Book Review: Levin, J. S. (2007). Nontraditional Students and Community Colleges: The Conflict of Justice and Neoliberalism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan

Abstract

Levin, J. S. (2007). Nontraditional Students and Community Colleges: The Conflict of Justice and Neoliberalism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.DOI: 10.1177/0091552108315591Nontraditional Students and Community Colleges: The Conflict of Justice and Neoliberalism, by John. S. Levin, explores the experience of the most vulnerable and marginalized student populations currently served by community colleges. Drawing on qualitative methodologies that included interviews, observations, and document analyses at 13 community colleges across the nation over a period of 5 years, Levin addresses the questions of whether and how education promotes an equitable and just society. Framed against the cultural and social constructs of globalization and neoliberal ideology and practices, Levin argues that the most disadvantaged of community college students, as a group, are deprived of access and opportunity for the realization of both individual and economic potential.Using Rawl's theory of justice as a measure for evaluation, Levin details his findings to identify and articulate the manner by which specific groups of students, including but not limited to those enrolled in English as a second language, general educational development, and continuing education classes, are systematically denied the resources and accommodations required to overcome their disadvantaged positions in society and in a postindustrial economy. Without such resources and accommodations, particularly those related to funding, policy, and programming, these students' disadvantaged positions are maintained and perhaps even perpetuated. Levin argues that the systematic continuation of an unprivileged existence equates to a failure of community colleges to seek and achieve some semblance of justice for these specific students and for society in general.Themes of justice and neoliberalism are discussed in the introduction and provide a succinct backdrop from which Levin introduces the already-underprivileged status of community colleges in the hierarchy of higher education. In chapter 1, the characteristics of community college students are outlined in terms of their heterogeneous traits, motivations, and disadvantaged positioning. This portrait of community college students is given meaning in chapters 3, 4, and 5, as particular students' stories are shared to illustrate the influence of their distinctive traits on their identity and experiences as students. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of the theoretical frameworks used historically to interpret such positioning and experiences, as well as a justification for the frameworks-including Rawl's theory of justice-that are chosen by Levin to analyze and interpret his data. Chapters 6 and 7 explore the ways in which community colleges, via their missions, programming, and structures, fall on neoliberal assumptions of equality, purpose, and value to justify the exclusion of and inattention to the most disadvantaged students. Levin asserts that although community colleges may allow students a degree of social mobility, as it relates to increased employability, such attainment itself does not fully meet the standard of justice or equity. …