Matt Ely's Reviews > Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present

The real strength of a text like this is in developing a conceptual framework. The author spends the bulk of the book identifying how her framework would apply in different historical eras.

Basically, it's about how student attitudes toward a few factors determine broad "classes" of students over time. For example, do students see themselves as being definitionally opposed to campus authority or deferential to it? Do they prioritize the curriculum or the extracurriculum? Do they see college as a time of transformation or a time to reaffirm what preceded it? When confronted with the political structures of the institution, do they respond by affirming norms, being indifferent to them, or opposing them? If they oppose them, do they do so for causes internal to the education experience or based on external political movements?

The way students respond to these kinds of questions sort students into three broad classes: insiders, outsiders, and rebels. Horowitz then goes to great lengths demonstrating how those classes are subdivided and evolve over time.

While the text is a few decades old, there will doubtless be flashes of recognition for any interested reader. This serves a great starting point for jumping into how students claim their identities on campus and how the replicate/revise the behavioral patterns of their predecessors.