Majorism: Neoliberalism in Student Culture

• In Event: Contested Academic Norms - Unraveling Evaluation Discourses and Practices in an Age of “Excellence”: Globalisation and the Making of Academic Excellence

Abstract

Declining public support for U.S. higher education and the steady growth of corporate influence on these institutions shape students’ experiences of university. This two-year anthropological study at a public university engaged over 500 undergraduate researchers in questions related to the cultural meanings of exclusionary behaviors on campus. Significant findings related to the influence of capitalism on student culture as manifested in what students call “majorism.” Majorism describes the policies, values and behaviors that create unequal access to institutional resources based on major field of study and preferential treatment for science and technology fields and their practitioners. Majorism stems from two belief systems: 1) engineering and scientific empiricism are the only valid forms of knowledge production; and 2) human capital enhancement and future earning potential are the dominant rationale for higher education. Under the reign of these two entwined ideologies, the liberal arts are considered obsolete and science and technology fields revered, encouraged and amply funded by capital. In this paper, we spotlight the economic aspects of majorism to better understand how neoliberal class politics play a role in the promotion of science and technology at the expense of socially applicable fields in U.S. academe. By understanding majorism through the lived experiences of undergraduates, this STS study illuminates how market forces hinder activists’ efforts to promote democracy, inclusion and the social good in higher education, with implications for combatting discrimination and occupational segregation along vectors of race and gender.

Author

• Coleen Carrigan, California Polytechnic State University