Thesis advisor: Hans de Wit / Do employers prioritize the signal associated with the name of the university someone graduated from above an applicant’s skills in the employment process? Using a field experiment of the labor market, 2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to job openings in three countries: United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. The resumes belonged to fictitious citizens with full working rights, both female and male, that have attended universities of varying prestige in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia respectively. Two skill-intensive sectors of the labor market were chosen: information and communication technology and accounting.  For each sector of the labor market, two resumes were designed. One resume had a high skills match with the generic requirements of entry level jobs in each sector. A second resume had a low skills match with the same requirements. For each country, one high-ranked university and one non-high-ranked university were selected to signal prestige. The name of the university the applicant graduated from and the sex of the applicant were randomly assigned on otherwise identical resumes. This study distinguished between the effects of human capital (Becker, 1975; Mincer, 1974; Schultz, 1959; 1961) and the signaling effect of university prestige in the labor market (Spence, 1973), while controlling for networking effects (Bayer, Ross, & Topa, 2005; Petersen, Saporta, & Seidel, 2000). The results suggest that human capital—as measured through the high and low skills match resumes—was statistically significant in predicting callbacks. Applications in the high skills match condition were 79% more likely to receive a callback than applications in the low skills match condition. The prestige condition and the interaction between university prestige and match were not statistically significant. This experiment detected no statistically significant differences in callback rates based on the sex of the applicant. These findings suggest that human capital, and not university prestige, predicts recruitment outcomes for applicants with a bachelor’s degree only. These results support a call for skill building and human capital consolidation at higher education institutions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

In 1995, Ghana’s education policymakers imposed a ban on all extra classes initiated and organized on school premises and public buildings, by individual teachers or groups of teachers, for which students were charged extra fees. The ban is referred to as the “policy on extra classes.” This study examined the genesis and justification of the said policy, including the current phenomenon of extra classes in Ghana. The study analyzed the policy’s impact on secondary education in the country, particularly Northern Ghana, using the lens of education stratification in a qualitative interpretive policy analysis approach. Interviews of leading Ghana education officials conducted in 2010 were the predominant source of data in this research, with corroboration from analysis of policy texts and review of the media. The conclusions and recommendations that emerged from this study included: accountability, the responsible use of school time and instructional time, and education equity and adequacy. Other issues concerned social justice, teacher remuneration and motivation, and the need for equitable national education policies that reckon with the disparities in the country. In particular, this study took issue with the culture of nonimplementation of education policies in Ghana, with particular reference to the policy on extra classes. The study contended that the partial or non-implementation of education policies deepens education stratification in the country.

This study examines how political-economic and socio-cultural influences had impacted the institutional development of HVE in China by investigating the historical development process of HVE between 1980 and 2007, when the country was undergoing tremendous political, economic, and social transitions toward building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. With the research method of document content analysis, the study reveals causes, effects, and trends of HVE development through comparisons between HVE-related policy contents concerning major HVE institutional realities including contexts, missions, structures, access, tuition, curricula, teaching staff, graduate employment, funding and governance, and social status. Within a theoretical framework utilizing vocationalism, Confucianism, and neoinstitutionalism, analysis and discussion resulted in a number of findings. First, the development of HVE in China embodied a trend of vocationalism, which has led and is leading to higher education expansion, higher education restructuring, and a positive change of Chinese peoples views on careers. Second, in addition to its discrimination against skills/skilled workers, the mechanism of upward mobility entailed in Confucianism was another major reason causing resistance to HVE. Third, given the increasingly competitive Civil Service Examination, Chinese peoples views on careers were not synchronized to the mass higher education system that was underway in China. Fourth, while supporting HVE, vocationalism itself created problems for HVE. A new vocationalist view was needed for future HVE development. Confucianism may contribute to such a new vocationalist view drawing on humanities education and the mechanism of upward mobility, though its notion of scholar-officials was critiqued for impeding the development of HVE. Fifth, HVE students had been treated unequally in the whole process of studying in HVE from admission to participation to graduation. Sixth, from a neoinstitutionalist perspective, the development of HVE represented the process of its instutionalization, in which HVE needed to obtain legitimacy. Absence of legitimacy was the major reason causing various challenges facing the development of HVE. Seventh, the development of HVE indicated institutional isomorphic changes in Chinese higher education. Eighth, biased policy causing stratification of Chinese higher education was another major factor leading to various challenges facing HVE. / Adult Education

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