The political economy of education and inequality: reflections on Piketty

Piketty’s Capitalism in the twenty-first century provides a superb, detailed historical analysis of the evolution of income and wealth inequality. Piketty demonstrates vast and increasing inequality that he argues might possibly be tempered in the future by economic growth and educational expansion supplemented by government redistributive policies. However, Piketty has little understanding of the reproductive nature of education, the limits of economic growth, or the fundamental problems of capitalism. In this paper, I depart from a political economy perspective to examine the bankruptcy of the underlying neoclassical economic theory he relies upon. In particular, I discuss how Piketty mistakenly sees capitalism as, in large part, a meritocracy, and the implications for education.     

The political economy of incorporation: Black sociologists in academia

This study examines institutional variations in the recruitment of black sociologists in academia and in racial allocations of academic rank. It is designed to identify aspects of the academy that pose barriers to equal participation for black sociologists and to suggest institutional structures and environments that are most likely to equitably incorporate them. Drawing on a 1984 national survey of sociology departments (N=230), the study examines both the absolute and proportional representation of black sociologists at the departmental level, as well as issues of tokenism and equality in the assignment of academic rank among racially integrated departmental faculties. Results indicate that the factors that promote better black faculty representation do not always provide African-Americans with other black colleagues, with substantial numerical influence within the department, or with equality in academic rank. Those colleges and universities that are most likely to have black sociologists are large, have sizable black student populations, and are located in metropolitan areas or the South. Racial equality in academic rank is most closely associated with dependence on government revenues.Data for this study were collected with financial support from the American Sociological Association, the Pacific Sociological Association, and the University of Oregon Center for the Study of Women in Society. Support for the analysis came from the National Science Foundation (SES-8922477) and an Arizona State University Faculty Grant-in-Aid. I am grateful to K. Jill Kiecolt, Karen A. Miller and A. Wade Smith for their comments and suggestions. Any errors of commission, omission or interpretation are mine alone.     

Financing and political economy of higher education: The case of Lebanon

This paper assesses the adequacy, efficiency, and equity of higher education in Lebanon in both the public and private sectors, while highlighting challenges that are specific to Lebanon. It concludes by discussing various approaches and strategies to remedy the challenges facing higher education in Lebanon.     

Educating Women: the political economy of patriarchal states

ABSTRACT

This study reviews available evidence on the educational conditions of women and policies enacted by states throughout the world regarding education and gender. It focuses on two extremes of the educational continuum ‐ illiteracy and higher education ‐ in an effort to detect not only state behaviours toward women but also the interaction between gender and class. The evidence suggests that states, regardless of type of governance and mode of economic production, engage in activities that either continue to assign domestic responsibilities to women or leave undisturbed social representations of women's ‘proper role’ in society. These representations, though maintained through ideological forces, have a clear material foundation and are supported by an implicit coalition of men and women of upper‐and middle‐classes that permits wealthier women to share some benefits with men while extracting resources from lower‐class women.     

马克思主义政治经济学中国化的经验总结

中国共产党在马克思主义政治经济学中国化进程中积累了丰富的经验,马克思主义政治经济学是我们坚持和发展马克思主义的必修课,要坚持马克思主义政治经济学基本原理的指导,只有在建设、改革开放实践中才能发展马克思主义政治经济学,要坚持以人民为中心的立场,要加强马克思主义政治经济学学科建设,要处理好马克思主义政治经济学与西方经济学的关系。     

社会主义市场经济条件下思想政治工作的任务

改革开放20多年来,中国社会的方方面面已经发生了深刻的变化.社会的各个阶层都遇到了许多新生事物.特别是当今世界经济正在加速全球化,地区经济有一体化发展的趋势.中国加入WTO以后,国内的社会生活已经越来越与外界发生着密切的联系.如何解决好过去的传统(特别是在认识领域和社会经济生活组织方式两个方面)与现在新生事物之间的矛盾,这是事关中国未来很长一段时间内的发展与能否实现全面建设小康社会的关键.由此有必要通过教育与学习来改造社会各阶层的思想认识,以便在认识上跟上时代的步伐.     

The political economy of part-time academic work in Canada

The financial crisis in the Canadian higher education system has led to marked growth in the use of part-time faculty, whose interests and powers are strongly differentiated from those of the full-time faculty. The reasons for the differential power and divergent interest between the two are to be understood in the context of corporatist responses to the state in crisis. Under continuing financial strigency, the university administration negotiates concessions with the collegium of full-time faculty to satisfy their corporate interests and maintain the stability of the system. Part-timers, excluded from the collegium, remain peripheral to these corporatist arrangements, their marginalization being strongly related to ideological structures that originate from and entrench the dominant power and status of the full-time faculty.     

Problems in comparative higher education: Political economy, political sociology and postmodernism

This article explores the ways we might use modern and post modern theoryto examine problems in comparative higher education. The problems orobjects of study on which comparative higher education currently focusesare problematized and interrogated. The implications of several versionsof globalization theory for comparative higher education are exploredas are the various post-alities, Mann's political sociology of socialpower, Foucauldian theory of knowledge/power regimes, and feminist theory. Finally, the article looks at methods that might be used when drawing on these theories to study comparative higher education.     

历史地看待政治经济学的涵义和地位

政治经济学有两层涵义,一是公共经济学,一是制度经济学。１７世纪中叶到１８世纪初,是古典政府经济学的鼎盛时期;１９世纪中叶,马克思批判地继承了古典政治经济学;１９世纪末,随着新古典经济学的兴起,政治经济学在西方渐趋衰落;２０世纪３０年代以后,包括凯恩斯主义在内的一些现代经济学流派在某种程度上向传统政治经济学复归;最后,当代世界经济是带有政治性质的,制度变迁的必要性决定政治经济学地位的上升。     

浅谈市场经济条件下的高校德育教育

在市场经济条件下,高校德育工作非但不能削弱,反而应该加强。应采取多种形式,取得实效。     

The new political economy of higher education: between distributional conflicts and discursive stratification

The higher education sector has been undergoing a far-reaching institutional re-orientation during the past two decades. Many adjustments appear to have strengthened the role of competition in the governance of higher education, but the character of the sector’s emerging new political economy has frequently remained unclear. Serving as the introduction for the special issue, this article makes the case for a multidimensional strategy to probe higher education’s competitive transformation. In terms of conceptualizing the major empirical shifts, we argue for analyzing three core phenomena: varieties of academic capitalism, the discursive construction of inequality, and the transformation of hierarchies in competitive settings. With respect to theoretical tools, we emphasize the complementary contributions of institutional, class-oriented, and discourse analytical approaches. As this introduction elaborates and the contributions to the special issue demonstrate, critical dialog among different analytical traditions over the interpretation of change is crucial for improving established understandings. Arguably, it is essential for clarifying the respective roles of capitalist power and hierarchical rule in the construction of the sector’s new order.