This study illuminates how common holistic admissions practices at so-called "elite" colleges and universities favor high-SES, high wealth applicants through the ways they define and consider "exceptional" performance in extracurricular activities. While many studies have established advantages to high-income applicants based…

Abstract Martin Trow was among the most influential scholar in Higher Education studies in the second half of the 20th century. He is best known for his conceptualisation of the development of Higher Education into three stages--elite, mass and universal systems. This article considers, first, his intellectual method and the underpinning theory…

During the last ten years, a group of selective universities in Chile has started admission programs to increase equity in higher education that consider the achievement of students in the context of educational opportunities they have had, thus reducing reliance on the national college entrance exam. This study explores persistence rates of…

One of the specificities of French higher education is that there is no single higher education system but two compartmentalised and hierarchical higher education systems comprising (1) universities and (2) "grande école" higher education institutions. Competing for a place in the latter requires that students have succeeded in…

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…

Drawing on my own experience as a working-class academic, as well of that of working-class students in the present, I discuss how the experience for working-class students in elite universities still includes many aspects of classism, even when those students can, and do, do very well indeed and even when policies are apparently in place to…

In line with global trends, China experienced a rapid expansion in its higher education system in the second half of the twentieth century, and has seen especially large growth since the early 2000s. The expansion of higher education means an increase in the total quantity of educational opportunities. Although it is expected that education…

This article employs the concept of 'everyday multiculturalism' to examine what students at an elite school in Australia are taught about working with and across difference through global citizenship education within a single-sex classroom model. The authors explore the ways in which larger social cohesion agendas are reinforced through the…

The research brought forward examines the evolution of the selective social processes that have accompanied educational expansion over the long term, referring to the case of France. It is based on an original index which addresses the issue of assessing inequality within the selection process for access to various educational levels. The results…

This article discusses a Transition Programme to support the inclusion of mature students in Higher Education. The Transition Programme was designed and it is currently provided by a Higher Education institution in Surrey, South-East of England. An outcome of innovative educational leadership, the Transition Programme' successfully solved the…

This Sutton Trust summary accompanies the report "Which University Degrees Are Best for Intergenerational Mobility?," produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in partnership with the Sutton Trust and the Department for Education. The research is a landmark piece of work for the study of social mobility in this country, utilising data…

HEPI's last foray into the debate on academic selection suggested grammar schools are successful in helping their poorer pupils reach highly-selective universities. In this response, a diverse set of voices use the latest evidence to challenge the idea that grammar school systems serve pupils better than comprehensive schools. This collection of…

This article investigates elite young people's transitions from the Leysin American School in Switzerland, an elite secondary school, to international higher education. These young people often moved to the UK or the US for higher education -- locations associated with global status in the education market. However, I argue, new configurations of…

This dissertation consists of two chapters studying the importance of household income for shaping student outcomes in the market for higher education in the United States. The first chapter uses the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to document that conditional on student ability, high-income students are more likely to enroll in college and…

Many universities and K-12 public school systems express a significant, formal commitment to the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Relative to the emphasis on DEI in America's educational institutions, however, there has been little research describing DEI trends and evaluating the efficacy of DEI bureaucracies. This three-chapter…