Honors Education As Opportunity Hoarding? Institutional Responses to World-Wide Growth in Higher Education

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 21. School Organizational Policies, Programming, and Processes

Abstract

Collegiate honors programs were introduced in the early 20th century and began to multiply the United States in the 1960s. By the beginning of the 21st century, honors programs had spread to no fewer than two-thirds of four-year universities and colleges in the United States. At many larger universities, such programs have begun to take a more formal collegiate structure, and the number of “honors colleges” has more than doubled in the past two decades. Moreover, the honors movement has begun to spread internationally as well. The origins of honors programs with special curricula and perquisites sprung from elitism and dubious notions about the “superior student.” We argue that honors education represents a form of vertical differentiation in which certain students within institutions have a collegiate experience qualitatively different from that of the general student body. A form of “opportunity hoarding,” honors programs increasingly offer select students a sequestered collegiate experience in centrally located honors-only residence halls where they enjoy subsidized high culture and other event programming, benefit from unique pathways for undergraduate research, and have access to the best instructors and dedicated advisors. While much research has explored stratification among institutions, especially elite colleges and universities, there has been comparatively little research on honors education. What’s more, the research that does exist on collegiate honors education is often atheoretical and written from within the power structures of professional honors administration. Many of those who work in and write about honors reject charges of elitism, arguing that there are a variety of educational programs designed to nurture the unique abilities of specific student populations. We conducted qualitative focus group interviews of 23 honors college deans and program directors and present results leading to a theoretical statement locating honors within the broader context of the massive global expansion in formal schooling.

Authors

• Andrew J. Cognard-Black, St. Mary's College of Maryland

• Amy E. Stich, University of Georgia