Hegemony's Handmaid? The Library and Information Studies Curriculum from a Class Perspective

The field of library and information studies (LIS) has traditionally avoided class analysis in favor of two other perspectives: pluralism and managerialism. Whereas pluralism focuses on the behavior of interacting individuals, and managerialism emphasizes organizations treated as systems, a relational class perspective argues that the LIS curriculum is just one of a constellation of middle-class practices aimed at maintaining hegemonic control by the dominant class. At least since the 1923 Williamson Report, four focal areas that relate to the theory and practice of cultural hegemony have preoccupied the LIS curricular field: links with the corporate world, professionalization, aspiration to scientific status, and stratification of literacy and of institutions. Hegemony, however, is never complete; historically some librarians and LIS educators have resisted ideological domination. For the newly emerging "information profession" to avoid political naïveté, the LIS curriculum should include social theory as a tool for rigorous, theoretical, and empowering analysis of current far-ranging societal changes.