The Grading Curve, Status, and Academic Peer Competition: How Engineering Students Learn Selective Collaboration

• In Event: 15.055 - Experiences in Postsecondary Education

Abstract

Drawing on a case study of an engineering school at an elite private university, I describe how students learn to compete with their peers for academic status through their experiences with the grading curve. I argue that the grading curve establishes a new status hierarchy among a group of students who were at the top of their classes in high school. Through the curve, which deflates grades, students experience heightened concerns about their new academic status and shift their conceptions of academic success from absolute to relative terms. To improve their academic statuses, students’ compete with their peers through selective collaboration. I suggest that competition among students undermines collaboration, setting in motion the reproduction of educational inequality.

Author

• Anthony Johnson, Harvard University