Toward Greater Complexity in How We Engage in the Study of Prestige Seeking

• In Event: Advancing and Problematizing the Study of Prestige

Abstract

This scholarly paper seeks to reconceptualize prestige seeking (PS) within the new normal of higher education. The need and strength of this reframing is discussed and a conceptual model proposed to capture the intersections of these ideas which can be used to guide research, policy, and practice.
The study of prestige must account for the varying complexities of the current context of higher education. This context includes diminished resources for public education (State Higher Education Executive Officers, 2015), questioning of the public good of the university (Giroux, 2003; Olssen & Peters, 2005; Slaughter & Leslie, 1999), reliance on outcomes-based policies in response to accountability demands (Ewell, 2015), mission differentiation efforts (Bastedo & Gumport, 2003; Longanecker, 2008), and state incentive programs for research emphases at universities (e.g., Texas’ H.B. 51 and Florida’s H.B. 7029).

While typically research has situated PS as being intrinsically motivated by actors within institutions, more recent work has suggested the role of external pressures. For instance, Doran (2015) captured the influence of one institution’s state’s tier one incentive program on the institution’s Hispanic-serving mission; Zerquera, Ballysingh, and Templeton (in press) noted the role of state’s metrics and diminished public resources in impeding access; and Gonzales (2012; 2013) has captured how pressures from the neoliberal market impact expectations of faculty. These studies highlight the negative impacts of PS on stakeholders and upholding the mission of these universities. Further, these findings point to the complexity involved in studying PS amidst policy changes and the broader societal context. This type of work in turn shifts the blame—and hence, responsibility—of the negative implications of these activities away from institutions themselves and onto the pressures from the environment. A more complex positioning is needed to reframe this not as a question of either/or, but rather, both/and. Research must be able to capture both the desires for prestige innately held by colleges and universities and the implications of the neoliberal, performance-based new normal.

Unidirectional lenses cannot adequately capture this interplay. Kezar and Dee (2011) argue for the use of multiple paradigms in the same study to illuminate contested views, power dynamics, relationships between perceptions and strategies, and complex understandings of organizations. Without this level of complexity, simplistic notions of policy effectiveness, leadership ability, budget constraints, and other factors encourage our gaze of blame towards just one part of the system, perpetuating the processes that together work to impede the public good work of the university that is threatened by PS.

More work is needed that captures this intricacy. The full paper presents a conceptual model which is guided by multiparadigm inquiry (Kezar & Dee, 2011) and theoretically builds on a systems analysis of ways paradox and schismogenesis (Cameron, 1986) play out in the study of PS. This model is presented as a framework which can be used to inform PS work moving forward and sets the tone for the other works presented in this panel.

Author

• Desiree Zerquera, University of San Francisco