Assessing the Impact of a Course on Radical Manifestos on Students’ Political Beliefs, Attitudes, and Activism

Abstract

With the goal of assessing student/activist identities in students, and seeing feminist studies as the “scholarly wing of an activist movement,” we compared the political attitudes and activist behaviors of undergraduate students (n=85) at a large Southwestern University who had enrolled in three different types of courses: 1) an upper-division course on manifestos; 2) other women’s studies courses; 3) non-women’s studies courses. Using one-way ANOVAs, we found that students who had taken women’s studies courses were more progressive than students who had not taken these courses, particularly in their ability to recognize sexism, racism, and heterosexism. Women’s studies students also demonstrated less hostility toward women and greater warmth toward people of color, feminists, and queer people. Students enrolled in the manifestos courses were even more progressive than other women’s studies students, particularly for participation in protests and engagement in civil disobedience as well as awareness of racial and gender biases, having an activist orientation, and reporting lower levels of authoritarian tendencies. We explore the importance of supporting and sustaining feminist and women’s studies programs and courses and we make an argument for teaching more radical writings like manifestos as a way to further support student/activist identities.