Blog #5: Revised RQ, Works Cited

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Research Question:

How does merit-based college admissions reproduce inequality and stifle social mobility? Why has meritocracy become toxic even for those who seem to benefit the most from it? Can the inequality resulting from the meritocratic competition ever be justified?




Works Cited


Deresiewicz, William. Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. Free Press, 2015.


Ho, Karen.  “Biographies of Hegemony.” The New Humanities Reader, edited by Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, 6th edition, Cengage Learning, 2019, pp. 160 – 181.


Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.


Markovits, Daniel. The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite. Penguin Books, 2020.


Sandel, Michael J. Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?. Penguin Books, 2020.

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