ERIC Number: EJ1141837
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Mar
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1477-8785
EISSN: N/A
Inequality of Opportunity: Some Lessons from the Case of Highly Selective Universities
O'Brien, David
Theory and Research in Education, v15 n1 p53-70 Mar 2017
Many egalitarians believe that there is a pro tanto reason to remedy inequalities of opportunity in access to higher education. This consensus, I argue, masks practical disagreement among egalitarians: in many real-world choice contexts, egalitarians will disagree about which policies are to be endorsed, both from the point of view of equality and all things considered. I focus my discussion on a real-world case (the "big squeeze"--so-called because the children of well-off families "squeeze out" the children of less well-off families from access to highly selective US universities) that has recently been discussed by Amy Gutmann. I argue that while (a) the "big squeeze" is condemned by the ideal of equal opportunity, nevertheless (b) different egalitarians will favor different policies in response to the "big squeeze," and (c) one intuitive, and apparently egalitarian, response lacks support from most plausible egalitarian views.
Descriptors: Equal Education, Educational Opportunities, Higher Education, Access to Education, Educational Policy, Universities, Selective Admission, College Admission
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A