Longing for Justice : : Higher Education and Democracy's Agenda / / Jennifer S. Simpson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press Pilot 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Simpson, Jennifer S.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.)

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 with 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 about Higher Education, 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Higher Education and Democracy's Agenda: Resisting "Streamlined" Education -- 2. Higher Education and the Social Contract: Considering the "We" of Public Life -- 3. Civic Engagement and Service Learning: The Burden of Liberal Norms -- 4. "What Do You Think? 41 Bullets?": The Relationship of the Subject and the Social -- 5. Liberal Norms and Questions of Practice: Education, Ethics, and Interests -- 6. Epistemological Architectures: Possibilities for Understanding the Social -- 7. The Work of the "We": Democracy's Agenda and Curricular and Pedagogical Possibilities -- Notes -- References -- Index