ABSTRACT
This chapter is almost exclusively empirically based. It is the result of an analysis of eight interview transcripts with academics, leaders, and administrators in American higher education. The interviews were semi-structured – revolving around a short series of headline questions, and followed up by more general conversation which flowed naturally from the direction each interview took. The headline questions were: (1) How would you define political correctness? (2) How do you feel about questions of freedom of speech? (3) How do you feel about aspects of multiculturalism? (4) How do you feel about forms of affirmative action? These questions were used in part to create a structure and sense of consistency between the interviews, but the aim was not to make judgements about the validity of what was being said in comparison with other responses. Neither should these interviews be seen as an attempt to measure the amount of political correctness in higher education, but rather as an attempt to consider the ways in which people talk about political correctness. More specifically, with what did the term resonate, and what role did it play in their thinking and understanding of issues in higher education, and in their own work. In this regard the interviews should be considered very much as conversations. From a methodological point of view they were an attempt to create a space in which to view a transcript as a consistent narrative about political correctness.
