The Importance of What Students Care About: Accounting for Institutional and Student Values Dialectically

Abstract

Humans care about things. The truth of this claim is obvious, yet scholars who have evaluated student interventions and outcomes in higher education have largely neglected how student values might inform their experience with those interventions and outcomes. This chapter will rely on a philosophical conceptualization of a particular type of value known as “caring” to explore what students value as they weigh various collegiate decisions. Elaborating on findings from a qualitative study of 143 college students from eight American universities, I will summarize previous findings related to what students cared about, how those cares were structured, and what the cares and structures meant for students' pathways through college. The categorical and theoretical patterns I share demonstrate how students approached values in ways that have not typically been considered by scholars or institutional administrators. After summarizing my previous findings, I offer a conceptual argument for a “dialectical” approach that considers the mutually formative interaction between student and institutional values. The practical result of naming and understanding the dialectic realities of values in higher education is the opportunity for institutions to use their relatively greater agency to help individual students pursue what is worth pursuing without reducing the agency of those students. Thus, the dialectic places necessary boundary lines on both the institution and the student while also clarifying the opportunity to help students develop moral expertise and navigate their collegiate pathways successfully.

Citation

Cockle, T.F. (2024), "The Importance of What Students Care About: Accounting for Institutional and Student Values Dialectically", Rao, M.B., Singh, A. and Rao, P.M. (Ed.) Worldviews and Values in Higher Education (Global Perspectives on Higher Education Development), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 109-123. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-897-520241008