People's History of American Higher Education

"This essential history of American higher education builds from the ground up, shedding light on the full, diverse of range of institutions--including small liberal arts schools, junior and community colleges, and state colleges--that have been instrumental in creating the higher education system we know today. A People's History of American Higher Education focuses on those participants who may not have been members of elite groups, yet who helped push elite institutions and the country as a whole towards different goals and behaviors. This pathbreaking textbook addresses key issues which have often been condemned to exceptions and footnotes--if not ignored completely--in historical considerations of U.S. higher education: particularly race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Hutcheson introduces readers to both social and intellectual history, providing invaluable perspectives and methodologies for graduate students and faculty members alike. A People's History of American Higher Education surveys the varied characteristics of the diverse populations constituting or striving for the middle class through educational attainment, providing a narrative that unites often divergent historical fields. The author engages readers in a powerful, revised understanding of what institutions and participants beyond the oft-cited 'dead white men' have done for American higher education"--

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.