Abstract
As a sociology professor in northern California, I have become truly appreciative of the wide array of opportunities and rewarding experiences that the community college system can offer its student population. In one century (Cohen and Brawer, 2008), these institutions have opened significant doors of opportunities to a wide swath of people, particularly those who have been socially and economically marginalized. At its very core, the community college provides higher education to those who would otherwise not receive it (Boggs, 2010; Prentice, 2007). The open admissions process powerfully “subvert[s] the assumption of college for the select few” (Boggs, 2010, p. 4). By their very nature, community colleges espouse the human rights ideal that education is a right, not a privilege (Herideen, 1998, p. xiii). They are the only “distinctly American form of higher education … [with] an explicit and implicit commitment to accessibility, community development and social justice” (p. xv).
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© 2015 Susan Roberta Katz and Andrea McEvoy Spero
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Padilla, L. (2015). Reframing a Community College Social Problems Course through a Human Rights Perspective. In: Katz, S.R., Spero, A.M. (eds) Bringing Human Rights Education to US Classrooms. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471130_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471130_10
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