I’m pleased to be organizing an AERA research conference, “Access, Competition, and For-Profit Colleges” in collaboration with Sandy Darity, The Research Network on Racial & Ethnic Inequality, and with generous support from the AERA Conference Grant.
This interdisciplinary two-day conference will convene September 21-22, 2012 at Duke University. You can register and learn more here.
This conference dovetails with my research on legitimacy, race, gender, and outcomes of for-profit higher education so I’m very excited.
The conference objectives attend to three major goals: a survey of existing for-profit literature, an analysis of major gaps in existing literature with an attention to methodological concerns in the study of for-profits; and, an agenda for proposed research on for-profits.
Scheduled panels include:
Mapping the For-profit Research Landscape
For-Profit Higher Education and The Social Good
Race, Class, and Gender: Who are For-profit students?
The Problem of Data: How to Study For-profits
Public Finance, Competition, and For-profits: Do The Means Justify The Ends?
Online Pedagogy, Social Media, and Representation in For-Profits
I’m particularly excited about the Emerging Scholarship panel. It includes papers on:
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Emory University “Legitimacy and Mobility: When Becoming ‘Real College’ Is An Institutional Barrier”
Christine Tracy and Molly Kleinman, University of Michigan “The Acquisition of Non-profit Colleges and Universities by For-profit Corporations in the United States”
Thomas Mays, University of Dayton “Social Capital and For-profit Colleges”
Rohit Dutta Roy, Jadavpur University “Privatization of Education in India and the Conflicts with Equity Objective: Should Higher Education be Seen as a Business for ‘Profit-Making”
I could not be more pleased with the engagement of scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum: Sara Goldrick-Rab, Jorge Klor De Alva, Mark Schneider, MaryBeth Gasman, Laura Perna, Kevin Kinser, Letitia Oseguera, Gaye Tuchman to name a few. Goldie Blumenstyk and Victor Borden from CHE and IHE, respectively, will also be in the house.
We’re aiming to do nothing short of move the conversation about for-profit education forward to produce rigorous interdisciplinary research, theoretically grounded and publicly engaged on a topic that too often dissolves into polemics.
CONFERENCE: Access, Competition and For-Profit Colleges
CONFERENCE: Access, Competition and For-Profit Colleges: