The production of elites and the making of elite universities

It has become a common understanding that higher education is highly relevant for the production of elites in Western countries (Collins 1979; Brown et al. 2010). What however is less researched is how education does this (cf. Zald and Lounsboury 2010), especially under the impact of mass higher education. While a considerable body of literature discusses the reproduction of social elites through higher education, the formation processes within and through the educational institution are treated as a side‐aspect. The stability of higher education institutions is somewhat presupposed, and production and reproduction seem to go hand in hand. Not enough attention is paid to the processes and changes in the institutions themselves, as they follow elite aspirations and evolve under the influence of public policies, professional bodies of knowledge, discourses, and in response to the labor markets. Rather than being seen as stable, each higher education institution has to constantly renegotiate its position through and with its environment.

The upcoming workshop aims to address this void by setting the focus on the social construction of elites, prestige, and excellence in higher education. It aims to investigate the social formation of the organizational production of elites as well as the prestige and excellence of these organizations. (...)

Please send your abstract (1‐2 pages with title) to roland.bloch@soziologie.uni‐halle.de or alexander.mitterle@soziologie.uni-halle.de until April 15th, 2015. Contributions will be selected by the program committee. Authors will be informed by April, 30th.