The courses one takes in college, and college itself, has been greatly politicized. Just like everything else.
One of my kids took a biofeminism class as an undergrad. An astrophysics degree, mathematics post bacc and current math grad student later, she still says it’s one of the best and most interesting and thought provoking classes she ever took. She’s also fairly centrist in her political views and doesn’t hate men or capitalism as far as I know.
Agreed. As if studying Marxism would make one a Marxist. If anything, it has made me a better capitalist.
The “indoctrination” hysteria is 99% political.
I think what bothers some isn’t the exposure to the ideas like communism and all the rest, but the necessity of having to regurgitate the teachers belief system and ideas and not question it.
At least that’s what I have heard. My kids loved learning about all types of stuff but avoided a couple of teachers who were known for their orthodoxy and inability to question their own beliefs. Or, have anyone else question them. It’s not the indoctrination but the beliefs tied to their grade and the narrow framework of having to repeat the “orthodoxy” or be penalized in grading. Those teachers landed in the “best avoided” categories.
I think that version bothers some.
I also think what bothers most who run the “don’t indoctrinate me bro!” line of rhetoric is politics.
FWIW, I haven’t had a kid (of 3) ever complain about a professor doing what you describe, though I’m sure it happens.
Not sure what you mean here.
Yes, I think politics on both sides makes people really crazy about the other side. LOL, but sadly it’s gotten out of hand.
I think can often happen depend on what your kid likes to study. Happens less often in math than history. IF your kid is studying poli science, econ, history it’s fairly common. Again, here it depends on what courses they take. Also depends on the school(s) kids attend. It’s definitely out there. Have some funny stories I won’t share.
What I mean there is that your response to my post, which suggests that what bothers “some” is that the kids have to regurgitate the left wing professor’s views to get a good grade, is to agree that’s the case for some. My response was that, sure, that may be the case for some (your word), but that in most cases it’s simply either having to have their kid listen to it or, worse, turn their views accordingly, that is the primary concern. I think the “agree or bad grade” situation is not the norm.
One kid attended Wesleyan, I have one at Brown now (both ostensibly liberal) and another attended a school generally viewed as liberal, or at least located in an obviously liberal location. Regardless of major, they all took history, philosophy, econ, psych, English, etc., as well as other classes like the aforementioned biofeminism class. Never got that complaint from any of them, and didn’t even hear of it happening to a peer. We are Cuban-American and would be viewed by some as conservative, and by most as centrists. I was taught at a young age to be wary of idealogues of all stripes.
For sure the country’s political polarization makes all kinds of people all kinds of crazy, agreed. In the context of this discussion, however, 99% of the time “indoctrination” is referenced it’s a right winger complaining about liberal academia. And academia by and large does lean left, so it’s no surprise. At least that’s my experience.
Colleges and universities generally lean somewhat left on diversity-related issues, because they generally want to market themselves to as wide a range (in terms of “diversity” characteristics) of potential students as possible (as in “students like you are welcome here”), rather than being artificially limited in appeal by non-academic (potential) student characteristics. Even commuter-based schools have larger and usually more diverse catchment areas than high schools (or especially elementary schools), while more residential schools want to market themselves to students in a state, a multistate region, the whole country, or internationally.
However, the marketing needs might not necessarily always result in policies that favor members of minority groups.
When kids were looking for colleges, there were some LACs that I used to call Social Justice Warrior training schools, where many kids (but certainly not all) pick up an anti-capitalist slant. That goes beyond admissions marketing (said schools may actually select for folks who can pay) but is part of the zeitgeist and part of the instruction (again depending upon the subject as it is hard to see much SJW training in advanced math). I think I relayed some of this in another thread, but some good friends of ours who are very well-to-do – he was an MBB partner who became a senior exec who took a few companies public and she is an artist who I think inherited – sent two of their three kids to one of the SJW training schools. One decided that she only wanted to work at NGOs aimed at eliminating prison in the US and lived on her parents money in NYC until she found a job that met her criterion (not sure if she is employed yet). The second decided after graduating to live in Central Park and dumpster dive to get food. He has graduated from this and is doing some relatively lower grade web development – he is very bright and his work, as I understood it the last time I asked, did not seem up to his potential. They are both virulently anti-capitalist and have decided not to bring children into this world.
I have a second friend whose son went to the same SJW warrior training school and is also virulently anti-capitalist although his father has some of the same attitudes (while being a successful business owner). The son couldn’t figure out how to proceed in the job market and took a while to find an employer that met his standards but then they had to lay people off. Now, he is going to grad school in labor relations and wants to help labor unions that help the underprivileged. I’m not criticizing this, although I am concerned that an upper middle class kid may not be the most effective organizer for folks in the lower classes – not my call.
I would not have been excited about sending my kids to a school like that. I’m definitely a capitalist but work all over the world and see lots of flaws in our variant of the system relative to other countries (homelessness, serious reduction in social mobility over the last few decades, dumb policies toward immigration – this is not partisan as I think both parties have insanely bad immigration policies, people without health insurance, the dumbing down of public education in a world in which high levels of education/technical skill will be necessary to generate high levels of income, etc.). But, I would not want to voluntarily send my kids to a school where that political slant is over-represented in the water supply.
I have similar experience with family and friends. My D went to a LAC and her political bent is much more liberal than my S though she claims she’s more fiscally conversative than her peers. Her H is a NY biglaw partner and they pay plenty of taxes.
I wish more kids would major in supply chain management right now. It would help my shopping.
The anti-capitalist slant is found in (curiously) large supply on a great variety of campuses. A stroll through any social media feed shows young people taking shots at capitalism and blaming it for all the country’s problems. Celebrities (ironically) play a role too (see Henry Schrader’s recent comments).
If you’re looking to aim blame, try the hippies from the 1960s.
Your friends’ problems with their kids are likely their own doing. Always easier to blame a school I suppose.
80 year old hippies have that much influence these days?
Anti-capitalist feeling may be due to recent history where the US economy has increased some unsightly problems (like the ones @shawbridge mentioned above) over recent years. Young people today may have known only an economy with asset bubbles, the financial industry caused great recession, the bailout of the banks, the high cost of education needed to have job opportunities, the more competitive job market even with more education, many markets trending toward oligopoly, etc… Hence, they may be less satisfied than older people who experienced at least some periods of a growing economy that more widely distributed its gains (rather than concentrating the gains to the top 1% but sharing the losses across all economic levels) while also seeing the contrast with failing communist economies.
A college is a place to open one’s mind. It’s not a place for dogmatic beliefs, especially in subjects like humanities and social sciences which lack the rigors of mathematics and some of the more established sciences. One of the greatest reasons to study humanities and social sciences is because they show us that the world isn’t black and white, and complexity is embedded in almost everything. Dogmatism, coupled with the lack of rigor, does great harm to these subjects. On this 246th anniversary of Independence Day, it may be worthwhile to remember that the history of the last 246 years is just the blink of an eye in the long human history. A few years (or even a few decades) of “facts” or “experiences”, if they can even be agreed upon, are no proof of some universal “truths”.
These definitely exist. My kids prefer to avoid this type of school and those processes. Main reason is, there is often no out. No way to disagree nicely. That’s the reason it’s dogmatic. Having professors with ideas unlike your own (or one’s which you have not yet been exposed to) is great and expected. Being in a classroom where only one framework is allowed is not.
I think some parents think that because their kids haven’t commented that it doesn’t happen. My kids raised some of these issues in middle school. Granted, we live in an area which is very one-sided so it’s not uncommon for instruction to follow along those lines.
Yep, it becomes so much a part of the daily discussions that there is no way to avoid and no way to question it. It’s tiring for kids and students like mine who lean center or want to talk about all sides. Not to mention some kids don’t want to share the classroom with people who are always focused on things like the example cited with the student who will only work at an NGO getting rid of incarceration. It takes away from class time and just focuses on what some SJW want to talk about rather than a real discussion based on general topics.
As long at there are both sides of the dogma, I’m all for it. But if it’s imbalanced, I’m not and neither are my kids. No problem even if there are more profs leaning left, but the key seems to be is the prof open minded enough to entertain other opinions or are these shut down?
As a parent, college is really expensive so I don’t want to pay for anything that isn’t adding value. Both my kids and we as a family decided on what things are valuable and which are not. For us, free expression is super important. We looked at this as an important facet of education. We also looked at having a diverse student body and lots of international students to bring in multiple views.
@Htas, we also live in a hyper-liberal state (maybe the same as yours) and both of my kids went to LACs in-state, but neither school was a SJW training school and they didn’t feel pressure on the anti-capitalist side. Probably the same in high school. Where we did see it had a lot more to do with gender, sex and race. ShawSon had at least one full day of his freshman (freshperson) orientation devoted to consent and told him to listen but to say anything he said would be understood as politically incorrect. A classmate of his was a very handsome, exceedlngly muscular African-American male whose name was actually Adonis. Adonis expressed confusion that if a young woman showed up in his bed (which plausibly happened regularly), he couldn’t presume intent but had to do the equivalent of a consent questionnaire. He also asked several other incredulous questions. Adonis was pilloried in the session and had a reputation throughout his time at school. ShawSon went to him in break and suggested that he just listen and say nothing. The other issue, if I recall, was that at the time, it was presumed that people who had been drinking were deemed unable to give consent but that if a male and a female were both drinking and then had sex (which is undoubtedly a very high percentage of non-monogamous encounters), then it was presumed that the female had not given consent and the male was liable. I don’t know if this has changed.
One thing that seems like a generally favorable change (and is a new orthodoxy) is an acceptance of various senses of gender and sexuality.
Lol, with a name like Adonis, he was already going to have an issue. My kids also had classes where they talked about consent and other topics. Seems like a net positive in every respect.
Seems like having lots of ideas brought up is great at the college level. It’s the believe this or else, that gets people riled.
It also seems to me that some of the SJW stuff is slowing getting extinguished. It was stronger 3-4 years ago. I’ve seen more focus on gender parity and inclusion of everyone which seems to be a real positive and a way to build a sense of community. Less of a militant, do this or else type thing. There used to be a sense that you had to attend a protest (or else). While now, it’s gone back to attend if you want. Opting in, rather than being forced in, is also my kids preferences. They often do opt in. But for the events where it’s mandatory, there’s often a reluctance.
A day dedicated to discussing consentual sex with freshmen at the college doesn’t sound like an anti-capitalist agenda and doesn’t sound like it has much relevance to this thread.
One should separate the opinions of specific professors from the opinion of the college. Colleges have a variety of professors with a variety of opinions, which may or may not be discussed within their classes.
In general colleges want students to be financially successful. It often reflects poorly on the college, if grads struggle financially. This does not mean every student needs to pursue a major associated with a high salary, but it reflects poorly on the college, if a large portion of grads struggle to find work and/or are underemployed in fields not well related to their major. This also can have long term indirect effects on things like alumni donations or general desirability of the college.
At highly selective LACs, the most popular majors tend to be ones associated with higher earnings-- economics, computer science, pre-med (usually with bio major), etc. The most common employers tend to be ones associated with higher salaries, rather than non-profits and the like.
A significant portion of students often do change political beliefs during college, but this is not the same as an anti-capitalist agenda. For example, in the 2017 Harvard freshman survey 60% of students described themselves as liberal, and 15% described themselves as conservative. In the 2021 Harvard senior survey, then numbers had shifted to 67% liberal and 12% conservative. 7% more students were liberal as seniors than freshman. Liberal students outnumbering conservatives by nearly 6 to 1 didn’t stop the vast majority of employed grads from working in fields associated with higher earnings such as finance, consulting, and tech. And didn’t stop the 2 most common majors from being economics and computer science.
Regarding the consent thing, a college (regardless of its SJW-ness or not) wants to minimize the number of student disciplinary cases involving unclear consent with poor evidence quality and/or murky memories due to alcohol, since (a) there is a high likelihood of the college disciplinary board getting the incorrect verdict, and (b) regardless of the verdict and whether it is actually correct, the potential for bad press and lawsuits afterward is there. So they want to try to get students not to get into these situations (whether or not it actually works) as well as put out what the expected default verdict will be in certain kinds of situations (e.g. that someone who is drunk is presumed unable to consent).
But this does not seem like an anti-capitalist agenda or anything like that, or something that affects students’ selection of majors.
I’m assuming you’re not serious.
Regardless of what any 80 year old hippies say or do, anti-capitalist sentiment is likely an indicator that many feel that capitalism in actual practice is not working for them. Warning signs of that include 68% of Americans thinking that kids will not do as well as they did. This does not mean that the solution is communism (we know how that ended up, although it can appeal to those who feel that they gain no benefit from the capitalist system) or racism (another common response when people feel that “others” are taking their jobs, etc.). But it means that the challenge of capitalism is to keep it working for most people, not just the top 10%, 1%, or 0.1%.
But whatever anti-capitalist sentiment there is does not seem to prevent a large percentage of college students from choosing majors that they believe (correctly or incorrectly) to lead to better paying jobs afterward (business, computer science, engineering, health professions, etc.). Most young people appear to be prioritizing their survival in an increasingly difficult (for them) economic environment, rather than trying to overthrow the system. The title question of this thread suggests that this is also a priority for some parents.