Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Merit and Student Selection

Views of Academics at the University of Porto

  • Chapter
Diversity and Excellence in Higher Education

Abstract

In Europe, participation in higher education has increased remarkably, from around 1% of the population in 1910 (Ringer, 2004), to approximately 60% in 2007 (UNESCO, 2009). To accommodate the increasing costs of expansion, governments favoured managerial and funding practices stressing market principles, efficiency and competition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Baez, B. (2006). Merit and difference. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 996–1016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, R. (1990). The idea of higher education. Bristol, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bollinger, L. C. (2005). Competition in higher education and admissions testing. In W. J. Camara & E. W. Kimmel (Eds.), Choosing students: Higher education admissions tools for the 21st century (pp. 3–12). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breen, R., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (2001). Class, mobility and merit: The experience of two British birth cohorts. European Sociological Review, 17, 81–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bridger, K., Shaw, J., & Moore, J. (2012). Fair admissions to higher education: Research to describe the use of contextual data in admissions at a sample of universities and colleges in the UK. Cheltenham, UK: Supporting Professionalism in Admissions (SPA) Programme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camara, W. J. (2005). Broadening criteria of college success and the impact of cognitive predictors. In W. J. Camara & E. W. Kimmel (Eds.), Choosing students: Higher education admissions tools for the 21st century (pp. 53–80). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cremonini, L., Leisyte, L., Weyer, E., & Vossensteyn, H. (2011). Selection and matching in higher education: An International comparative study. Report for the Ministry of Education Culture and Science of the Netherlands. Enschede, The Netherlands: Twente University, CHEPS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D., Coates, H., & Friedman, T. (2012). A survey of international practice in university admissions testing. Higher Education Management and Policy, 24(1), 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fonseca, M., Dias, D., Sá, C., & Amaral, A. (2014). Waves of (dis)satisfaction: Effects of the numerus clausus system in Portugal. European Journal of Education, 49(1), 144–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goastellec, G. (2010). Merit and equality: International trends and local responses. In H. Eggins (Ed.), Access and equity: Comparative perspectives (pp. 35–54). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69(1), 3–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Killgore, L. (2009). Merit and competition in selective college admissions. Review of Higher Education, 32(4), 469–488.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kvale, S. (2008). Doing interviews. London, UK: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magalhães, A., Amaral, A., & Tavares, O. (2009). Equity, access and institutional competition. Tertiary Education and Management, 15(1), 35–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marginson, S. (2004). Competition and markets in higher education: A “glonacal” analysis. Policy Futures in Education, 2(2), 175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marginson, S. (2010). The limits of market reform in higher education. Higher Education Forum, 7, 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • McInnis, C. (1993). Academic values under pressure. Melbourne, Australia: Centre for the Study of Higher Education Research. (Working Papers, 93.3)

    Google Scholar 

  • McLeod, O. (2013). Desert: The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2013 edition). Retrieved March 23, 2014, from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/desert/

    Google Scholar 

  • McNamee, S. J. (2009). The meritocracy myth. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Munene, I. I. (2002). University academics: Demographic, role structure characteristics and attitudes towards merit and equity – A Kenyan case study. Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 7(3), 247–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahai, R. N. (2013). Is meritocracy fair? A qualitative case study of admissions at the University of Oxford. Oxford Review of Education, 39(5), 681–701.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nata, G., Pereira, M., & Neves, T. (2014). Unfairness in access to higher education: A 11 year comparison of grade inflation by private and public secondary schools in Portugal. Higher Education, 68(1),1–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (2012). Education at a Glance 2012: Highlights. Paris, France: OECD Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olivas, M. A. (1997). Constitutional criteria: The social science and common law of admissions decisions in higher education. University of Colorado Law Review, 68(4), 462–475.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ringer, F. (2004). Admission. In W. Rüegg (Ed.), A history of the university in Europe, Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1800–1945) (Vol. III, pp. 233–267). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandel, M. J. (2010). Justice: What’s the right thing to do? New York, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schnitzer, K., & Middendorf, E. (2005). Eurostudent 2005: Social and economic conditions of student life in Europe 2005. Hannover, Germany: Hochschul-Informations-System.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tavares, O. (2013). Routes towards Portuguese higher education: Students’ preferred or feasible choices? Educational Research, 55(1), 99–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Teixeira, P., Rosa, M. J., & Amaral., A. (2006). A broader church? Expansion, access and cost-sharing in Portuguese higher education. In P. Teixeira, B. Johnstone, &. M. Rosa (Eds.), Cost-sharing and accessibility in higher education: A fairer deal? (pp. 241–264). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (2009). Global education digest 2009: Comparing education statistics across the world. Montreal, Québec, Canada: UIS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yair, G. (2011). Meritocracy: The concise encyclopaedia of sociology. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, G., Zhao, Y., & Lei, J. (2012). Between a rock and a hard place: Higher education reform and innovation in China. On the Horizon, 20(4), 263–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimdars, A. (2010). Fairness and undergraduate admission: A qualitative exploration of admissions choices at the University of Oxford. Oxford Review of Education, 36(3), 307–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of Training and Academic Organization, University of Porto, Portugal

    Luís Carvalho

Authors
  1. Luís Carvalho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ulster University, UK

    Rosalind M. O. Pritchard

  2. FOM University of Applied Sciences, Essen, and University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

    Matthias Klumpp

  3. INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Germany

    Ulrich Teichler

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Sense Publishers

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Carvalho, L. (2015). Merit and Student Selection. In: Pritchard, R.M.O., Klumpp, M., Teichler, U. (eds) Diversity and Excellence in Higher Education. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-172-4_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation