This study examined physics major retention to degree at two institutions with substantially different admissions selectivity. Two modes of leaving the physics major were examined: leaving college and changing to another major while staying in college. The risk of leaving college while still enrolled as a physics major was highest in the spring…

Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have…

Home BAME students are under-represented on postgraduate courses in England, especially at elite universities, however, there has been little research on why this should be. This research starts to fill this gap, arguing that gatekeepers to postgraduate courses at some of the most elite universities contribute to maintaining white supremacy.…

There is growing awareness that established structures of higher education are often predicated on problematic assumptions about merit, excellence, and rigor. Doctoral qualifying exams, for example, are required to advance to candidacy in many Ph.D. programs despite decades of documented concerns about the implications of standard modes for…

Purpose: This paper offers insights into the dynamic of misrecognition in an elite school. It presents new findings on micro-interactional power relations in the classroom and argues for additional ethnographies of social science education in elite schools. Methodology: This paper uses an ethnographic method. Its research employs the observational…

Although tracking is typically the subject of secondary education, this embedded case study brings attention to the comparable mechanisms at work within postsecondary institutions that produce serious consequences for racially minoritized students admitted into the "low" track. By engaging Victor Ray's newly conceptualized theory of…

Social engagement of transfer students is of importance to their completion of university studies and thus to understanding whether community colleges could serve as an equalizer in higher education. One overlooked aspect is the social engagement of transfer students with native students, which is arguably contingent on a sense of legitimacy of…

In recent years, multiple-measures teaching evaluation systems have become widespread in states and school districts around the United States. Using administrative data from Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) and the National Student Clearinghouse, we examine the relationship between exposure to different ratings of teaching effectiveness in high…

Admission to highly selective institutions offers a pathway to upward social mobility, particularly for low-resource students. However, entrenched wealth disparities in the United States present serious challenges for admission officers at highly selective institutions. Utilizing individualized holistic review (IHR), including letters of…

Quality assurance in higher education often emphasises the importance of lowering student attrition. The first year of study is a crucial period for mitigating risks of attrition as this is the time when students develop a sense of belonging, and academic and personal connections. This study explores the long-term effects of the first-year student…

To date, little research has focused solely on rural students' adjustment and integration on campus after admittance into elite universities through special admission policies. This qualitative inquiry aims to uncover the adjustment concerns faced by rural students enrolled through special admission policies in elite universities in China. The…

The purpose of this study is to characterize the graduate education development for creating world-class universities from the insight of the doctoral education in China. A systematic review is applied to examine the doctoral education development in contemporary China. The findings argue that there are tremendous challenges in China's current…

This study is an attempt at better understanding the education choices of top-performing students in elite schooling. It applies a 'glonacal' framework (Maxwell 2018, "Changing Spaces -- The Reshaping of (Elite) Education Through Internationalisation." In "Elite Education and Internationalization: From the Early Years Into Higher…

This study examined a holistic admissions review process at one institution to determine whether variance occurred and, if so, possible explanations for it. The study analyzed reader reviews for approximately 15,000 individual undergraduate admission reviews over three years. The primary method was focused on the variance and inter-rater…

This paper explores how fairness was conceptualised by those responsible for admission to highly selective undergraduate courses at 17 universities in England. Fairness was conceptualised principally with reference to the traditional "meritocratic equality of opportunity" paradigm, which holds that university places should go to the most…