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More About This Textbook
Overview
The present state of the university is a difficult issue to comprehend for anyone outside of the education system. If we are to believe common government reports that changes in policy are somehow making life easier for university graduates, we cannot help but believe that things are going right and are getting better in our universities. Ivory Tower Blues gives a decidedly different picture, examining this optimistic attitude as it impacts upon professors, students, and administrators in charge of the education system.
Ivory Tower Blues is a frank account of the contemporary university, drawing on the authors? own research and personal experiences, as well as on input from students, colleagues, and administrators. James E. Côté and Anton L. Allahar offer an insider?s account of the university system, an accurate, alternative view to that overwhelmingly presented to the general public. Throughout, the authors argue that fewer and fewer students are experiencing their university education in ways expected by their parents and the public. The majority of students are hampered by insufficient preparation at the secondary school level, lack of personal motivation, and disillusionment. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no administrative or governmental procedure in place to maintain standards of education.
Ivory Tower Blues is an in-depth look at the crisis facing Canadian and American universities, the factors that are precipitating the situation, and the long-term impact this crisis will have on the quality of higher education.
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Meet the Author
University of Western Ontario.
Anton L. Allahar is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Western Ontario.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
Canada's World-Leading University System: Image versus Reality 3
Who Should Read This Book? 13
Troubles in Paradise 16
The Disengaged Student 16
Higher Expectations, Lower Effort 19
Credentialism and Grade Inflation 24
Credentialism and Academic Disengagement 30
Roots of Student Disengagement 37
The New Functions of Higher Education 39
Sorting, Weeding, and Cooling 41
The Obsession with High Grades: Grade Inflation Up Close 44
Conclusion 54
The Professor as Reluctant Gatekeeper 57
How the New Functions Have Affected the Interpersonal Dynamics of Teaching and Learning: Faculty Disengagement 58
The Growth of Education as a Business 64
Life in the Credential Mart 67
Deskilling of the Professoriate 67
The Cult of Self-esteem and Other Sources of the Sense of Entitlement 69
Learning to Live with Student Disengagement 71
Awareness of the Issues: Sliding Standards 72
Perceptions of Student Engagement: Institutionalized Indifference 75
TheDownward Spiral: The New Normal 78
Job Satisfaction and Job Stress: Being Thick-Skinned 81
Student Evaluations: Necessary Evils? 83
Sharing the Blame 90
Conclusion: Higher Education as a Big Business 94
The Student as a Reluctant Intellectual 96
The Hazardous Passage to Adulthood 97
The Millennial Generation 101
The Gamut of Student Engagement 104
Voices of Disengagement 108
Student Empowerment 114
The Retreat of Faculty 115
Grade Inflation and the Democratization of Education 116
Education as a Commodity 120
Standards and Criteria 121
Edubusiness: University as Corporation 123
Conclusion: System Failure of Students 126
Parents as Investors and Managers: The Bank of Mom and Dad (BMD) 127
Education as an Investment 127
Setting the Right Goals 128
Estimating Costs 131
Baby Boomer Parents and the Experiences of Their Children 134
The Mini-Me and the Helicopter Parent 138
In Defence of the Helicopter Parent 139
How Parents Influence and Support Their Children 140
Aspirations 141
Finances: The Bottom Line 146
Conclusion 149
Policy Implications: So What Is University Good For? What Is Added beyond Alternatives? 150
Credentialism Revisited: A Brief History 151
You Can Lead Them to Water, but... 151
Grade Inflation Revisited: Underlying Causes 156
The Science of Grade Inflation and the Route to Reform 162
The University Graduate Revisited: What Is Added beyond Other Trajectories to the Workplace and Adulthood? 167
Show Me the Numbers: What Science Says about the High End of Benefits of Higher Education 171
Monetary Rates of Return 171
Looking beyond Statistical Averages: What Science Says about the Low End of the Benefits of the University Education 174
Underemployment Revisited 174
The Accessibility Issue 177
The Relative Merits of Soft and Hard Sorting Systems: Dealing with Accessibility 179
Conclusion: The Idea of the University - Education versus Training 183
Appendix
Methodological Considerations 189
Defining and Measuring Grade Inflation 193
Notes 201
Index 245