The epistemology of campus speech and inclusion: Replacing the marketplace of ideas with a model of shared inquiry

Harless, Jessica

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116201 Copy

Description

Title

The epistemology of campus speech and inclusion: Replacing the marketplace of ideas with a model of shared inquiry

Author(s)

Harless, Jessica

Issue Date

2022-07-11

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Higgins, Christopher

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Higgins, Christopher

Committee Member(s)

• Burbules, Nicholas
• Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni
• Taylor, Rebecca

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• higher education
• philosophy of education
• free speech
• inclusion
• epistemology
• inquiry
• community of inquiry
• shared inquiry

Abstract

The debate on campus regarding speech and inclusion has largely come to be framed as a two-sided issue: one side for free, open expression, clashing with the other side for diverse inclusion. All sides of the debate — the proponents of free expression, most inclusionists, and those who seek the co-existence of the two values — invoke the notion of inquiry in their arguments and trade in concepts like truth and knowledge. None of these, however, undertakes a full epistemological examination of those epistemological concepts. Like the handful of compatibility projects in the debate, this project too finds that the concept of inquiry plays a synthesizing role between free expression and inclusion. But unlike these existing projects, this dissertation examines the concept of inquiry itself in epistemological terms. A review of the epistemology currently operating in the debate shows a reliance on the marketplace of ideas metaphor, as well as assumptions about competition, debate, and cognitive reasoning. Tracing the implications of these assumptions reveals that they do not do the epistemological work adherents believe they do. Instead an alternate model of shared inquiry is suggested, with roots in social and feminist epistemological theory. A fictional case study helps illustrate the model’s epistemological assumptions about the nature of knowledge (limited and socially situated) and about justification (a shared, collaborative process). Beyond the epistemological arguments, this project also discusses how the model of shared inquiry can be enacted in the context of a college classroom. Pedagogical commitments and classroom practices informed by the community of inquiry theoretical tradition serve as regulative ideals meant to help both inquiry groups and their instructors enact the model of shared inquiry. In the end, shared inquiry does not only offer a way to synthesize expression and inclusion — it ultimately grants a new understanding of inquiry itself and its place in the college classroom.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Jessica Harless

Owning Collections