Meritocracy is used by governments in many societies as an 'effective' way to represent social justice and legitimise -- explain away -- class inequality. By focusing on a small number of working-class students who achieve academic 'success' and have reached elite universities in an ideal meritocratic environment -- Chinese schooling -- this paper…

As noted by many historians, the modern tale of American education is one of a pendulum swinging between concerns about excellence and those about equity. In many matters of policy and practice, excellence and equity are in tension, if not actual conflict. It can be assumed that progressives will always take the "equity" side. So if…

This research involved a qualitative case study (N=15) that identified several layers of concern centered around the Black college student experience using Critical Race Theory and Bridging Multiple Worlds Theory. Through two rounds of qualitative semi-structured interviews, the current study addressed the concerns of access for Black students at…

Many egalitarians believe that there is a pro tanto reason to remedy inequalities of opportunity in access to higher education. This consensus, I argue, masks practical disagreement among egalitarians: in many real-world choice contexts, egalitarians will disagree about which policies are to be endorsed, both from the point of view of equality and…

In this article, the author analyzed relevant literature focused on the evaluation and holistic admission practices of American graduate programs, including application materials, academic achievement, and non-cognitive variables. This article mainly focuses on the higher education graduate school admission system within the United States after…

Many elite schools proclaim a commitment to racial and other aspects of student diversity and inclusion. Pursuing this commitment is highly complex and contentious given the traditions of exclusion elite schools are founded upon. This paper examines some of these contentions drawing on research conducted at Cherry Tree Academy, an elite pre-K-12…

The "Moving on Up? What Groundbreaking Study Tells Us About Access, Success, and Mobility in Higher Ed" report by Stephen Burd seeks to raise awareness of the data published in a paper, "Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility." This paper was released at the same time that Donald Trump began…

The necessity for the development and restructuring of pharmacists' training programs to correspond their increased practical role in society has been substantiated. It has been determined that Canada for the last decade has introduced a lot of changes concerning enhancement of pharmacists' training, among which the following are of special…

Studies often portray cultural capital as a constant source of advantage. Yet this perspective underemphasizes the importance of activating cultural capital as a prerequisite for elite families to accrue its benefits. Using ethnography and interviews with elite students and parents in two top-performing public high schools in Beijing, I find that…

This study examined the relationship between attending one of the nine New York City (NYC) selective specialized public high schools and graduating from an honors college with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree, compared with honors college graduates who attended any other high school. A causal-comparative study…

Higher education in the United States has a unique opportunity to educate students to practice leadership to address complex problems. A limited number of universities bear the label "elite" as a result of highly selective admissions criteria, cost, age, and position in popular national rankings. Additional scrutiny of these institutions…

While the scholarship of interdisciplinarity has grown prolifically in the last thirty years, the discourse primarily frames interdisciplinarity as an instrumental research construct. In this article, I will argue that this framework should be expanded to consider how interdisciplinary engagement can support education for democracy. The article…

Exclusive boarding schools in social environments where the meritocratic norm is prevalent are faced with a tension between parents' desire to give their children a head start in the competition for educational qualifications, social prestige and jobs on the one hand and the powerful social norm of advancement by merit under conditions of…

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) surveyed member institutions to better understand institutional policies and practices related to prior learning assessment (PLA) and fielded a student survey to understand student perspectives on PLA. This brief shares findings and recommendations from this…

Inequality in the United States has been rising in recent decades, while intergenerational mobility remains low. This means that absolute mobility--the extent to which children are economically better off than their parents--is declining, and intergenerational inequality is increasingly entrenched. A long literature suggests large returns to…