Longing For Justice

Higher Education and Democracy's Agenda

by Jennifer S. Simpson

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Pub Date Oct 14 2014 | Archive Date Oct 19 2014

Description

A timely and persuasive argument for higher education’s obligations to our democratic society, Longing for Justice combines personal narrative with critical analysis to make the case for educational practices that connect to questions of democracy, justice, and the common good. Jennifer S. Simpson begins with three questions. First, what is the nature of the social contract that universities have in regard to public life? Second, how might this social contract shape undergraduate education? And third, how do specific approaches to knowledge and undergraduate education inform how students understand society?

In a bold challenge to conventional wisdom, Simpson argues that today’s neoliberal educational norms foreground abstract concepts and leave the complications of real life, especially the intricacies of power, unexamined. Analysing modern teaching techniques, including service learning and civic engagement, Simpson concludes that for higher education to serve democracy it must strengthen students’ abilities to critically analyse social issues, recognize and challenge social inequities, and pursue justice.

JENNIFER S. SIMPSON is an associate professor and Chair of the Department of Drama and Speech Communication at the University of Waterloo.

Advance Praise

“Longing for Justice is the book that many of us who are concerned with the rise of the neoliberal university have been longing for. This should be required reading for all students of higher education – and for all administrators and faculty whose role as academic professionals is to educate in a way that builds a wider public culture of democracy. Simpson’s book will go on my shelf and on my syllabi along with the works of Dewey, Horton, Freire, Dzur, and Rendon. It is exactly what is needed at this moment of turmoil to reorient us to the democratic purposes of higher education.”

John Saltmarsh, Professor of Higher Education Administration and Director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts, Boston

“Longing for Justice is an accessible, well-written critique of the liberal philosophy which still guides the modern university.”

Frances Henry, Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology, York University

“Longing for Justice is the book that many of us who are concerned with the rise of the neoliberal university have been longing for. This should be required reading for all students of higher...