Talk:Academic elitism

message: I have a few points I'd like to make here. The first is that this article currently lacks good third party citations. The second is that, given the subject of the article itself, third party citations will probably be impossible to find, and this article should be nominated for deletion since it is inherently problematic and of little use. 
I. Problems with Citations:
1. First let me state that I am not at all convinced that the citations given under "References" are at all utilized in the writing of this article as it currently stands. This seems to me a case of bombardment. As I am unable to verify the text citations at present, I'll have to leave them in.
2. Among the citations given, several seem extremely biased. I'm particularly concerned about the one written by a blatantly and titularly "Conservative" American professor. The information about the well-known conservative Thomas Sowell is on topic but hardly neutral. 
3. Most of the citations under "References" deal directly with the subject matter in a critical manner, and are therefore not what I would consider "third party"
II. Problems with the Article in General:
1. The phrase "academic elitism" is odd in its own right. We do not create articles for "Social elitism," "Professional elitism," or "Athletic elitism." 
Rather, in each case it is clear that the qualifying adjective simply denotes the particular realm in which elitism is being discussed. An exception to this consideration would certainly exist if there was a long, historical precedent of using the phrase "academic elitism" as an actual term in its own right. However, I am unaware of such a precedent, and am skeptical one exists. 
2. The phrase "academic elitism" is, according to my own observation and the collection of source material presently listed, almost always used in a pejorative, anti-academic sense. I don't think we should bother writing an article for a term which is almost unanimously reserved for a multitude of critiques of a specific aspect of society (academia). If someone can present even a few source texts which uses "academic elitism" in a positive sense, without deviating far from the context of the article, I would redact this claim. 
3. The various forms of critique that occur when "academic elitism" is used in this article are many and wide-- from complaints about school selectivity, to a tendency of colleges to hire their own graduates, to the social role of academics as being overemphasized and deceitful. To me, these various and highly unrelated considerations lend credence to the notion that "academic elitism" is not a coherent, centralized term, but a catch-all for anything that illustrates academia as unjustly inaccessible to the masses. 
In light of this, I support the deletion of this article. 
--NJJ289 (talk) 09:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Third Party Template and Possible Deletion

message: This article is really terrible. For a reasonably important concept, it's completely bereft of citations, but boasts a massive number of external articles that it would appear no one can be bothered to read. The article is full of weasel words and is organizationally a shameful, shameful trainwreck.
To wit:
"Academic elitism will often be expressed within communities through declarations of "Otherness", that is, non-academics will be said to be 'not good as us'. Non-academics may be represented as a danger to quality in research, and their perceived lower standard of education can lead to them being considered as members of a lower social grouping."
What on earth is that? Otherness? Lower social grouping? No citations? I understand the accusations being leveled, and the historical struggle between entrenched academic elites and competent-but-uncertified individuals should certainly be examined, but.... how low have we sunk, that we're putting words, not even very smart or meaningful words, in the mouthes of vaguely defined (and apparently very rude) communities.
I would recommend basically blanking the page and starting over, using some of the sources already gathered to provide the page with a logical structure that contains only CITED information. 
A chasm cannot be lept in two bounds; I think a single, iconoclastic, and fundamentally bold edit would at least put this article on the right track towards functionality. The people cry out for a hero. I'll see what can be arranged, but if the page still looks like hell by the tine you read this, by all means, act! Act before we're rightfully pilloried by the press and the general public!
Detruncate (talk) 10:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree -- I was just browsing through the academic articles and this one is just terrible. I've marked the "Expression" section as unreferenced but it would be really a lot of work to have to dig out citations for each of these various opinionated propositions. Having marked this entire section as unreferenced (there's not a single cite in it), we should give it a month & see if people can support the individual propositions within the section; if not, then we should delete this section. The references list is helpful and I have minorly rewritten the intro to be a little clearer. That should be the stub once all the uncited weasel worded commentary is deleted (unless it's rewritten & sourced which would also be a fine outcome). --Lquilter (talk) 17:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A humble plan for a new Academic Elite (Aritcle) 

message: I have nominated this article to be deleted. The whole article is seemingly based on original research and there is very little substance to it. Also, I don't see why we need an article on this subject when we have a sub-section on the Elitism page that has more substance than this whole article. Jcrav2k6 (talk) 14:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for deletion 

message: Ah ... I thought "causes" meant a list was wanted of the causes the academic elite tend to support - i.e. liberal ones. I'll rename the section "Ideology of the academic elite"  - this is merely to help explain what the charge of "academic elitism" against modern academia is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.11.13.28 (talk) 17:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I re-added the POV tag because this section insinuates that all liberals are somehow "elitist", while excluding conservatives from that very same charge.  The idea that a certain set of schools and professions should be reserved only for the upper class is itself a conservative attitude, isn't it?  --Eastlaw (talk) 07:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes 

message: Honestly, this is a hilariously awful article, and should be deleted. The entire thing is mostly opinion; I haven't seen one hardcore fact yet. Isn't this the kind of thing Wikipedia doesn't support?
68.248.229.203 (talk)
* Well, there articles that support Evolution. I'll look some stuff over and come back on whether or not I agree with this. It doesn't seem to have a lot of support anyway. 04:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: Most of the stuff relating to political ideology is hardly quantifiable, but we should at least attempt to summarize current sentiment.  Also, a worldwide view is also desirable.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015591.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10brooks.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i15/15b00701.htm
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=154008&bolum=109
http://www.juancole.com/2004/11/shock-of-week-liberals-in-liberal-arts.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
--Lmbstl (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible info sources

message: Someone else posted the link to this article back in 2007. Even though the analysis is spot-on, I have always thought it inappropriate for wikipedia (not encyclopedic). I.e. I was ambivalent and I am clearly was not neutral. I am glad buridan deleted it for three reasons: 1. Since the article is about him it exposes his lack of neutrality. 2. It should not be here but my lack of neutrality prevented me from deleting it. 3. We are clearly not enamored with each other, but we have found humorous agreement for the first time. Perhaps we can use this to find our good faith. This has cleared up several conflicts of interest LoL Wreid (talk) 18:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Invisible University

message: I removed the phrase "(such as Ivy League schools, Grandes Écoles, Oxbridge) and Russell Group" afer the phrase, "most elite or prestigious universities."
It seems weird to me that the Russell Group was included in this list, given that some of their schools aren't even ranked in the top 100 in some rankings. I decided to just remove the examples, since if we start giving examples of "elite" schools, this list will continue to grow... 140.180.191.228 (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  (such as [[Ivy League]] schools, [[Grandes écoles|Grandes Écoles]], [[Oxbridge]]) and [[Russell Group]]