Professors Harry Brighouse and Randall Curren will lead a one-day Graduate Student Workshop on April 30, 2020, for 3-6 doctoral students who are working on topics in educational ethics.
NOTE: Due to coronavirus restrictions, this event is being postponed until sometime during the 2020-2021 academic year. We will post the new dates here when we determine them (likely not until late spring or summer...
Snapshot: This case explores the dilemma many well-resourced parents face in choosing a school for their child. Should they opt for their local public school, investing their economic, cultural, and...
Snapshot:This case explores the challenges of teaching about climate change in a community where a large portion of the residents work in the petroleum industry. Should science teachers...
Snapshot: This case examines the influence of family wealth on college admissions in the wake of the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. While bribery is plainly unethical, the moral status of other instances where families spend...
While many hold the widely accepted view that the only legitimate basis for college and university admissions decisions is individual merit, a closer examination suggests that merit itself may well rest on facts about a student that have more to do with their background than on talent or work ethic. Wealthier students are able to hire tutors to help them in classes they struggle with and coaches to sharpen their skills on the...
For many students, 11th grade marks the year they begin seriously researching the colleges they will apply to. Many of these students, and their parents too, feel an urgency to get into an elite university because they believe this will determine their future career and beyond. For students from less privileged backgrounds, in particular, an elite college or university offers the promise of financial stability for themselves and...
At this point, family expenditures on students often become more specific to the college admissions process. For instance, families may hire SAT tutors, or they may find a college counselor to help their child with their application essays and interview preparation. Students from lower-income backgrounds are less likely to access these resources, creating yet another disparity.
Some particularly wealthy families are able to donate large sums of money to universities, donations that can be hard for admissions committees to ignore when making their decisions. Although legal, these donations raise significant ethical questions about the fairness of the college admissions process. For some, there’s little difference between donations like these and briberies.
Family expenditures throughout high school can affect a student’s college acceptance prospects.However, once the application is sitting before admissions officers, colleges and universities have the opportunity to address some of the disparities in the resources and environments that have shaped each applicant through affirmative action programs and other similar initiatives that take into account more than just test scores, grades...
A number of scholars have proposed comprehensive strategies for reforming the college admissions process, ranging from the bold to the truly radical. The following articles explore some of these ideas.
Fishkin, Joseph. Bottlenecks. Oxford University Press, 2014.
While normative case studies are valuable discussion resources, they can also be equally useful as writing prompts. Writing case commentaries allows students to dive deeper into the ethical issues raised by the cases, learning how to engage in careful ethical reflection...
Snapshot: Civic education is increasingly a hot-button topic in a polarized nation. After introducing a project-based civics curriculum in which students take action to create change, a school leader...
Conversations about the aims of higher education may also lead to questions about how effectively these elite institutions promote meritocracy and equity—and whether “merit” is a fair metric for admissions officers to use in the first place....
Wealth inequality has undoubtedly created injustices in the college admissions process, but policy solutions to level the playing field often present a tension between state regulation and family autonomy. Although many individuals might agree...
Snapshot: In this case study, a middle school principal in Canada faces a firestorm when he allows students in his majority-Muslim school to conduct Friday prayers in the school cafeteria. In the public school system...
Snapshot: This case from the Netherlands explores the challenges of organizing a safe space for discussion in the online civics classroom. Should teachers refrain from inviting students to share...