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  • Reconstructing Policy in Higher Education: Feminist Poststructural Perspectives
  • Jeanie K. Allen
Elizabeth J. Allan, Susan Van Deventer Iverson, and Rebecca Ropers-Huilman (Eds.). Reconstructing Policy in Higher Education: Feminist Poststructural Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2010. 250 pp. Hardcover: $140.00. ISBN: 978-041599776-8.

The current instability of the global economy has altered the climate of higher education. External constituencies appear to be questioning the value of an advanced degree, calling for accountability and transparency, and using terminology that suggests the commodification of postsecondary studies to justify funding and allow students, as consumers, to have adequate information before selecting their college or university.

In addition, policies of colleges and universities seem to be answering that call, issuing standards and guidelines that emphasize efficiency, value-added, and cost/benefit analyses. Administrators encourage faculty and advisors to frame course objectives in terms of marketable skills. Allan, Iverson, and Ropers-Huilman, the editors of Reconstructing Policy in Higher Education: Feminist Poststructural Perspectives, provide readers with challenging lens, feminist poststructuralism FPS), through which to analyze these statements of guiding principles.

Within this volume, the editors and contributors carefully define their terms. For them, policy analysis through a feminist lens focuses this examination on women’s equity and access. However, these scholars suggest that the addition of poststructuralism further refines that process by deepening the questions asked, realigning thought processes to the hidden assumptions within the structure that policies reflect and create.

In the Foreword, Judith Glazer-Raymo reminds readers that, when statistics are stated affirming that the majority of students in higher education are women, the erroneous conclusion often reached is that gender issues no longer need attention. The editors and contributors present significant research and comment to engage readers in a recognition of continuing inequities that may and do emerge from certain policy statements.

In the first two chapters, Elizabeth J. Allan, Susan V. Iverson, and Rebecca Ropers-Huilman, the editors, provide background for the reader, emphasizing the importance of language, reminding the reader that all policy statements are discourse. These two chapters provide a strong background for students and scholars new to the use of the feminist poststructuralist perspective.

However, the authors clearly note that the complexity of this type of analysis cannot be completely captured through definitions. Keeping the focus on language and analysis, the editors chose to present the remaining chapters in three parts: “Productions of Power through Presence within Absence,” “Subjects and Objects of Policy,” and “Discursive Constructions of Change.”

In Part 1, the editors alert readers to realign their visions of power. Through this lens, power is not inherent in persons or positions but rather should be viewed as created and reflected in the language of policy and other writings. Even more importantly, using an FPS approach requires viewing not only what is said and represented, but also who is absent and which voices are omitted.

Jana Nidifer (Chapter 3) provides the reader with a significant example of this phenomenon of absence, as she denotes women’s suffrage activists on campuses in the early 1900s. As she illustrates, [End Page 335] their stories are absent, even in articles discussing the history of student activism. As Nidifer suggests, the questions should include “Who wrote the current story . . . [and] who benefits?” (p. 44).

Tatiana Suspitsyna (Chapter 4) takes the conversation one step further, as she presents her analysis of documents from the Department of Education released between 2005 and 2007, revealing the underpinnings of how the purpose of higher education is framed by these “official” statements. She notes the strong push to view higher education as a training ground for new professionals, skilled in autonomy and competitiveness. She moves the reader forward on the analytical path to see the reality of furthering the traditional masculine-oriented paradigm, in which the “superior” will assume the role of the public contributor and the “lesser” or “invisible ones” will become caretakers and nurturers of society and social issues.

Susan Gordon, Susan V. Iverson, and Elizabeth J. Allan (Chapter 5) extend Suspitsyna’s analysis by exploring the discourse used in the Chronicle of Higher Education when discussing female leaders of higher education. The authors suggest reframing leadership as a “process rather than...

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