The tyranny of the meritocracy
Subtitle: democratizing higher education in America
By: Lani Guinier
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 160
ISBN-13: 9780807078129; 9780807006276
Subjects: Education (Higher); Higher Education; Aims and objectives; Discrimination in higher education; Social aspects; Minorities; LAW / Discrimination; EDUCATION / Educational Policy & Reform / General; Democracy and education; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination & Race Relations; Multicultural education
Description: "Standing on the foundations of America's promise of equal opportunity, our universities purport to "serve as engines of social mobility" and "practitioners of democracy." But as acclaimed scholar and pioneering civil rights advocate Lani Guinier argues, the merit systems that dictate the admissions practices of these institutions are functioning to select and privilege elite individuals rather than create learning communities geared to advance democratic societies. Having studied and taught at schools such as Harvard University, Yale Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Guinier has spent years examining the experiences of ethnic minorities at the nation's top institutions of higher education, and here she lays bare the practices that impede the stated missions of these schools. Guinier argues for reformation, not only of the very premises of admissions practices but of the shape of higher education itself, and she offers many examples of new collaborative initiatives that prepare students for engaged citizenship in our increasingly multicultural society."--Publisher information.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (paages 142-152) and index.
Table of contents: title: The Problem. Adonises with a pimple ; Aptitude or achievement? ; From testocratic merit to democratic merit.; title: The Solution/s. Taking down fences at University Park Campus School ; No longer lonely at the top: The Posse Foundation ; Democratic merit in the classroom: Eric Mazur and Uri Treisman ; Six ways of looking at democratic merit ; Democratic merit in a twenty-first-century world.