Student Social Mobility or University Ranking - the role of the university in Taiwan

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of Malaya

I was at a great meeting in Taipei Taiwan sponsored by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan and got an interesting perspective on university rankings and student social mobility. The presentations at the meeting were drafts of forthcoming book chapters so the material was up to date.  The authors came from several nations, and brought several perspectives to the table.

Most of the material was focused on college rankings; especially in Taiwan and in the People's Republic of China.  The critical metric of ranking was seen by the chapter authors to be research publications in a particular collection of journals with a high citation index.  This is a classic ranking metric for many ranking groups.

And I ask "What about students?"

There are a lot of unquestioned assumptions in using faculty publications as a university ranking metric. The relationship between research and teaching is zero: "A meta-analysis of 58 studies demonstrates that the relationship is zero." (Hattie & March, 1996).  However, the publication metric reflects a particular vision of the university, often promulgated by faculty members who work at highly ranked institutions based on research publications in selected journals.  Faculty at high ranked universities set the ranking criteria.  I trust the reader to see the issue of the reproduction of hierarchies of prestige here.

Is the purpose of the university research for publication?
or
Is the purpose of the university to student learning?

We are discussing prestige here.  Never forget that prestige is a social construct, a manufactured idea, and there is no reality behind it.  A small group of people at a small number of universities have decided that number of publications in certain journals is central to ranking, thus tipping the idea of prestige university in the direction of a research university. (And no, I am not jealous, my citations, h-index, and i10-index are just fine, and my most cited publication is from this blog, not from a high prestige journal. Also, I am a at the end of my career with good academic credentials and a teaching award.)

And I ask "What about students?"

A few of the authors at the conference discussed social mobility  and access as topics of interest for evaluation and accreditation.  To clarify, social mobility in that context was about economic mobility, about getting a higher paid job after graduation.  Access is gaining admissions to a university.  In hallway discussions these authors noted that you cannot have both high ranking and social mobility as central to the vision of the university.  Access, and success, or a focus on students, is not possible when there is a high focus on research for publication.  Faculty time is a zero-sum game, and the more time spent on research means the less time spent on teaching. 

I can hear the answer from the ranking team members: "Well, we can have two types of universities, Research and Teaching." and I hear in their silence that research universities will be seen as better, as higher prestige, than teaching universities.

And I ask "What about students?"

tl;dr publication based rankings are not compatible with student learning based rankings

The varieties of upper middle class cultures

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of Malaya

Upper Middle Class (UMC) here means those in the top 29% of the US economy based on educational attainment and occupational prestige and not in the top 1%.  That is, anyone with a 4-year college degree or higher but not in the 1% for income.  Educational prestige maxes out with Physician, Attorney and Professor so that doesn't work to identify the top.  I recognize that this is an arbitrary boundary for this group, and that a continuum is a more accurate reflection of reality.  Toward that end I invite the reader to create the boundary for this group as you please.  The upper boundary is also arbitrary and here is a wealth of over 7,000,000 USD or an income in the top 1%.  These individuals also come in quite a variety, and exist in a continuum.  One difficulty here is with educational attainment 1.88% have a Ph.D. another 3.34% have a professional degree like JD, DDS, or MD.  So is this top 5.22 %  educationally part of the UMC or part of the Uber Class?
The typology that I use here is arbitrary and based on personal observation and a synthesis of research on student types.

A gross analysis of UMC groups or categories gives us Mainstream, Alternative, and Invisible.  A moment's reflection tells us that there are a lot of ways to be Mainstream and Alternative.  These three are handy fictional categories, as long as we recognize their fictional nature.  Within each group is a large variety, and the boundaries between groups are unclear at best.

Mainstream members of the upper-middle class cover a wide range of people, from those obsessed with fashion and prestige and displays of status and economic, cultural, and social capital to those who are casually fashionable.  The mall, particularly upscale malls, are the holy temples of consumerism for mainstream UMC individuals.  A walk through a mall will illuminate the ways in which statements of class membership can be made - clothing, shoes, accessories, phones, and jewelry for women and watches for men.  The variety of stores and brands further illuminate the performance of UMC Mainstream social class.  There is a skewed distribution of people shopping in Target and in Coach, between shopping in chain jeweler stores and Tiffany, between Hush Puppy and Prada.  This also reflects the skewed distribution in the population of this group. Neighborhoods reflect which type of mainstream group lives where.

This group is often depicted in terms of consumerism which is one among many distinguishing features.  Another way to explore that is to examine why consumerism is important.  As with intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity (Allport & Ross, 1967) there is the public display of consumer behavior and the private / personal use of consumer goods.  For example I had a lot of kitchen gadgets and appliances - all used to cook for my pleasure, and not on public display.  My house, when I had one, was a wonderful rehabilitated Victorian, and not a showplace - it was my family home.  On the other hand, I had a great house, a great kitchen, and loads of kitchen gadgets.

There is a matter of degree, a range, of behaviors in the Mainstream.  And there are distinct similarities among members of this group.

Little rebellions are often tolerated for Mainstream members. An example would be 'wild' ties and socks for men but this does not demonstrate membership in the Alternative UMC group.

For the moment though think about Alternative ways to be UMC. As in Cross's theory (2009) the rejection of Mainstream majority culture is the core of some people's identity.  Cross was writing about the emergence of African-American ethnic identity in individuals.  Cross's model is a useful analytical tool here.  Hipsters, and other historical Alternative social groups such as hippies, have been mostly members of the middle class who created new ways of being in their class that is not-Mainstream.  Creating identities based on a rejection of specific Mainstream culture behaviors and attitudes is central to Alternative identities.

Typical Alternative class markers are hair, body modification, music, food, and fashion - easy and visible ways to distinguish one self.  Note please that in many ways these are the public performances of social class, behaviors, rather than internalized cultural commonalities.  In this way, Alternative can be seen as not-Mainstream.  This is a matter of style.  Individuals in the Alternative / not-Mainstream group still have college educations and meet the criteria for being upper middle class.  Often the styles, fads, and fashions are a direct result of a rejection of Mainstream styles, fads, and fashions.

Invisibles, of which I am a member, are chameleon like, blending in and not standing out.  Class, or rather the visible demonstration of class or not-class, is irrelevant to members of this group.  Another way to look at this group is social class independent.  While meeting group membership criteria in education and occupation, social class identity is not a critical in the network of personal identities.  Consequently the public performance of class and prestige is unimportant. This can also be seen as the don't care group.  In still another analysis members of this group can be seen as having a mature model of social class that transcends cultural assumptions and involves individual choice, or is Internalization in Cross's model.

The person-environment fit of college choice plays a part here.  Which campus caters to which student?  That is a great question.  As with shopping there are big box stores and boutiques when we look at colleges.  Reflect for a moment on Alternative campuses and the names of a few campuses come to mind.  Campuses populated with students from the Alternative UMC look and feel a certain way.  Campuses with a large population of Mainstream students has a certain look and feel.

Combine the campus look and feel with first generation students and interesting things happen.  To which group will a first generation assimilate?  Will the campus accommodate a student from another social class?

References

Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 432-443.

Cross, William E. (2009). "Encountering Nigrescence". In Ponterotto, Joseph G.; Casas, J. Manuel; Suzuki, Lisa A.; Alexander, Charlene M. Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. pp. 30–44. 

tl:dr - Mainstream are consumers, Alternative are hipsters, Invisibles don't dare.