The Admissions Interaction Order: Discourse as a Window Into the Modern Tensions of College Admissions

• In Event: Qualitative Evidence and Systemic Interrogations of Admissions Research, Logics, Practices, and Norms

Abstract

Due to the racialization of college admission recruitment networks, students from Black, Latinx, Native American, or low-income communities often have different access to, experiences of, and interactions with college admission offices (Gordon, 2013; Salazar, Jaquette, & Han, 2021). Drawing on a document analysis of admission officer job descriptions at highly selective colleges and universities, this study examines how college admission offices construct the admission officer role and, more importantly, how this construction shapes how admission officers form relationships with high schools that serve high concentrations of racially minoritized students. In the study, I examine three key discourses that emerged from the data 1) how admission offices define themselves and establish their organizational identity, 2) the role and importance of off-campus recruitment practices in the daily operation of the college admissions office, and 3) how college admission offices utilize formal roles and position responsibilities to attend to issues of diversity and equity in college admissions. The discourse analysis illuminated how admissions offices and the staff within them debated and negotiated the tension between market pressures (i.e. increasing their applicant selectivity or prestige) and equity imperatives (i.e. their espoused commitments to advance equity).

Using research in admissions, the presenter will also discuss the benefits and affordances of document analysis as a tool for learning about the discourses, logics, and practices in use in highly-selective college admissions offices. Document analysis, as a methodological tool, can help researchers explore how discourses present in documents or on websites contribute to the social construction of the outcomes we observe in highly-selective college admission processes. Additionally, discourse analysis can provide scholars the opportunity to shift the analytical gaze of college admissions research away from racism as an individual admission officer practice to one that recognizes how deeply embedded racism is in organizational structures and processes. This shift of gaze provides a vehicle to explore the role that organizations play in the maintenance and reproduction of racial and socioeconomic inequality in higher education (Acker, 2006; Hall, 2017; Ray, 2019).

Author

• Steve Desir, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author