Universities and the Production of Elites

Universities and the Production of Elites
Author: Roland Bloch
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2017-08-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3319539701

This book explores how universities as organizations influence and construct the production of academic elites and elitist institutions. It analyzes the role played by the reorganization of higher education (HE) institutions, stimulated by new performance-based narratives aimed at building attractiveness towards stakeholders such as governments, prospective employers, academics, and students. Based on American, European, and Asian case studies of HE systems and institutions considered at various scales, the volume analyzes the consequences of increasing competition between HE institutions which are facing challenges such as the internationalization of higher education supply, the shortage of public resources and the structural changes of labor market demands. It argues that policy discourses and tools, as well as assessment devices such as rankings and accreditation, incentivize HE institutions to develop positioning strategies that contribute to stratification and the production of elites. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of higher education, sociology, and education policy.

Elite Universities and the Making of Privilege

Elite Universities and the Making of Privilege
Author: Kalwant Bhopal
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000829103

Providing an extraordinary picture of the inner workings of elite universities, Elite Universities and the Making of Privilege draws on current debates on education and inequality and considers the relevance of universities’ global brand identities. Using the work of Bourdieu and critical race theory to explore how identity, experience and family background affects how people navigate the social space of the university, this book is underpinned with empirical research that considers different social, economic and educational contexts. Using interview accounts of graduate students, this book highlights ambiguities in how eliteness works as both a recognisable marker of institutional status and a marker that is rarely quantified or defined. Combining intellectually rigorous, accessible and controversial chapters, Elite Universities and the Making of Privilege is crucial reading for anyone looking to understand how race and class affect those navigating elite universities.

Creating a Class

Creating a Class
Author: Mitchell L. Stevens
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009-09-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674267583

In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in bustling New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college that is known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine. Admissions officers love students but they work for the good of the school. They must bring each class in "on budget," burnish the statistics so crucial to institutional prestige, and take care of their colleagues in the athletic department and the development office. Stevens shows that the job cannot be done without "systematic preferencing," and racial affirmative action is the least of it. Kids have an edge if their parents can pay full tuition, if they attend high schools with exotic zip codes, if they are athletes--especially football players--and even if they are popular. With novelistic flair, sensitivity to history, and a keen eye for telling detail, Stevens explains how elite colleges and universities have assumed their central role in the production of the nation's most privileged classes. Creating a Class makes clear that, for better or worse, these schools now define the standards of youthful accomplishment in American culture more generally.

Structuring Mass Higher Education

Structuring Mass Higher Education
Author: David Palfreyman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134092997

Undoubtedly the most important development in higher education in recent years has been the seemingly inexorable expansion of national systems. In a comparatively short time period many countries have moved from an elite to a mass model. Furthermore, expansion has invariably changed the whole experience of higher education for all the interested parties from, presidents, rectors and vice-chancellors to first-term undergraduates. Structuring Mass Higher Education examines the impact of this change upon the existing national structures of higher education. It also defines and highlights what makes an ‘elite’ university – something which institutions must strive for in order to gain their position as global players. With case studies and contributions from a wide range of international authors, the book explores questions such as: Do higher education institutions retain a national significance, even though the vestiges of an international reputation have long faded? Has expansion undermined the quality of higher education because governments sought to expand "on the cheap"? Is the elite institutional response to mass higher education perceived as a threat to be responded to with purposeful action that sustains their elite status? Does the emergence of the international league tables pose a challenge to those responsible for governing elite institutions? These are critical issues with which both policy-makers and institutional leaders will have to grapple over the next ten years, making Structuring Mass Higher Education a timely, relevant, and much needed text. It will appeal to policy makers and practitioners within higher education as well as student and scholars worldwide.

The Elite University

The Elite University
Author: Ditlev Tamm
Publisher: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2017-08-15
Genre: Elite (Social sciences)
ISBN: 9788773044094

Some remarks on the question of "elite universities" with regard to universities in Austria / Walter Höflechner -- Which elite? Whose university? : Britain's civic university tradition and the importance of place / William Whyte -- Universities in the Netherlands / Leen Dorsman -- Keeping up with the elite : noblemen at German universities (15.-16. century) with a special regard to Freiburg im Breisgau / Rainer Christoph Schwinges -- Legal education as a channel to the social elite / Pia Letto-Vanamo -- 'What for--what ultimately for?' : liberal arts and elite universities in the United States / Helle Porsdam -- Inaugural addresses of Prague University rectors between science and providing service to society, nation, and state in the first half of the 20th century / Petr Svobodný -- Academic centralization in Romania until World War II : forging an elite university in the capital city of Bucharest and the reactions of the competing University of Iasi / Leonidas Rados -- The failure of the elite university in early modern France / Boris Noguès -- Mass universities and the idea of an elite education in the Netherlands, 1945-2015 / Peter Jan Knegtmans -- What is required to create elite universities? / Flemming Resenbacher and Peter Thostrup.

Discipline and Power

Discipline and Power
Author: Reba N. Soffer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1994
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780804723831

An intellectual, cultural, and social analysis of the ways in which universities successfully transformed a set of values, encoded in the concept of “liberal education,” into a licensing system for a national elite.

The Social Construction of the US Academic Elite

The Social Construction of the US Academic Elite
Author: Stephanie Beyer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2021-09-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000428508

This book explores the stark stratification and struggles over classifications in US academia from a relational perspective, looking beyond material differences and tracing its roots to symbolic power relations. Based on a mixed methods study drawing on both interview and quantitative data, it offers an account of the workings of academia, shedding light on the structures that permit elite departments to define categories and impose legitimate scientific definitions, to which the non-elite must adhere. With a focus on two scientific disciplines, the author shows how the translation of objective structures into mental structures establishes a relationship of power with regard to the definition of scientific categories, thus determining access to resources and opportunities to participate and move within the academic field. A study of the unequal intrusion of economic logics into the academic domain, this volume will appeal to scholars, policy makers and institutional leaders with interests in higher education, inequality within science, academic careers, power relationships and competition in the academy.

Elites and People

Elites and People
Author: Fredrik Engelstad
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2019-10-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1838679154

The present volume of Comparative Social Research offers a broad set of comparative studies of elites, stretching from the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt to women's political leadership in Brazil and Germany, via attainment of elite positions among minorities in France and the US.

Elite Education

Elite Education
Author: Claire Maxwell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2015-10-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317628810

Elite Education – International Perspectives is the first book to systematically examine elite education in different parts of the world. Authors provide a historical analysis of the emergence of national elite education systems and consider how recent policy and economic developments are changing the configuration of elite trajectories and the social groups benefiting from these. Through country-level case studies, this book offers readers an in-depth account of elite education systems in the Anglophone world, in Europe and in the emerging financial centres of Africa, Asia and Latin America. A series of commentaries highlight commonalities and differences between elite education systems, and offer insights into broader theoretical issues, with which educationalists, researchers and policy makers are engaging . With authors including Stephen J. Ball, Donald Broady, Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Heinz-Hermann Krüger, Maria Alice Nogueira, Julia Resnik and Agnès van Zanten, the book offers a benchmark perspective on issues frequently glossed over in comparative education, including the processes by which powerful groups retain privilege and ‘elite’ status in rapidly changing societies. Elite Education – International Perspectives will appeal to policy makers and academics in the fields of education and sociology. Simultaneously it will be of special relevance to post-graduates enrolled on courses in the sociology of education, education policy, and education and international development.