Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives

by Amy Binder, Kate Wood

Overview

How divergent campus cultures affect conservative college students

Conservative pundits allege that the pervasive liberalism of America's colleges and universities has detrimental effects on undergraduates, most particularly right-leaning ones. Yet not enough attention has actually been paid to young conservatives to test these claims—until now. In Becoming Right, Amy Binder and Kate Wood carefully explore who conservative students are, and how their beliefs and political activism relate to their university experiences.

Rich in interviews and insight, Becoming Right illustrates that the diverse conservative movement evolving among today’s college students holds important implications for the direction of American politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691163666
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	12/21/2014
Series:	Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology , #54
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Amy J. Binder is professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools (Princeton). Kate Wood is an independent scholar.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Who Are Conservative Students? 29
Chapter 3: Sponsored Conservatism: The Landscape of National Conservative Organizations 76
Chapter 4: How Conservatives Think about Campus: The Effects of College Reputations, Social Scenes, and Academics on Student Experience 113
Chapter 5: Provoking Liberals and Campaigning for Republicans: Two Conservative Styles at the Western Public Universities 161
Chapter 6: Civilized Discourse, Highbrow Provocation, and a Fuller Embrace of Campaigning: Three Conservative Styles at Eastern Elite University 213
Chapter 7: Conservative Femininity 270
Chapter 8: The Theory behind the Findings: How Studying College Conservatives Extends Our Understanding of Higher Education, Politics, and Culture 309

Notes 327
References 363
Index 381

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Becoming Right vividly illustrates how conservative students experience the university—and how these experiences differ by campus. This beautifully written book is a must read for anyone who seeks to understand the political socialization of conservative leaders and the sources of cleavages within contemporary conservative politics. Appealing to a wide audience, this is a powerful and original approach to the analysis of undergraduate life."—Elizabeth Armstrong, University of Michigan

"Social scientists have paid surprisingly little attention to conservative college students. Becoming Right remedies this with a penetrating analysis of the diverse political styles that can be found among students on the right, and of the campus settings that foster them. This important contribution to political sociology and the sociology of higher education has lessons to teach all readers about the complexity of the conservative movement and the passions of conservative collegians."—Neil Gross, University of British Columbia

"Offering a fascinating and nuanced portrait of young conservatives and their political commitments, Binder and Wood provide invaluable insight into this important but overlooked segment of American politics. Their analysis also illuminates the ways in which universities shape political identity and behavior, and is certain to stimulate new inquiries into the formation of political culture."—Julie A. Reuben, Harvard University

"The rise of conservatism on campus has been a central priority of well-funded think tanks and advocacy groups in their efforts to keep the pipeline full of potential leaders for each new generation. This splendid study of the contemporary campus right fills a huge gap in the public's understanding of the most recent wave of conservative cadre building."—Paul J. DiMaggio, Princeton University

"Becoming Right marshals novel, nuanced material to depict styles of conservative political organization at two U.S. universities. The big finding is that organizational context matters—a lot—for how undergraduates come to think of themselves as political subjects, how they act and react toward their campuses, and how they imagine their own futures. This book clearly demonstrates that political actors are made, not born."—Mitchell L. Stevens, Stanford University

Editorial Reviews

"[G]roundbreaking."

Publishers Weekly

"In their important contribution to the scholarship on modern American conservative movement politics, Binder and Wood analyze the varying experiences of conservative student activists on university campuses. The book succeeds on multiple levels."

Choice

"A deep dive into the under-examined world of campus conservatives, Amy J. Binder and Kate Wood's book can feel like an anthropological account of a disappearing tribe. . . . Binder and Wood's findings add an important dimension to our understanding of the right. The last two decades have seen historians and political scientists extensively study the rise of conservatism. A trenchant addition to that literature, Becoming Right offers a thick description of the state of college conservatism and explains the factors that shape the student—and, it follows, the citizen. The authors' interrogations leave the promise of a better politics hanging in the air: if Binder and Wood are accurate in their depictions, campus cultures that seek to build a stronger sense of community and ideological tolerance could be one key to a more civil national discourse. The book also enriches our understanding of the right's mentality. . . . Becoming Right yields many valuable insights about the possible future of conservatism. But the vision this illuminating book most vividly conjures is the depressing present of conservatism: ugly, unyielding, and provocative to the point of nihilism."—-Elbert Ventura, New Republic

"In Becoming Right, Amy Binder and Kate Wood provide an in-depth and informative examination of who the conservatives are, the impact of campus culture on the formation of their identities and activist styles, and the implications for the direction of U.S. politics."—-Glenn Altschuler, Boston Globe

"[I]f the intellectual interest of this book is the demonstration of how much influence the kind of university has on its students' political culture, a pleasure for the reader is the revelation of the sheer good nature of so many of the study's interviewees; they come across as pretty muddled on many issues but astonishingly rarely as nasty."—-Alan Ryan, Times Higher Education

"[A] nice discussion of the larger field of conservative politics and how that affects campus protest. Overall, a solid book and one that's essential to studies of campus politics."—-Fabio Rojas, Orgtheory.net

"Their book [is an] excellent, engaging, well written, and carefully researched study of the ways culture works in and through schools."—-Lisa M. Stulberg, Contexts

From the Publisher

A deep dive into the under-examined world of campus conservatives, Amy J. Binder and Kate Wood's book can feel like an anthropological account of a disappearing tribe. . . . Binder and Wood's findings add an important dimension to our understanding of the right. The last two decades have seen historians and political scientists extensively study the rise of conservatism. A trenchant addition to that literature, Becoming Right offers a thick description of the state of college conservatism and explains the factors that shape the student—and, it follows, the citizen. The authors' interrogations leave the promise of a better politics hanging in the air: if Binder and Wood are accurate in their depictions, campus cultures that seek to build a stronger sense of community and ideological tolerance could be one key to a more civil national discourse. The book also enriches our understanding of the right's mentality. . . . Becoming Right yields many valuable insights about the possible future of conservatism. But the vision this illuminating book most vividly conjures is the depressing present of conservatism: ugly, unyielding, and provocative to the point of nihilism.

New Republic - Elbert Ventura

[A] nice discussion of the larger field of conservative politics and how that affects campus protest. Overall, a solid book and one that's essential to studies of campus politics.

Orgtheory.net - Fabio Rojas

In Becoming Right, Amy Binder and Kate Wood provide an in-depth and informative examination of who the conservatives are, the impact of campus culture on the formation of their identities and activist styles, and the implications for the direction of U.S. politics.

Boston Globe - Glenn Altschuler

[I]f the intellectual interest of this book is the demonstration of how much influence the kind of university has on its students' political culture, a pleasure for the reader is the revelation of the sheer good nature of so many of the study's interviewees; they come across as pretty muddled on many issues but astonishingly rarely as nasty.

Times Higher Education - Alan Ryan