Networks of Trust
The Social Costs of College and What We Can Do about Them
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Networks of Trust
The Social Costs of College and What We Can Do about Them
An eye-opening look at how parents’ mistrust of colleges has less to do with what their kids are learning than with whom they come to trust.
Higher education is a familiar battlefield in today’s culture wars. The right accuses colleges and universities of indoctrinating conservative students with liberal values; the left, with failing to be sufficiently inclusive. The anxieties expressed on both sides of the political spectrum have much in common, however, and they are triggered not by colleges’ failures but by their successes.
So argues philosopher Anthony Simon Laden in Networks of Trust. He highlights how a college education shapes students’ informational trust networks: the complex set of people and institutions they rely on for the information they use to think about and understand the world. While the networks that colleges build for students have great value, learning to inhabit them pulls some students away from their families and communities. If many people distrust institutions of higher education, this is one reason why. Networks of Trust offers a path forward, one that preserves the value while reducing the harms of a college education. It includes concrete suggestions for how colleges and universities can educate students in a manner that inspires and deserves trust: one that bridges rather than deepens our social divides.
Higher education is a familiar battlefield in today’s culture wars. The right accuses colleges and universities of indoctrinating conservative students with liberal values; the left, with failing to be sufficiently inclusive. The anxieties expressed on both sides of the political spectrum have much in common, however, and they are triggered not by colleges’ failures but by their successes.
So argues philosopher Anthony Simon Laden in Networks of Trust. He highlights how a college education shapes students’ informational trust networks: the complex set of people and institutions they rely on for the information they use to think about and understand the world. While the networks that colleges build for students have great value, learning to inhabit them pulls some students away from their families and communities. If many people distrust institutions of higher education, this is one reason why. Networks of Trust offers a path forward, one that preserves the value while reducing the harms of a college education. It includes concrete suggestions for how colleges and universities can educate students in a manner that inspires and deserves trust: one that bridges rather than deepens our social divides.
152 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2024
Education: Higher Education, Philosophy of Education
Philosophy: Philosophy of Society
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Trust in Education
Chapter 3: The Education of Trust
Chapter 4: The Social Cost of a College Education
Chapter 5: What Colleges Could Do, Part 1: Foster Open-Mindedness
Chapter 6: What Colleges Could Do, Part 2: Earning and Sustaining Trust
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Chapter 2: Trust in Education
Chapter 3: The Education of Trust
Chapter 4: The Social Cost of a College Education
Chapter 5: What Colleges Could Do, Part 1: Foster Open-Mindedness
Chapter 6: What Colleges Could Do, Part 2: Earning and Sustaining Trust
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index