Social Production of Hierarchy

[Nagarjuna]

Dear All,
I find this post very interesting because it critiques the question
"what is the agenda of edu-factory".
Hierarchies have always been an integral part of non Western societies
but the Western world in the last 400 years has had very specific
agendas in categorizing non Western societies, for political and
business purposes.
This extends to non Western education, non Western values, non Western
cultural mores, non Western elites and non Western society at large.
Western universities, education models and education institutions of
the Oxbridge variety have played along with that agenda and portrayed
themselves as physical / virtual sites and locations for a
"disinterested search for knowledge and rational critique", riding on
the back of what are self defined as "Western cultural values" of
freedom, discussion, open debate, sound models of higher education,
vis a vis, non Western hierarchies in knowledge and education.
Globalization is now seeing the business models of many such
educational institutions clutching for ways and means to retain their
global influence. So often, the Western educational fringe raises the
questions of corporatism, wage rates, exclusion etc.
This whole model of discussing cleavages in education is suspect,
because it presumes the continued domination of Western cultural
values and educational institutions.
I sometimes feel, 400 years of domination over the world is enough, is
it not. Let others also talk.
So when one raises the issue in terms that Xiang Biao has raised, it
immediately strikes some forgotten chords in people like me - brown
from the outside, white from the inside.
Xiang Bao - "Institutionalized education in most part of the human
society seems intrinsically hierarchical"
That it need not be so, is a purely Western idea of the last 400
years.
So I feel it would be good to see the numbers of people who have
traditionally been in higher education in previous times and the
numbers who are now seeking entry into so called "democratic / liberal
institutes of Westernized higher education".
-- However, we should not deny that educational hierarchy is also
widely recognized, respected and sometimes even celebrated by the
larger society. --
As Xiang Bao goes on to discuss the numbers entering education in
Asia, maybe we need some comparative analysis with the numbers in
Europe and America and how these scale up in comparison with overall
population. He has suggested the numbers from Far East.
I would be very interested in similar data regarding other Asian
countries.
But somehow the colonial agendas would never make this a fashionable
topic for study, and Indian TV shows are well known for advertising
one or two scholarships to Oxbridge.
Imagine, Indian media gets British professors to conduct third rate
quiz shows and millions of students go through rounds and rounds of
elimination to emerge as victors.
What for ? For a one or two seats in Oxbridge !! From a pool of
millions of aspirants.
Needless to say, among the millions other who are left out, a few
thousands force their skeptical middle class parents to shelve out
money and foreign currency for "paid education and degrees",
convincing their sceptical parents that after their education they
will be given residence / work permits in EU and America and will not
be thrown back to native countries.
So, the competition for marketing and corporate funds for attracting
this few thousands of Chinese and Indian students becomes an industry
by itself.
Native students in Western countries, who see themselves as
disinterested pristine academics, feel, suddenly shortchanged by the
struggle for Chinese and Indian students, by the managers and
corporate staff, marketeers and racketeers, of Western universities,
which they think are "their own" by definition and by birth.
Regards,
Nagarjuna
------------------

The social production of hierarchy, and what we can do about it :
Notes from Asia

Here is Xiang Biao scheduled contribution.

The social production of hierarchy, and what we can do about
it: Notes from Asia

XIANG Biao

Institutionalized education in most part of the human society seems
intrinsically hierarchical. One is supposed to progress from a “lower”
level of learning to the “higher”; “average” kids study in mediocre
schools, and the “outstanding” go to top colleges; and finally,
“degree” is by definition hierarchical. Recent discussions on higher
education have focused on the
governmentalization /corporatization (roughly meaning tightened
administrative management in order to make university managerially
accountable) and the marketization of universities. This essay
explores the logic of hierarchy making in a larger, societal context.
It is beyond dispute
that established institutions have deeply vested interest in
maintaining exclusive and hierarchical systems, and it is also true
that hierarchy, particularly in the form of the
ranking tally, is imposed top down by the establishment.
However, we should not deny that educational hierarchy is also widely
recognized, respected and sometimes even celebrated by the larger
society. Nor should we reduce the public acceptance to merely an
example of false consciousness. Most people know much better than us
(university nerds) how to deal with the world. There are ethnical and
moral dimensions to the socially produced
hierarchy. Instead of aiming to eradicate hierarchy altogether (which
cannot be a feasible agenda despite the ideological appeal), this post
wishes to explore room in the social process of hierarchy making which
may enable realistic action agendas.

Precarious Hierarchy and the Ethnics of Hierarchy :

In the modern time in general, higher education become less exclusive,
and educational hierarchy become much less absolute. In colonial Asia,
for example, formal English education had such a magic power that it
directly contributed to the creation of the institution of modern
dowry in India. It is also safe to say that, in Asia at least, higher
education become less hierarchical in the so-called neoliberal era. (I
use neoliberal era with some reluctance. By this term I am referring
to the period starting at the end of 1970s for China, the beginning of
1990s for India, the early 1990s for Japan, and the late 1990s for
South Korea).
China launched a new, unprecedented round of university expansion in
1998. The number of newly admitted students jumped from 1.08 million
in 1998 to 2.5 million in 2001. By 2007, the planed intake reached
5.67 million!
Similar to Japan and South Korea, entering universities is no longer a
crucial life event—it is not difficult to get in, and furthermore
getting in does not guarantee good job prospects. Students have more
freedom in choosing universities according to location, subject or
campus “culture” instead of a single system of hierarchical
evaluation.
But hierarchy certainly does not go away. Universities become ever
more concerned about hierarchical ranking.
Shanghai Jiaotong University produces one of the best known tallies in
the world. This reflects the fact that previously fixed hierarchy is
replaced by more dynamic and unstable
differentiation. Hierarchy is in struggle. This also suggests that the
process of hierarchy making becomes more public, or social, than
before when it was declared by the state or established by tradition.
Underlying the new project of hierarchy making in the higher education
is a unmistakable capitalist logic. The higher rank a university
secures, the higher tuition fees it
charges. But the opposite is untrue. In general, students cannot enter
a high-rank university simply by paying more fees. There is a limit to
capitalism.
A curious example is the mushrooming MBA courses in China. On the one
hand, no other institutions are more conscious than the MBA programs
about hierarchical ranking which directly determine the fees they
charge. On the other hand, most of the MBA students, particularly
those enrolled in the elite institutes in China, had work experiences
and many are self employed, and thus the ranking does not mean much
for them in the material sense (say, compared to other students who
may need a strong university brand for looking for jobs).
When I asked an entrepreneur (incidentally, a Taiwanese) why he
applied for an expensive MBA course in Shanghai, he gave me three
reasons: good teachers, the reputation of the course (“it sounds
good”), and the opportunity to prove that, after
working for many years, he is still able to pass tough examinations.
The Chinese capitalist class in the making need symbolic capital, but
they need “solid” symbolic capital, i.e., not cheap parody ready for
sale.
The hierarchical ranking of universities undoubtedly facilitates
exchange between financial and cultural capital.
But at the very same time as different types of capital are
exchangeable, each capital must maintain minimum autonomy. Thus, in
order to be acceptable to the general public,
hierarchy must be based on “merit” to some extent.
Universities also have to maintain a balance. For example elite
universities in the US charge high fees but also provide generous
scholarships. Scholarships attract good students to keep its ranking
high which in turn justifies high fees.
In China at least until the very recent time, socially produced
hierarchy in higher education has significant moral connotations. For
example, lecturers and students from top universities are expected to
be more vocal in criticizing the status quo, and the state have to be
more careful in
dealing with professors from these institutions. In a largely
authoritarian and politically conservative system, this status provide
the institutions with special clout to be more independent, critical,
daring in thinking alternatives, and sometimes more eccentric in
behavior.
People rank the universities high to counteract the state power and
private economic interest, no matter how symbolically.

New Battles :

Hierarchy itself may not be a problem. The issue is what kind of
hierarchy prevails. Our goals should be, apart from continuing the
historical progress of destabilizing and “softening” hierarchy in
general, making the hegemonic hierarchy more ethical.
In Asia as well as elsewhere, states have been active in domesticating
and incorporating the institutions that are high in hierarchy. The
corporate world may have similar desires, although their efforts are
less orchestrated and their relations to universities less clear. But,
both the
state and the economic establishment need seemingly independent
universities for the purpose of legitimation.
(Say, the state occasionally needs some “independent scholars” to back
their views, and financial institutes also like donating money to
“independent” learning institutes.) The contradictions internal to the
project of legitimation provide important space for actions.
Furthermore, the interests of the state and of the capital do not
always fit well, and playing one against the other can be another
strategy.
I cannot quite imagine autonomous universities in practical sense. As
Mao Zedong repeatedly reminded us, intellectuals are a piece of
feather who cannot exist without someone else’s skin. We need others
for our material survival. But perhaps we can fight for a more
“autonomous” evaluation system with strong moral and ethical concerns.
Another important battle field is pre-university education. I am not
too worried about the corporatization or privatization of universities
as I believe that that will not go too far. Even state bureaucrats and
diehard capitalists would frown upon universities that have no
intellectual or ideological teeth at all.
What is much more dangerous, for China, is the on-going process of
privatization and hierarchization in secondary education.
As it is less easy for money to infiltrate into higher education, well-
off families start the race early. Parents spend thousands of US
dollars to send children to good primary and high schools and even
kindergartens. (In Beijing, top kindergartens literally charge
thousands of US
dollars for a seat.)
In Japan, elite private universities such as Keio and Waseda set up
their own so-called “escalator” system including kindergartens,
primary and secondary schools. Children from wealthy families buy the
expensive ticket to enter the escalator on the ground floor,
which take them to the top universities in the future with certain
“merits.” Thus social inequality is produced and reproduced without
upsetting the “merit”-based hierarchy
of universities. In China, except those who are desperate to
consolidate their newly acquired financial assets into firm class
status, most people want to escape from the frenzied
competition in which children became the main victims. Thus there is
social base for mobilization to fight against this trend. Among other
things, top universities may be able to do something, even
symbolically, to counteract the education industry.

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