Australians like the idea of meritocracy – the idea that rewards should allocated on the basis of ability and effort. Meritocracy is often contrasted with rewards being based on luck or privile...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/11/09/the-rise-and-reproduction-of-meritocracy/
In The Australian yesterday Australian Catholic University VC Greg Craven argued against deregulation of student contribution amounts. I’ll leave his equity and participation arguments for anot...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/11/04/who-should-get-the-sandstone-premium/
Ross Gittins thinks that subsidising private schools means subsidising wasteful status competition. A persistent line of social criticism argues that status competition is wasteful when people pa...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/09/21/schools-and-status-competition/
Earlier in the year I argued that the governments university equity policy focused on the lowest 25% of people by sociecononomic status was fundamentally flawed. Using NAPLAN and Victorian Year 1...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/09/15/uni-equity-policy-misses-the-target/
The Paul Keating letter to Bob Hawke complaining about his treatment in a book he admits he has not read is classic Keating. Who else could in the same paragraph say that a true account of the Ha...
Andrew Leigh is reporting on 1999 research showing that many high income earners wrongly place themselves in lower income deciles and many low income earners place themselves in a higher income d...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/04/12/actual-versus-perceived-income/
But if a person does their schooling in an expensive private school, plays sport against other private schools, goes on to university with primarily selective and private school graduates, gets a...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/02/23/do-private-schools-lead-to-less-empathy/
Over two generations, socioeconomic class tends to be ‘sticky’. Statistically speaking, the occupation of a parent influences the occupation of a child. But what about the very long term? Rob...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/02/12/is-there-complete-social-mobility-over-time/
Julia Gillard wants to to increase the number of low SES students, and to improve their pass and retention rates. The government has now proposed a number of ‘equity’ policies to achieve thes...
https://andrewnorton.info/2010/02/04/an-unfair-university-equity-policy/
Yesterday my U of M boss, Glyn Davis, gave a speech on the difficulties in reaching the government’s target of 20% of all higher education enrolments being from a low socieonomic status backgro...
https://andrewnorton.info/2009/05/06/why-focus-only-on-the-lowest-25-of-postcodes/