THE CULTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: Contexts

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THE CULTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY STUDENT Contexts
Challenges for Educational Integrity

• Cathy Small, Ph.D.
• Professor, Dept of Anthropology
• Northern Arizona University
• For
• Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity

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Students Today Have Changed
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Context 1
The Multiplicity of Demands
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What is Academic Life?
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Academic Life?
What is
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Students Today Are Busy and Stressed
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Multiple demands push academic life into smaller
and smaller time slots
Student Time Allocation
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We now educate a much wider segment of our
societies. Consider the U.S.
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51
62
Percentage of High School Grads Who Enroll in
College
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Remember Who College Students Are

• 2 out of every 3 high school graduates
  

• More in debt
• Less prepared for college at home
• More practical in their educational goals
• Less familiar with the cultural rules of academe

• Women
• Minority/first nation
• Less affluent
• First gen. college
• International

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Maze Smart
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Time Management
From
College Management

• What schedule will give me the most control over
  my life?
• How can I (reasonably) limit the impact of
  coursework on my time?

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Context 1 challenges

• Shortcuts that come from the squeeze of multiple
  priorities
• Ethos of practicality
• Consumer model of education
• High stakes of a degree

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Context 2
Community No Big "Us"
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Who is my community ?
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The Mathematics of Community Choice in the
Contemporary University
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And then there were
A community of one
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How community works

• The Superbowl

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Community for most students amounted to small
peer networks who maintained close, often closed,
networks.
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The new face of community

• 2-6 people, in informally organized networks
  with fluid connections to organized groups
• Met early in college career
• Often mediated by technology that facilitates
  everyday contact
• IMing, cellphones, Facebook

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Who were in these personal networks?
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The Dining Room
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The Dining Room--Full
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How We Break Bread

• 10 of white men, and 14 of white women ate at a
  table where there was anyone of a different color
  from themselves.
• Only 2.6 of white men, and 3.5 of white women
  ate a table where they were the only white
  person.
• People of color were much (10X) more likely to
  eat and live in mixed ethnic groups. However,
  same- ethnic clubs and friends provided crucial
  supports for almost all people of color
  interviewed.

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Context 2 Challenges

• The loyalties to the smaller group vastly
  outweigh commitment to the heterogeneous whole
• Strong sense of in-group reciprocity
• The cheater vs. the snitch is no contest.

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Context 3
The Separation of Social Academic Life
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What do you talk about late night with friends?

• Boys, meeting boys, sex
• TV, movies, games, and entertainment
• Alcohol and drug experiences
• Bodies, bodily functions, body image
• Relationships relationship problems
• Childhood and personal history

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What do you talk about late night with friends?

• Only 4 of reported conversations concerned
  academic topics.

It is a miracle that curiousity survives formal
education

• Only 8 of 88 topics mentioned life, politics,
  religion or philosophy, and 3 of these 8
  contained qualifiers

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What do you talk about late night with friends?
Oh,,,religion and philosophy, and more dorky
things
We talk about what everything means (if were
drunk or stoned we try to be all deep)
God and lifebut only after were tired of
talking about boyfriends, hot profs, peeing and
whats on Friends.
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Whos the Witch?
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Do Students Today Come to School to Learn?

OR IS

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Be honest. If the university would hand you a
degree right now, provided you paid for your
creditswould you take the degree and leave?
79
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The majority of students agreed
I want the full college experience AND I came
to college to learn
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Most of what they say they learn in college is
outside the formal classroom
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What is OUTSIDE ?

• OUTSIDEreal practical world
• OUTSIDE peer group
• Favorite courses were often those that connected
  to OUTSIDE, where they believed 65 of the
  learning derived.

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So Why are They So Hard to Engage?

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The way were teaching is different from the way
they learn
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The contexts in which they DO learn are often off
the professors chart
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Context 3 Challenges

• Academic life can seem just academic,
  unconnected to things that really matter
• The de-valuing of academe and its norms

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What students have to say

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vdGCJ46vyR9o

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Thank You!
cathy.small_at_nau.edu