Universities and the Contested Creation of the Elite

Abstract

For centuries universities have been a locus of elite creation. In the Middle Ages, university-trained elites were leaders of the Church, served in secular lords' administrations and staffed the judiciary. Over time, their scope has expanded to include leadership in governments, corporations, and civil society more broadly. Universities play two roles in the creation of the elite: selection and education. Both of these have historically been the subject of intense contestation, with the outcomes shaping a range of political and economic outcomes. In this piece, I synthesize work on educational institutions' creation of the elite, discussing both historical and contemporary cases of contestation of this process and their outcomes. I close with a discussion of the implications for our understanding of university-based protest movements.