Press Release: New Book on Merit and Worth in Cross Atlantic Democracies

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Merit and Worth in the Cross Atlantic Democracies Is the Focus of a New Book by Sheldon Rothblatt

The conflict between access and quality in education has been front-page news for decades, explains Sheldon Rothblatt in his new book, Education's Abiding Moral Dilemma: Merit and Worth in the Cross-Atlantic Democracies, 1800-2006 (Symposium Books: 2006). "Policies regarding the role of elite universities, the organization of secondary education, admissions criteria, courses of study, high-stakes testing, and fiscal and program accountability have changed with uncommon frequency, resulting in confusion and uncertainty," he states. Rothblatt is professor emeritus of history and a scholar with a long-time association with the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley.

Rothblatt argues that the contemporary tension between access to education and the preservation of quality is merely another chapter in the much longer history of merit selection in England, Scotland and the United States and should be seen in its proper contexts. The underlying cause of the difficulties is the dilemma created by two competing conceptions of virtue, one determined by merit judged competitively and the other more vaguely but emotionally supported by a broader view of worth.

Merit is consistent with liberal democracy, but worth is the special province of social democracy. Neither distinction is easily categorized by political party or ideology. "They are the result of the opposite moral impulses inherent in plural democratic societies undergoing the strains of internal and global competition," observes Rothblatt.

Rothblatt is a former director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Britain, a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Education (USA).

To order this book please visit Symposium Books.

CONTACT:
Sheldon Rothblatt
srothbla@berkeley.edu http://cshe.berkeley.edu/people/srothblatt.htm

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