The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985Oxford University Press, 7. sep. 1989 - 336 sider In the twentieth century, Americans have increasingly looked to the schools--and, in particular, to the nation's colleges and universities--as guardians of the cherished national ideal of equality of opportunity. With the best jobs increasingly monopolized by those with higher education, the opportunity to attend college has become an integral part of the American dream of upward mobility. The two-year college--which now enrolls more than four million students in over 900 institutions--is a central expression of this dream, and its invention at the turn of the century constituted one of the great innovations in the history of American education. By offering students of limited means the opportunity to start higher education at home and to later transfer to a four-year institution, the two-year school provided a major new pathway to a college diploma--and to the nation's growing professional and managerial classes. But in the past two decades, the community college has undergone a profound change, shifting its emphasis from liberal-arts transfer courses to terminal vocational programs. Drawing on developments nationwide as well as in the specific case of Massachusetts, Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel offer a history of community colleges in America, explaining why this shift has occurred after years of student resistance and examining its implications for upward mobility. As the authors argue in this exhaustively researched and pioneering study, the junior college has always faced the contradictory task of extending a college education to the hitherto excluded, while diverting the majority of them from the nation's four-year colleges and universities. Very early on, two-year college administrators perceived vocational training for "semi-professional" work as their and their students' most secure long-term niche in the educational hierarchy. With two thirds of all community college students enrolled in vocational programs, the authors contend that the dream of education as a route to upward mobility, as well as the ideal of equal educational opportunity for all, are seriously threatened. With the growing public debate about the state of American higher education and with more than half of all first-time degree-credit students now enrolled in community colleges, a full-scale, historically grounded examination of their place in American life is long overdue. This landmark study provides such an examination, and in so doing, casts critical light on what is distinctive not only about American education, but American society itself. |
Innhold
21 | |
Community College Transformation at the State and Local Level The Case of Massachusetts | 139 |
CONCLUSION | 203 |
Notes | 233 |
Bibliography | 271 |
List of Interviews | 300 |
Index | 305 |
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AAJC academic American education American higher education associate's degree bachelor's degree Board of Regional Bristol Community College campuses Carnegie Commission cation college administrators college graduates colleges and universities community college students corporations counselors courses curricula democratic Dwyer early economic educational system Eells elite emphasis expand faculty four-year colleges four-year institutions G.I. Bill Gleazer higher education increased industry Interview Junior College Journal junior college movement junior college students Koos labor market leaders leges liberal arts Lombardi Massachusetts Board Massachusetts community colleges Massasoit Community College Medsker Middlesex Community College mobility Mount Wachusett munity colleges number of students occupational programs opportunity percent political president professional public junior college Regional Community Colleges role secondary social society structure students enrolled system of higher terminal vocational tion tional transfer programs two-year colleges two-year institution University of California vocational education vocational programs vocational training vocationalization project William Dwyer York
Populære avsnitt
Side 228 - The kind of vocational education, in which I am interested is not one which will 'adapt' workers to the existing industrial regime; I am not sufficiently in love with the regime for that.
Side 3 - ... This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.
Side 16 - By organizational field, we mean those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies and other organizations that produce similar services and products.
Side 69 - If the ladder of educational opportunity rises high at the doors of some youth and scarcely rises at all at the doors of others, while at the same time formal education is made a prerequisite to occupational and social advance, then education may become the means, not of eliminating race and class distinctions, but of deepening and solidifying them.
Side 275 - LIAISON COMMITTEE OF THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION AND THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA...
Side 69 - ... which is not only general and liberal, not only sufficiently vocational, not only for broad competence in citizenship and in the wise use of leisure, but also an integrated and meaningful combination of all these aims at successive levels of education in accordance with the potentialities of each. This Commission does not subscribe to the belief that higher education should be confined to an intellectual elite, much less a small elite drawn largely from families in the higher income brackets.
Side 110 - State board or local educational agency and is conducted as part of a program designed to prepare individuals for gainful employment as semiskilled or skilled workers or technicians or subprofessionals in recognized occupations and in new and emerging occupations or to prepare individuals for enrollment in advanced technical education programs...
Side 267 - Simple observation shows that in every such situation he who is more favored feels the never ceasing need to look upon his position as in some way "legitimate", upon his advantage as "deserved", and the other's disadvantage as being brought about by the latter's "fault".
Side 36 - Probably the greatest and certainly the most original contribution to be made by the junior college is the creation of means of training for the vocations, occupying the middle ground between those of the artisan type and the professions.
Side 108 - Too many people have fallen prey to the myth that a four-year liberal arts diploma is essential to a full and rewarding life, whereas in fact other forms of post-secondary education — such as a two-year community college or technical training course — are far better suited to the interests of many young people.