Relying on data from an in-depth study of 15 community colleges, this article explores online education through the lens of institutional theory. This theoretical perspective highlights the colleges’ environmental contexts and offers a critical examination of the ways that the institutional contexts have structured the colleges’ approaches to online education. At the core of this analysis is the contention that community colleges are interpreting and responding to a set of taken-for-granted ideas about online education. These ideas have taken on the status of myth and have played a powerful role in guiding and legitimating colleges’ online activity. This analysis provides a research-based foundation for understanding online activity at the community college level and for carefully addressing the challenges associated with its adoption.
This article examines community-college students’ goals within the dominant framing of higher education, in which education serves primarily as preparation for the new economy. Specifically, it explores students’ motives for acquiring college credentials and how they apply the principles of utility and efficiency to their pursuit of those credentials. This examination of students’ strategies illuminates their assumptions about what is worth learning and how one learns and, in turn, how their hopes of “learning something” can lead to disappointment. Ultimately, this analysis illustrates the consequences of students’ highly instrumental goals for their participation in college and in college coursework.
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