A Postmodern Explanation of Student Consumerism in Higher Education

Author(s): Michael Delucchi and William L. Smith

Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 322-327
Published by: American Sociological Association
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 CONVERSATION
A POSTMODERN EXPLANATION OF STUDENT
CONSUMERISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION*

MICHAEL DELUCCHI WILLIAM L. SMITH

University of Hawaii-West Oahu Georgia Southern University

RECENT ISSUES OF Teaching Sociology have work in the humanities and social sciences
(Bloland 1995; Crook, Pakulski, and Waters
featured essays imploring instructors to ac-
knowledge and to exercise control over the1992; Zemsky 1993) leads us to believe that
student consumerism is a product of a new
authority inherent in the teaching role. Gary
Long and Elise Lake (1996) contend that
historical era-postmodernism-and not eas-
ily amenable to "ethical teaching" or the use
"ethical teaching" requires honesty about the
of "responsible authority." Consequently,
socially structured differences between pro-
fessors and students. The authors also sug-we maintain sociologists can most appreciate
the pedagogical challenges associated with
gest that a customer-service approach to the
student-professor relationship underminesstudent consumerism (e.g., faculty acquies-
effective pedagogy. In a similar vein, Jodicence to students' demands [O'Brien and
O'Brien and Judith Howard (1996) state thatHoward 1996], grades as a biasing factor in
"a widespread reluctance to assume the teaching evaluations [Feldman 1996], cheat-
ing [Sloss 1995], and grade obsession
cloak of authority is the root dilemma under-
lying many of the ills that beset contempo-[Wiesenfeld 1996]) by examining the impli-
rary higher education, including the decline
cations of postmodernism on higher educa-
of respect for the profession in general, tion.
[and] the perpetuation of a culture of com- The term "postmodern" appears with in-
plaint and cynicism" (p. 327). creasing frequency in the titles of presenta-
We are receptive to the above observa- tions at professional meetings, but few of the
discussions address directly the impact of
tions and believe that maintaining clear dis-
tinctions between student and instructor the modern/postmodern divide as it pertains
roles need not lead to faculty elitism (Long
to teaching undergraduates. Clayton Dumont
and Lake 1996; O'Brien and Howard 1996). (1995:307) argues that thinking traditions,
We do not advocate that instructors become such as postmodernism, can assist sociolo-
indifferent to their students, but we do assert
gists in understanding the cultural nature of
that educating students is more importanttheir epistemologies. The paucity of teaching
than coddling them and treating them faculty's as general engagement with the post-
customers (Weiss 1982). However, recent modern is surprising, because the postmod-
ern era continues to have an impact on the
"*The authors would like to thank Susan Owens way in which students approach their educa-
and the three anonymous reviewers for com- tion. Perhaps nowhere are the characteristics
ments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. of postmodernism more apparent than
Please direct all correspondence to either among undergraduate attitudes toward their
Michael Delucchi, Division of Social Sciences, education.
University of Hawaii-West Oahu, 96-043 Ala In this paper we employ the concepts of
Ike, Pearl City, HI 96782;
"performativity" (Crook et al. 1992) and
e-mail: [email protected] or to William L.
"implosion of boundaries" (Baudrillard
Smith, Department of Sociology and Anthropol-
1983), two essential components of post-
ogy, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro,
GA 30460-8051; modernism, to illuminate student con-
e-mail: [email protected] sumerism and its challenges to collegiate
Editor's note: The reviewers were Roger pedagogy. We do not offer solutions. Our
Barnes, Alan Spector, and Lester Hill. purpose is to initiate discussion about teach-

Teaching Sociology, Vol. 25, 1997 (October:322-327) 322

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STUDENT CONSUMERISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION 323

ing in a postmodern world. cation depends.

We present our
observations in an attempt to encourage
POSTMODERNISM
others to enter the dialogue regardless of AND
HIGHER EDUCATION
their modernist/postmodernist leanings.

THE MODERN/POSTMODERN Colleges and universities are intended to be

DISTINCTION places of intellectual freedom where all
views are debated and subjected to critica
While the precise meanings of the terms Allan Bloom's (1987) controversial
scrutiny.
"modern" and "postmodern" remain work con-
laments that this approach to knowl-
tested, modernist and postmodernist
edgeper-
is losing legitimacy in higher educa
spectives are very much alive in tion.
higherIn the postmodern era, there is dange
education and society. Both concepts
in theare collapse of the distinction between
essential reference points for our examina-
knowledge inside the university and outside,
tion of student consumerism in higher
so that
edu-certain kinds of knowledge-once th
monopoly
cation. Therefore, a summary of these terms of higher education-are now
precedes our discussion. shared with institutions outside the academy
The modernist perspective maintains Implosion
that means that the boundary be-
language, reason, and science (i.e., tween
the sci- a simulation and reality disappears
entific method) are the foremostthat mecha-
is, implodes, and the basis for determin
ing "the
nisms for arriving at truth. Modernism as- real" is gone (Baudrillard 1983)
For example,
serts that language describes and serves as a Geyer (1993:511) argues tha
colleges and universities are losing their
reliable means of accessing reality. Through
scientific inquiry, modernists claim to be to television entertainment, news
legitimacy
progressing toward true knowledge andofdocumentary
the spectacles, as well as radio
universe and to be acquiring knowledge
talk shows, which "have developed a power
important for problem solving in commensurate
society. with university education.
With its emphasis on reason and the These
rationalmedia compete with the rationality
unfolding of history, modernismand equates
disciplinary standards upon which much
change with progress, which is defined
of higher as education curricula are based. The
increasing control over nature andcollapse
societyof boundaries between the inside
(Bloland 1995). and outside of the academy delegitimates th
Postmodernism can be viewed as a per-
belief in professors as experts, particularly
spective or as a new historical era as(Bloland
ultimate authorities on the subjects they
teach. of
1995). In either case, the major thrust
postmodernism is to attack modernist American
as- consumer culture is most dis-
sumptions about language, reality, and sci-to undergraduate education. In the
ruptive
ence. For postmodernists, language is not a
postmodern world, "performativity" is the
path to truth or a method for describing
most powerful criterion for determining
reality, but simply a series of discourses
worth, replacing agreed upon, rational,
socially created in varying contexts,modernist
none of criteria for merit. Postmodernists
which offer superior truth claims. Science is
describe performativity as "the capacity to
not viewed as a value-free form of knowl-deliver outputs at the lowest cost, [which]
edge, but as a discourse created within a
replaces truth as the yardstick of knowl-
edge" (Crook et al. 1992:31). In other
political context where power struggles oc-
cur for the control of its meaning (Lyotard
words, efficiency and effectiveness become
1984). Therefore, postmodernism as a per-
the exclusive criteria for judging knowledge
and its worth in society and within the
spective challenges the most basic assump-
tions of the European Enlightenment, the
academy.
foundation upon which much of higher edu-Gary Long and Elise Lake (1996) contend

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 324 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

that an undueidentity emphasisas "Professor" becomes on tied to how

cust
in higher education likable they are to their students (Weiss
inverts th
student relationship 1982). by vesting
students as consumers. "Consumerism can Louis Goldman (1990) states, "Most stu-
undermine the concept of merit by contribut- dents are interested in getting good grades;
ing to the pernicious idea that students those are instructors who give students high
customers, to be served only in ways they grades and communicate to them that they
find pleasing" (Long and Lake 1996:111). are learning well usually are rewarded with
Under such conditions, professors may highberatings. Quid pro quo" (p. B2). Are
reluctant to hold students to exacting stan- students' evaluations of faculty members
dards of performance and those who resist influenced by the grades students receive in
grade inflation may be unfairly penalized a course? Several researchers have con-
(Park 1996). Support for this claim is found cluded that grades cannot be dismissed as a
in work by Robert Powell (1977), who biasing factor in teaching evaluations
conducted an experiment in which an in- (Feldman 1976, 1996; Marsh 1984; Powell
structor varied his grading criteria from 1977; Wright et al. 1984). For example, W.
stringent to moderate to lenient in five sec- Robert Kennedy (1975) found that students
tions of the same course. Powell (1977:197) receiving either an A or B as an actual grade
reports that the instructor received higher in a course gave significantly higher evalua-
evaluations when students were required to tions to the instructor than those receiving a
do less work, received higher grades, and C or D. More recently, Richard J. Gigliotti
learned less. Few institutions of higher edu- and Foster S. Buchtel (1990:348) studied
cation are immune from this phenomenon 691 students enrolled in 38 courses and 16
although it is one of the dirty little secrets disciplines and concluded that grades influ-
we deny publicly. enced teaching evaluations. However, based
Students' evaluations of faculty members on an extensive review of empirical studies
measure a variety of factors such as person- Feldman (1996:6) suggests that part of the
ality and expressiveness, which may or may positive correlation between grades and
not be related to learning, but are salient evaluation of instructors is due to a "validity
criteria to student consumers. Penny effect" and some part of the association
Wright, Ray Whittington, and G.E. Whit- might be due to a spurious factor that has
tenburg (1984:8) report that over 90 percent been labeled as a "student characteristic
of the variance in students' ratings of faculty effect." Nevertheless, while the extent to
members can be attributed to the instructor's which students use evaluations to "reward"
personality. In a postmodern academic envi- or "punish" teachers based on the grade they
ronment of increasing relativism and con- received remains unresolved, according to
sumerism, some faculty members begin to Feldman (1996), "almost all of the available
pander to the allure of students as con- research does show a small or even modest
sumers. For example, Baker and Copp positive association between grades and
(1997) conclude that college students nega- evaluation" (p. 6).
tively evaluate professors who fail to pro- Scholars in a variety of disciplines, includ-
vide the customer-service traits (e.g., under- ing sociology, psychology, and economics
standing, concern, friendliness, sensitivity, have reported on the escalating problem of
and support) that they expect from faculty cheating in college courses (Bunn, Caudill,
members. Consequently, faculty members and Gropper 1992; Davis et al. 1992; Sloss
may become more concerned with their 1995). In a study of 476 students enrolled in
popularity (or being "liked") than providing a microeconomics course, over 80 percent
students with rigorous course work, espe- reported they had witnessed cheating and 50
cially when promotion and tenure are linked percent indicated they have cheated them-
to the results of students' evaluations. Their selves. Most of these students (over 70%)

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STUDENT CONSUMERISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION 325

colleges and
did not consider cheating a problem universities
(Bunn et cater to student
consumerism,
al. 1992:199-201). The researchers it is inevitable that some fac-
conclude
that the cavalier attitude toward cheating
ulty members is
will succumb to its demands.
reinforced by the belief among students that
CONCLUSIONS
cheating can raise grade point averages,
thereby enhancing their competitiveness in
Postmodernism's
the job market upon graduation (Bunn et al. terms and assumptions
1992:198). have entered sociology and other social sci-
ences over the
Theodore Wagenaar (1995) describes past two decades. Postmod-
suc-
cessful teaching as "more than effective
ern perspectives are significant in their po-
in-class teaching behaviors; it is what stu-for the extensive changes
tential to account
dents learn" (p. 67). Unfortunately, research
in our society as we move from a production
to a consumption
indicates that students preoccupied with their society. An important
grade point average (GPA), practice
consequencea of
sys-
postmodernism is that as the
tem of learning that emphasizes making
boundary betweena higher education and the
market collapses,
good grade at the expense of deeper, criticalfew (if any) academics are
analytic learning (Rabow and Hernandez
unaffected by student consumerism.
Long(1996)
1988). Physicist Kurt Wiesenfeld and Lake of (1996) and O'Brien and
The Georgia Institute of Technology
Howard (1996)de-
implore faculty members to
scribes the pursuit of grades among
make explicit his
the authority of expertise and
students as follows: inequalities inherent in the student-professor
relationship. Wilbert McKeachie's (1978)
In the last few years...some students have delineation of teacher's roles (the teacher as
developed a disgruntled-consumer approach. If expert, formal authority, socializing agent,
they don't like their grade, they go to the facilitator, ego ideal, and person) bolsters
"return" counter to trade it in for something these recommendations. However, the ques-
better.... Their arguments for wheedling better tion remains: Will clear articulation of the
grades often ignore academic performance.
responsibilities associated with these roles
The one thing college actually offers-a chance
to learn-is considered irrelevant, even less enhance teaching in a consumer culture? We
than worthless, because of the long hours and are skeptical. The postmodern world is re-
hard work required. (P. 16) plete with ambiguity and contradiction. We
now teach in a context in which the standard
Much of what students want to consume categories of modernism fail to account for
(that is, to explain and make predictable) the
that higher education has supplied in the past
conditions
is either in the process of erosion, for we face in the classroom.
Postmodernism makes us aware of the
example, high culture, or can be supplied by
other sources (vocational education, or the destabilization and uncertainty that confronts
World Wide Web). As Robert Zemsky our students. A postmodern perspective is
(1993) writes, "Students today want techni- pertinent to the teaching of sociology be-
cal knowledge, useful knowledge, labor- cause it involves a salient critique of mod-
related knowledge in convenient, digestible ernism, the foundation upon which much of
packages" (p. 17). In a postmodern world, our training and scholarship has rested. Con-
the role of a traditional liberal arts education sequently, reasserting the belief in profes-
is devalued, because consumer culture ques- sors as experts and authorities on the sub-
tions the assumption that liberal arts knowl- jects they teach is unlikely to stem the tide of
edge is relevant knowledge. Consistent with pedagogical challenges that accompanies
the phenomenon of performativity, the student consumerism.
rhetoric of accountability in higher education Some academics view postmodernism as a
promotes a customer-service relationship be- regressive intellectual movement that seeks
tween students and faculty members. When to dismantle the progress associated with the

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 326 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

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it community, and religion.
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Wright, Penny, Ray Whittington, and G.E. Whit-

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