, are at a crossroads. Should they focus on improving student completion rates and divert resources from student recruitment programs? Should they improve completion rates by closing developmental studies programs and limiting enrollment to college-ready students? Or, can community colleges simultaneously expand educational opportunity and improve student completion?

In John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education, Cliff Harbour argues that before these questions can be answered, community colleges must articulate the values and priorities that will guide them in the future. Harbour proposes that leaders across the institution come together and adopt a new democracy-based normative vision grounded in the writings of John Dewey, which would call upon colleges to do much more than improve completion rates and expand educational opportunity. It would look beyond the national economic measures that dominate higher education policy debates today and would prioritize individual student growth and the development of democratic communities. Harbour argues that this, in turn, would help community colleges contribute to the vital work of reconstructing American democracy.

John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education is essential reading for all community college advocates interested in taking a more active role in developing the community college of the future.

Author Biography

Clifford P. Harbour is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Wyoming. His formal education was at North Carolina State University (Ed.D.), Duke University (M.A.), Ohio Northern University (J.D.), and Rhode Island College (B.A.). Cliff was a community college faculty member and administrator for 14 years.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Democracy's College: The American Community College
Normative Vision and Institutional Mission
John Dewey and the Pragmatists
My Community College Education

Part One - The Context and the Experiment

Chapter 1: The Precursor: The Public Junior College

Introduction
The Social, Economic, and Educational Environment in the Early 20th Century
Academic and Vocational Education at the Junior College
Leonard V. Koos
Walter C. Eells
Taking a Place in American Higher Education
Conclusion

Chapter 2: Democracy's College: The Community College

Introduction
The Social, Economic, and Educational Environment in the Late 20th Century
The Truman Commission
Open Access and the Comprehensive Mission
Burton Clark and the "Cooling Out" Thesis
Practitioner Responses to Clark
Conclusion

Chapter 3: The Origin and Development of the Community College

Introduction
The Functionalists: Cohen and Brawer
The Marxists: Karabel, Pincus
The Institutionalists: Brint and Karabel
The State Relative Autonomy Theorists: Dougherty
Conclusion

Chapter 4: The Three Dogmas of Community College Education

Critiques of the Institution and the Consequences for Its Normative Vision
The Institution: Virtuous but Powerless
The Students: Second Chance Learners
The Faculty: Overworked and Underpaid
Dismantling the Dogmas
The Next Normative Vision
Conclusion

Part Two - Dewey on Education, Democracy, and Community

Chapter 5: John Dewey and the Role of Education in a Moral Democracy

Introduction
Michigan and Chicago
Jane Addams and Hull House
New York and the World
The Brookwood Labor College
The Foundations for Dewey's Ethics and Political Philosophy
Conclusion

Chapter 6: Democracy and Education

Introduction
The Primacy of Experience
The Method of Reconstruction
Education and Democracy
The Moral Democracy
Educational Aims
Vocational Education
Shared Inquiry
Moral Imagination
Dewey's Democratic Theory of Education
Conclusion

Chapter 7: The Public and Its Problems

Introduction
The Method of Reconstruction
Negative Freedom and Positive Freedom
Organizing a Public
Democratic Decision Making
Surviving the Great Society
Creating the Great Community
Conclusion

Chapter 8: The Dewey - Hutchins Debate

Introduction
Hutchins' The Higher Learning in America
Dewey's First Response
Hutchins' Reply
Dewey's Second Response
Liberal Arts Education and Vocational Education
The Evolution of American Higher Education After the Debate
Conclusion

Part Three: The Future of Community College Education

Chapter 9: What Dewey Can Do For the Community College

Introduction
Reconstructing the Learner's Experience
Reconstructing the Community
A New Perspective of Community College Education
Acquiring Greater Institutional Autonomy
Conclusion

Chapter 10: The Evolving Meaning of "Democracy's College"

Introduction
Achieving Greater Freedom for Learners
Pursuing a Greater Democracy
Attaining Greater Optimism About Education an Era of Pessimism
Reconstructing the Normative Vision
Conclusion