The liberal arts approach to higher education is a growing trend globally. We are told that the mental dexterity and independent, questioning spirit cultivated by such interdisciplinary degrees are the best preparation for the as-yet unknown executive jobs of tomorrow. This book explores the significant recent growth of these degrees in England in order to address an enduring problem for higher education: the relationship between meritocracy and elitism. Against the view that the former is a myth providing rhetorical cover for the latter, it argues that these are two entangled, but discrete, value systems. Sociology must now pay attention to how students and academics attempt to disentangle them.

By examining the emergence and growth of liberal arts degrees in English higher education, this book tackles one of the key issues in the critical sociology of higher education: the relationship between selective education and elitism.

Wendt provides a collection of critical stories examining the power and politics of organizational life. He looks at workers in frustrating situations and explores a new type of power that is simultaneously beneficial and detrimental. The talk, language, and discourse that constitute the micro-paradoxes of work life are investigated. Starting with the concept of corporate hegemony, Wendt looks at its language, provides stories illustrating hegemony, and helps the reader envision how hegemony carries over to other social realms like higher education. After exploring the possibility of counter-hegemonic resistance, including tactical storytelling, Wendt sets forth a new theory of suspended power. While he shows there is no clear answer or response to the politics of corporate hegemony because it is a persistent dilemma, he points the reader to the uses of critical theory to understand and adjust to contemporary power dynamics. Of particular interest to scholars and students involved with communication, management, and cultural studies.

Examines the idea that the defining feature of academic professional identity is the search for understanding. This work shows how questions of teaching, research, and management in universities are also questions about the struggle over deliberative democracy. It details how higher education can contribute to building a prosperous society.

The History of Higher Education combines classic readings with the most recent research on the history of American colleges and universities. This book covers five historical periods in the evolution of higher education from the time of the American colonies to the 1970s. The goal of this informative reader is to build a working historical knowledge base of the opportunities and problems confronting American higher education.

A professor, dean, and college president for more than twenty years, Francis H. Horn is one of America's most penetrating educational analysts. And while in this collection of sixteen of his most significant and controversial papers he addresses himself primarily to educational ad­ministrators, the nonspecialist can read what he has to say with pleasure and profit. Extremely well written and jargon free, the essays represent the tenets of Mr. Horn's main beliefs, many of which go against contemporary conventional views. The papers are divided into four main areas: objectives, problems, administration, and students. Though there is a certain amount of recur­rence of ideas throughout the essays, especially of Mr. Horn's deeply-held beliefs, the thrust of his thought is objective, patient, provocative, and challenging examination of the realities of the present as well as the hopes of the future.

Includes section "Book reviews," Mar. 1940-