Caught in the Frame: The Community College, the 1947 Truman Commission Report, and Film Noir

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Civic Dispositions, Political Emotions, and Meanings of Citizenship (Table 2)

Abstract

This paper reports on a philosophical analysis of how community colleges during the 1940s and 1950s were caught in the tension between two competing narratives about higher education and citizenship education. One narrative, explicitly provided in the 1947 Truman Commission Report, emphasized educational opportunity and argued that Americans could achieve the American Dream if they understood citizenship as a social practice grounded in production and consumerism. A second narrative, portrayed vividly in American film noir, argued that the optimistic rhetoric of educational opportunity and American citizenship overstated chances for achieving the American Dream. Using a Lefebvrian lens, I show how community colleges deferred to the forces that created and organized the social space they occupied.

Author

• Clifford P. Harbour, University of North Texas