The Contested Space of Community Colleges in the Age of Neoliberalism: The Case of City College of San Francisco Through the Accreditation Crisis of 2012-2017
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2018-08
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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This is a case study concerning a California community college with a long history of working to be an open access, working class institution, despite the California policy structures pressuring and asserting community colleges to become more efficient and business like. For the state, the main focus is on raising graduation rates, prioritized over all other endeavors. On the surface the problem seems to be how The City College of San Francisco (CCSF) was threatened to be shut down due to loss of accreditation. Below the surface there is the issue that the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) was using the power of accreditation to enforce an institutional restructuring that is dominated by the ideology of economic efficiency and aligned with an outcomes-based community college planning approach. And yet this restructuring does not align with the open access mission. People focused on open access formed an instrumental part of the resistance to the ACCJC’s actions. Through a grounded theory methodology, the lived experiences of people within the CCSF space are analyzed as they act to either align or resist neoliberalism. Through this analysis an interpretive understanding is offered as to how power dominates through claims to rationality with the erasure of other rationalities, and how structural issues make the aspirations of democracy difficult to achieve. The alternative social imaginary of open access offers insights into radical planning theory and practice. The focus of open access is to center those who are the most impacted; where understanding who is being oppressed and how becomes information for what kinds of practices are necessary toward overcoming barriers and changing the conditions perpetuating oppression within the community college context. The emerging concepts and inferred principles are offered to contribute to radical planning theory. Particularly, how acting to transform systems and structures can be addressed through centering issues regarding systemic oppression as a process of planning for equitable education within a local context.
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Community colleges--Accreditation, City College of San Francisco, Community colleges--Open admission
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