On the tensions of universities as a social institution – developing a comparative sociology of higher education

ABSTRACT

This review of Natasha Warikoo’s timely and insightful intervention on the relationship between race, social mobility and elite university institutions argues that education has always presented a profoundly contested terrain for debates about race, racism and inclusion but that for too long those debates were confined to pre-eighteen education. The review argues that this study, with its revelatory, comparative U.S./U.K. lens, reveals the complex tensions, ambitions, achievements, identifications, anxieties, limits of diversity, and denials that shape the experiences and perspectives of those students who are part of the population of elite universities. It concludes that Warikoo’s work makes an original and important contribution to the emergent and much needed sociology of higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• universities
• race
• exclusion
• mobility
• sociology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.