Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching and Learning

Committee Chair/Advisor

Kristen Duncan

Committee Member

Alex Chisholm

Committee Member

Mindy Spearman

Committee Member

Michelle Boettcher

Abstract

Higher education faculty are facing a complicated combination of social, political, and institutional realities (Associated Press, 2024; Burke & Mitchell, 2024; Quinn, 2025). Meanwhile, anti-democratic behavior amongst student populations has increased in recent years Kelderman, 2021; Reynolds et al., 2020). This study explores how higher education faculty navigate these competing pressures while responding to student political extremism in the classroom. More specifically, I relied on a narrative inquiry approach to answer two questions: What are higher education faculty’s experiences with political extremism in the classroom (RQ1), and when faculty interpret student behavior as extreme, how do they choose to respond (RQ2)? I utilized unstructured interviews to collect four faculty members’ stories about perceived student political extremism, subsequently restorying the narratives using a problem-solution approach. Eccles and Wigfield’s (2020) situated expectancy-value theory provided the theoretical framework for exploring how faculty evaluated their situations, as well as how they chose to respond. I found that perceived cost and expectancy of success were especially powerful variables in their decision to either confront or avoid their student. When faculty immediately confronted politically extreme student behavior, it was contained to a single instance, regardless of the technique the faculty member employed. On the other hand, when faculty attempted to avoid the behavior, it persisted for the duration of the course.

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2430-1524

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