Background/Context: School-sponsored sports programs are seen in both the public and policy spheres as meritocratic mobility institutions. In the U.S. context, athletic participation can yield access to college via sports performance. Meritocratic mobility would be achieved as individuals use their athletic ability and effort to enter universities…

Background/Context: Literatures on college-going cultures offer patterns and lists of practices that promote schoolwide attention to college-going for nondominant youth, often with organization-level analyses of policies and procedures. Other literature identifies promising practices and challenges to conventional instruction, often examining…

Background/Context: Although frequently associated with the United States, affirmative action is not a uniquely American social policy. Indeed, 2003 witnessed review and revision of affirmative action policies affecting higher education institutions in both France and the United States. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical lens, this…

This study uses a poststructural analysis to explicate the social production of Whiteness in a college classroom. Whiteness scholars define Whiteness as reference to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced, and intrinsically linked to relations of domination. Using this framework of social…

Background/Context: This review article draws on the growing body of literature at the interfaces of anthropology and education, as well as other educational studies outside anthropology that have relevance to social and cultural frames. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Drawing together and analyzing anthropological and…

Given the uncertain benefits of universalizing higher education and the possibility of substantial costs, the issue needs to be examined as a social phenomenon and a political proposal. Social and institutional consequences of this type of educational change need to be weighed. (SM)

Research on national systems of education helps explain the U.S. pattern of schooling. Three interrelated factors continue to shape the present transformation of U.S. higher education: the centrality of status competition, the lack of centralized political authority over schooling, and the loose connection between education and the economy. (SM)