Karabel, Jerome 1950-
(Jerome Bernard Karabel)

PERSONAL:

Born May 20, 1950, in Philadelphia, PA; son of Henry Leon and Dorothy (Forstein) Karabel.Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1972, Ph.D., 1977; postgraduate studies at Nuffield College, Oxford, England, 1972-73, and École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 1974-75.

ADDRESSES:

Home—3015 Benvenue Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705-2509. Office—Department of Sociology, 436 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-0001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and author. Harvard UniversityCenter for European Studies, Cambridge, MA, research associate, 1975-77; Huron Institute, Cambridge, senior research associate, 1977-84, board member, 1978-84; University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor, 1984-86, associate professor, 1986-93, professor of sociology, 1993—, chair of the admissions and enrollment committee of the academic senate, 1989, codirector of the Berkeley Project on Equal Opportunity. Member, School of Social Science,Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 1993-94. Has served on various panels for the National Science Foundation; consultant, National Institute of Education, 1976-80.

MEMBER:

American Association of University Professors, American Sociological Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from the National Science Foundation, 1972-75, 1981-86, National Institute of Education, 1977-81, Ford Foundation, 1981-83, 1997-2004, Institute of Industrial Relations, Berkeley, 1990-93, and the Gerbode Foundation, 1997-98; fellowships from National Science Foundation, 1972-75, and Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, 1974-75; Outstanding Book of the Year Award, American Educational Research Association, 1991, for The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985; Senior Scholar Award for Research and Publications, American Association of Community and Junior Colleges, 1991; Detur Book Prize, Harvard University; National Jewish Book Award for Best Book in American Jewish History, National Jewish Book Council, and Max Weber Award, American Sociological Association, both 2006, both for The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction, with A.H. Halsey)Power and Ideology in Education, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1977.

(With Steven Brint) The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Contributor of articles to numerous periodicals, including the New York Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, American Prospect, Nation, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Los AngelesTimes; also contributor of research on college and university admissions to publications, including American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Educational Record, Harvard Educational Review, and Theory and Society. Contributing editor to scholarly journals. Editorial consultant, Oxford University, 1978—;Theory and Society, senior editor, 1978-96, corresponding editor, 1996—; Sociology of Education, associate editor, 1982-85; Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, editorial committee member, 1991—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sociology professor Jerome Karabel has authored numerous articles and reports on education in America. His first book, Power and Ideology in Education, is a collection of thirty-seven articles edited with A.H. Halsey. The articles discuss modern educational institutions throughout the world from a variety of perspectives, including history, anthropology, sociology, and economics. Karabel followed this with The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985, in which he and collaborator Steven Brint examine the rise of community colleges throughout the United States, their early focus on liberal artstransfer programs, and their subsequent shift towardvocational education. As the authors explain, community colleges were created to assist students with financial or geographic barriers in furthering their educations after high school. Then, as Harold S. Wechsler pointed out in Science, "the most successfulcommunity college students could transfer to four-year colleges. Other students would be prepared for entry-level positions in local industries and businesses." However, Brint and Karabel argue in The Diverted Dream that community colleges actually sidetrack students who may have gone on to study at four-year colleges or universities. The authors also believe that community colleges have been converted from institutions that focused primarily on liberal arts into schools that concentrate mainly on vocational education.

While Wechsler felt that some aspects of the research behind The Diverted Dream seems "vague," he noted that the book "offers important hypotheses about the functions of community colleges."Writing for the Journal of American History, David O. Levine described it as "a comprehensive study of the junior college movement" and "an important contribution to the literature on the history of American education." Though Levine found parts of the book disappointing, he ultimately regarded it as "a thorough introduction to the history of the junior college."

Karabel's The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princetonattempts to explain the criteria, as well as the everchanging definition of "merit," used throughout history by three Ivy League universities when accepting or rejecting applicants. As one Economist reviewer explained, "The central thesis that Mr. Karabel draws from this history is that universities have always determined their merit criteria according to the admissions outcomes that would suit their institutional interests, rather than the other way around." According to Karabel's study, during the early 1900s, "merit" atIvy League schools was measured by the ability to pass an entrance exam, which focused on the education received at prestigious boarding schools primarily by Protestant white males. In the 1920s, however, administrators began to realize that the number of Jewish students was rapidly increasing. In order to curb this trend, administrators created a new definition of merit that focused on nonacademic skills such as athletics, leadership skills, and social confidence— often referred to as "character"—which allowed them to accept students based on qualities other than high test scores. This definition of merit lasted until about the 1960s, when administrators decided that merit included diversity, and they began to accept black, Hispanic, and female students.

While a Kirkus Reviews contributor determined thatThe Chosen is "strenuously detailed" and "sometimes repetitive," David Brooks described it in the New York Times Book Review as "thorough," "definitive," and "fascinating." Library Journal critic Scott Walter termed the work "a powerful study of the origins of current practices of selective admission." In a Washington Post Book World review, Jeffrey Kittay further commented, "The special value of The Chosen lies not in the way it formulates sociological insights but in its stories, its prolific and always apt statistics, and its analysis of backroom university politics."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Education, February, 1992, Harvey Kantor and Robert Lowe, review of The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985, p. 257.

American Journal of Sociology, September, 1990, Burton R. Clark, review of The Diverted Dream,p. 504.

American Prospect, November, 2005, Drake Bennett, review of The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, p. 37.

Atlantic Monthly, September, 2005, Benjamin Schwarz, review of The Chosen, p. 119.

Booklist, September 1, 2005, Bryce Christensen, review of The Chosen, p. 30.

Change, July-August, 1990, Richard C. Richardson, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 52.

Contemporary Sociology, March, 1978, review ofPower and Ideology in Education, p. 168; November, 1992, Caroline Hodges Persell, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 829.

Economist, November 26, 2005, "Merit in Motion; Ivy League Universities," review of The Chosen,p. 98.

Encounter, December, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education, p. 65.

Harvard Educational Review, February, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education, p. 95.

Journal of American History, December, 1990, David O. Levine, review of The Diverted Dream,p. 1064.

Journal of Economic History, June, 1992, John Strudwick, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 504.

Journal of Higher Education, November-December, 1990, Ken Kempner, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 709.

Journal of Social History, summer, 1991, Glenn C. Altschuler, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 835.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2005, review of The Chosen, p. 958.

Library Journal, September 1, 2005, Scott Walter, review of The Chosen, p. 156.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 13, 2005, Adam Bresnick, review of The Chosen.

Nation, December 14, 1998, Fred L. Pincus, "Chilling Admissions: The Affirmative Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives," p. 39.

New Yorker, October 10, 2005, Malcolm Gladwell, "Getting In: The Social Logic of Ivy League Admissions," review of The Chosen.

New York Times Book Review, December 24, 1989, Gregory Mantsios, review of The Diverted Dream,p. 17; November 6, 2005, David Brooks, review of The Chosen, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, September 19, 2005, review of The Chosen, p. 59.

Science, December 21, 1990, Harold S. Wechsler, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 1755.

Social Forces, September, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education, p. 322; March, 1991, Dennis R. McSeveney, review of The Diverted Dream,p. 975.

Sociological Review, May, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education, p. 419.

Sociology: Reviews of New Books, May, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education, p. 97.

Times Educational Supplement, February 10, 1978, review of Power and Ideology in Education,p. 23.

U.S. News & World Report, November 7, 2005, Justin Ewers, "The Underside of the Ivies," interview with Jerome Karabel, p. 30.

Vocational Education Journal, January, 1991, Angelo C. Gillir, Sr., review of The Diverted Dream,p. 55.

Washington Post Book World, October 30, 2005, Jeffrey Kittay, "The Ivy Curtain: How Meritocracy in Higher Education Arose from a System Built to Keep WASPs in and Jews Out," review of The Chosen, p. 3.

Wilson Quarterly, autumn, 1989, review of The Diverted Dream, p. 36.

ONLINE

Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Web site,http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ (October 21, 2004), "Karabel to Speak at WWS about Coeducation and Sex-Blind Admissions on October 21."

University of California, Berkeley Web site,http://www.berkeley.edu/ (January 11, 2006), "Department of Sociology Faculty."