Community college discourses of sustainability in an academic and professional corpus

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify discourses of sustainability of community colleges and how they related to sustainability imaginaries. Design/methodology/approach This study used a combination of research strategies associated with corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Data included 57 issues of Community College Journal, a professional magazine published by the American Association of Community Colleges, and 2,972 abstracts of dissertations about community colleges. Publication dates ranged from 2010 to 2020. Findings Community college discourse of sustainability coheres around six themes: careers and fields of study; curriculum and credentialing; campus ecological sustainability; administrative roles and processes; external organizations, partnerships and processes; and fiscal sustainability. There is little evidence of a sustainable living imaginary found. Research limitations/implications The analysis is limited to a specific set of professional and academic texts about community colleges. Future researchers should explore discourses of sustainability in other contexts. Originality/value There has been no research associated with critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to explore community college discourses of sustainability, specifically in the field of community college leadership. The findings of this study situate the community college within contests over sustainability competencies in the practice of community college leadership development.