Universities As If Students Mattered

Universities As If Students Mattered is a book about social/public policy in general, and higher education policy in particular. Scanzoni critiques the current undergraduate system of learning in the U.S. and proposes two closely allied innovations for the social sciences that would help make the student experience truly matter. The first innovation is a shift from what's been described as a "teaching" or "instructional" paradigm, to what's known as a "learning" paradigm or "discovery-based" learning. The second aims at serving society by addressing urgent social issues or problems in the educational process. Through these innovations, Scanzoni hopes to go a long way towards erasing the stigma that social science doesn't matter to anyone aside from its practitioners. Finally, Scanzoni discusses the use of "action research" to gain understanding, and do so by disturbing and/or redirecting the particular slice of the real world that one happens to be studying. By directly involving undergraduates in the Action Research process, they would simultaneously be connected to discovery-based learning, improving their education and the field of Socal Sciences as a whole.