CfP – International Conference at the German Historical Institute Washington

The Campus and Beyond: Higher Education and Social Inequalities in Europe and North America, 1850s-2000s

Conveners: Raphael Rössel (GHI Washington), Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Loyola University Chicago), and Stefanie Coché (Gießen University)

This conference aims to bring scholars of European and North American higher education together to consider three main themes: access, on-campus inequities, and the social consequences of higher education’s dramatic expansion. The conference presupposes that higher education and its impact on Western societies has changed dramatically since the late nineteenth century. In Europe and North America, universities have evolved from hyper-exclusive havens of elites to entry points for broad sections of the population seeking social and professional security. In the United States, a mere three percent of young adults attended college in 1890, compared to thirty percent in 1950. Today, about two-thirds of US high school graduates decide to enroll in higher education. To many, a degree from an institution of higher education presents the sole path to (relative) economic independence.

Despite the enormous importance of higher education to both individuals and societies, the existing historiography has hardly addressed the relationship between higher education and social inequalities. Scholars of college life have often limited their focus to students’ political activities, especially left-wing protests. Although historians of higher education have placed the transformation of university cultures in broader contexts, they have often disregarded the wider economic, political, and social consequences of the changes on campus.

This international conference focuses both on distinct European and North American trajectories of the social impact of collegiate education as well as on transatlantic interdependencies and interactions. The conference addresses three central topics.

Date: 9 – 10 October 2025

Submission deadline: 8 December 2024

Location: German Historical Institute, Washington, USA

Click here for the full Call for Papers.