Education for Citizenship or Disciplining for Civility?

Myths and misconceptions dominate our understanding of higher education and especially public higher education. They mislead all parties including students and citizens. This book is an original and urgently needed critical reinterpretation of the history of public higher education focusing on the contradictions and conflicts of the private in the public and shareholders versus stakeholders. Education for Citizenship or Disciplining for Civility? focuses on the major example of The Ohio State University, a very large and prominent 150-year-old American public land-grant university that is known more for its football teams than for its academic excellence. This book presents a new understanding of the limits and the importance of the public—in history, theory, civics, and operation.

Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies, and Academy Professor at The Ohio State University. An historian of literacy, children and youth, cities, interdisciplinarity, and higher education, his most recent books are Searching for Literacy (Springer, 2022); My Life with Literacy (The WAC Clearinghouse, 2024); Reconstructing the "Uni-versity”, (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025); and editor, Changing Paths of Academic Lives (The WAC Clearinghouse, 2025).