College students as catalysts for social change: a case study

Summary

In this chapter, the reasons for pursuing the qualitative study and background information on SLP were presented. Research questions, statement of the problem, relevance of the study and definition of terms were also explained. I further defined the main topics of the research in terms of essential qualities of the founders, organizational practices and outcomes of the group. The following chapters describe the literature that supports the study, the methodology used, findings, and implications for practice and recommendations for future research.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this study is to understand college students as catalysts for social change. I began by researching the history of social movements that college students have been involved in as a knowledge base in preparation for this dissertation. I will briefly highlight some of my findings to paint a picture of historical movements that have had relevance on the students of today and then move on to discuss civic engagement and its impact on higher education. The relationship of the emergent theories to existing literature is organized in four broad areas of knowledge: (a) organizational and social change theory, (b) leadership theory and networked era, (c) family influences and self-efficacy and (d) student development theory.

Historical Review of Social Movements

Research shows that organization is crucial to social movements. The civil rights movement, for example, would not have been successful in the late 1950s without the organizational support of black colleges, churches, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (McAdam 1982; Morris 1984). The Civil Rights movement helped set the pattern for challenging the status quo. Student chapters of the NAACP and other college groups played a vital role in the lunch counter sit-ins that sparked the mass mobilization of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Other student activism such as the Freedom Riders had high stakes for involvement. “Black and white demonstrators were dragged from the buses and beaten savagely. Some never recovered from the brutality, spending the rest of their lives in wheelchairs. The price of social change was high” (Carson, Bauerlein, & Evers-Williams, 2003, p. 172). In 1964 civil right groups Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) started a massive voting rights project known as Freedom Summer. Over one thousand college students worked to help register voters (Rhodes, 2000). When the Summer Freedom project was over three civil rights workers were dead and, “there were 80 beaten, three wounded by gunfire in thirty-five shootings, and more than 1,000 arrested; thirty-five churches had been burned and thirty homes and other buildings bombed” (Dougan & Lipsman, p. 63).

Students next turned their attention to free speech and the Vietnam anti-war movement. The anti-war movement involved a few dozen organizations in 1960, but over 1200 a decade later (DeBenedetti, 1990). One of the groups that spread to hundreds of campuses around the country was Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In this new movement, students borrowed a number of methods from the civil rights movement to promote non-violence and passive resistance. The most comprehensive survey of student activism during this time was conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) between 1967 and 1968. In all, ETS found political protests on over 1,400 campuses, representing nearly half of America’s 3,000 higher education institutions. Although ETS found that in more than half of the cases SDS had spearheaded the protests, the members of the organization remained a tiny minority on each campus. SDS itself reported a membership of 25,000 students out of the nearly 6 million students enrolled in colleges (Dougan & Lipsman, 1984). So although SDS was one of the major student movements, students chose to take part in protests without becoming members. During this time students were empowered to effectuate other change, which led to questioning in loco parentis. This further led to the challenging of other rules and regulations at colleges across the nation.

In addition to protest movements, a number of service movements from the 20^th century included college students. The American Friends Service Committee was founded in 1917 to provide Quakers and other conscientious objectors an opportunity to serve those in need instead of fighting during World War I (AFSC website, 2008). Another group that started in 1944 is the Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) which is the oldest continuing voluntary service program in Mennonite circles. MVS reached its height during the U.S. military draft of the 1950s and 1960s because of the increased demand for alternative service (MVS website, 2008). The Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) started in 1956 with student volunteers and has spread nationally and internationally with approximately 250 participants each year (Jesuit Volunteer Corps, 2008). Inspired by JVC and MVS, the Lutheran Volunteer Corps started in 1980 and as of 2008 had 104 volunteers annually (LVC, 2008). All of these are religiously affiliated and many gained popularity during times of required military service.

A study found that students participated in over 33% of the protest events reported in The New York Times between 1968 and 1973 (Van Dyke, Soule, & McCarthy, 2001). Some believe that the 1960s was the only era of activism on campuses. Rhoads (2000) however, conducted a follow up study of student activism in the 1990s. He analyzed news reports in national and regional newspapers and found over two hundred major cases of student activism recorded. Of those over 50% were associated with racial struggle, women’s concerns or gay rights. The remaining issues of activism dealt with tuition, world affairs, governance issues and environmental causes (Rhoads, 1998).

Levine (1980) suggests that our society follows a familiar pattern of “wakeful, strenuous, and even frenetic activity” (p. 118) followed by periods of tranquility. Although some feel that the activism of the 1960s is gone there is an increase in student protest and a commitment to campus and social change in comparison to the prior two decades (Loeb, 1994). The 1990s evidenced a renewed commitment by students to social justice and educational equity (Rhoads, 2000).