The Best, the Brightest, and the Most Affluent: Undergraduates at Elite Institutions

Academe ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 75 (6) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel S. Lewis ◽  
Paul William Kingston
Keyword(s):  
Elite Institutions

Axis of advantage: elites in higher education

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Elite Universities ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Educational Marketplace

The intention in this chapter is to offer a critical commentary on ways in which the educational marketplace works to the advantage of elite universities. It is these institutions that use their histories and traditions, image and reputation, to further preserve and reproduce their privilege, position and power. This is labelled as the axis of advantage. Elite institutions are well recognised and accrue esteem based on those who work or have worked there, those who study there or who have studied there, and by the philanthropic bequests received. This chapter argues that this roll call of individuals, alumni, benefactors and networks linked further disconnects elite institutions with the ordinary and the everyday.

scholarly journals The hidden injustices of advancing solar geoengineering research

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie C. Stephens ◽  
Kevin Surprise
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
White Men ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Global North ◽  
Solar Geoengineering

Abstract Advancing solar geoengineering research is associated with multiple hidden injustices that are revealed by addressing three questions: Who is conducting and funding solar geoengineering research? How do those advocating for solar geoengineering research think about social justice and social change? How is this technology likely to be deployed? Navigating these questions reveals that solar geoengineering research is being advocated for by a small group of primarily white men at elite institutions in the Global North, funded largely by billionaires or their philanthropic arms, who are increasingly adopting militarized approaches and logics. Solar geoengineering research advances an extreme, expert–elite technocratic intervention into the global climate system that would serve to further concentrate contemporary forms of political and economic power. For these reasons, we argue that it is unethical and unjust to advance solar geoengineering research.

Migrations and Boundary Work: Harvard, Radical Economists, and the Committee on Political Discrimination

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Mata
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Work ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Personnel Decisions ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
The Subject

ArgumentIn the late 1960s, in the midst of campus unrest, a group of young economists calling themselves “radicals” challenged the boundaries of economics. In the radicals' cultural cartography, economic science and politics were represented as overlapping. These claims were scandalous because they were voiced from Harvard University, drawing on its authority. With radicals' claims the subject of increasing media attention, the economics mainstream sought to re-assert the longstanding cultural map of economic science, where objectivity and advocacy were distinguishable. The resolution of the contest of credibility came with a string of cases of dismissals and denial of tenure for radicals. The American Economic Association's investigations of these cases, imposing the conventional cultural map, concluded that personnel decisions had not been politically motivated. Radicals were forced to migrate from the elite institutions from which they had emerged to less prestigious ones. “Place” became a marker of their marginalization within the profession.

scholarly journals Pluralist Economics as a Democratizing Force: A Review Essay about The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics and Democratizing the Economics Debate: Pluralism and Research Evaluation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Eichacker
Keyword(s):  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Heterodox Economics ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Economic Discourse ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Dialectical Process ◽  
Economic Work ◽  
Classical Economic

The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics and Democratizing the Economics Debate: Pluralism and Research Evaluation, two recently published books about heterodox economics and its role in broader academic and policy discourses, serve as an antidote to some recent popular narratives equating economics and economists with policies that are inherently pro-market, anti-regulation, and based in neoclassical theories. These texts illuminate challenges in current economic discourse about (1) the place of economic pluralism, (2) the role economics and economists should play in guiding policy relative to other social science disciplines, and (3) the consequences of the reliance of policy-makers on economists that train at the most elite institutions that are likely to recommend a narrow band of policies informed by a restricted range of economic theories. The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics, edited by Tae-Jee Ho, Lynne Chester, and Carlo D’Ippoliti, presents positive visions for new questions that heterodox economists are researching, alternative explanations for global economic dynamics, and a counter-narrative to the notion that economists are bound to propose neoliberal policies based on neoclassical and new classical economic theories, and that economic analysis must demonstrate causality using different statistical methodologies to validate its rigor. Carlo D’Ippoliti’s Democratizing the Economics Debate examines the dialectical process by which economic rankings prioritize economic work informed by a narrow range of theories, and serve as a springboard for economists studying and working at the most elite institutions to land in powerful government advisory positions. D’Ippoliti highlights the stakes for governments that continue to hire economic policymakers from these top-tier programs with limited demonstrated curiosity in theories that might be considered heterodox, and the benefits for the economics discipline as a whole for better engagement with pluralist economics writ large.

The Mirage of Opportunity

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Phillip Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Currency Crisis ◽  
Hiring Decisions ◽  
International Networks ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Orthodox Theory ◽  
Rules Of The Game

This chapter shows how orthodox theory has contributed to the destruction of the neoliberal opportunity bargain, and how it has become part of the problem rather than a policy solution. Beyond stagnant, if not declining incomes, there are three further symptoms, namely, credential inflation, elite closure, and a narrowing of academic purpose to “education as employability.” Credential inflation is at the heart of a human capital currency crisis given a decline in the exchange value of credentials. The goal posts move with almost every graduation ceremony, and the rules of the game change as employers look beyond credentials in making their hiring decisions. Many people are being priced out of the market not because they are stupid or lack ambition but because they do not have the resources to stay in an extended competition; at the same time, elites are using their social advantage to win a competitive advantage by monopolizing elite institutions and accessing international networks.

Reclaiming a Democratic Constitutional Politics: Survey Construction and Public Knowledge

1992 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-416
Author(s):  
Susan R. Burgess ◽  
Daniel J. Reagan ◽  
Donald L. Davison
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
Public Opinion Research ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Survey Construction

It has recently been argued in this Review that public opinion research tends to favor the expert authority of elite institutions such as the courts, over the democratic authority of the people as a source of law or constitutional interpretation. In this article we introduce an alternative survey construction that allows the public to be considered as a possible source of constitutional knowledge Using this survey, we find that most respondents can clearly articulate their position on the constitutionality of abortion, and offer and recognize reasons to ground both support and opposition to their position. We argue that these findings suggest that further work with alternative survey constructions may more firmly establish public knowledge in constitutional debates, thereby forming the basis to reclaim a democratic constitutional politics.

A Critique of Institutional Inequalities in Higher Education

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Leathwood
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Education Sector ◽  
High Status ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Student Profiles ◽  
Institutional Differentiation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

This article seeks to apply Adam Swift’s (2003) critique of private and selective schooling to higher education in the UK. The higher education sector in this country is highly differentiated, with high status, research-led elite institutions at the top of the university hierarchy, and newer universities, with far lower levels of funding and prestige, at the bottom. The extent of this differentiation is illustrated by an analysis of six universities at different ends of this spectrum. It also becomes apparent that the student profiles of these institutions are very different, with privately educated, white, middle class students particularly over-represented in the elite universities, and working-class, minority ethnic, and to some extent, women students concentrated in those institutions with far lower levels of funding and prestige. Considerable benefits accrue to those who have attended the elite institutions, and it is argued that the hierarchy of universities both reflects and perpetuates social inequalities, with the middle-classes retaining their privileges and the elite continuing to reproduce itself. The discourse of meritocracy that is used to justify this institutional differentiation is also discussed, and the paper concludes with a call for a more socially just and equitable future for the higher education sector.

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