Centering Social Justice in the Study of Higher Education: The Challenges and Possibilities for Institutional Change

In this article, we illustrate and grapple with the challenges of doing social justice work in a neoliberal academic environment. Specifically, we consider our experiences of creating a social justice concentration in a graduate program where higher education serves as the focus of study. In so doing, we draw on information from a number of sources to explore three key considerations: (1) the institutional context within which we developed the social justice concentration, (2) the forms of mobilization we engaged in leading to implementation, and (3) the challenges and opportunities we faced during this process. Although we suggest that the challenges match and in some cases far outweigh the opportunities, we argue that there is no acceptable alternative to not doing this work. We believe we must continue to strive to center subjugated knowledges in the academy, to honor different ways of knowing, and to work for progressive social change by engaging in projects that create an academy that is truly inclusive.