ABSTRACT
Although the study of community colleges in the U.S. has a long history, only recently has the institution secured broader attention and legitimacy in the fi eld of higher education (Harper & Jackson, 2011). Th e same is true for community colleges’ standing in U.S. education policy and political discourses, for which the institution has become the focus of the federal government’s eff orts to increase postsecondary attainment, access by low-income and underrepresented students to higher education, and the effi ciency of public investments in the tertiary sector (Biden, 2010). Th is shift in attention by scholars and policy-makers, albeit delayed, is welcome, given that community colleges enrolled 44% of all undergraduate students in 2008 (American Association of Community Colleges, 2011). Nevertheless, scholarship on community colleges remains segmented and oft en disconnected from developments that are taking place in the social science disciplines and educational sciences, is based on a limited range of theoretical/conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches, and focuses mainly on issues of access and completion (Dougherty, 2006; Melguizo, 2011).
