Meritocracy and Elite Education: A Conversation with Dr. Nadirah Farah Foley

How does meritocracy operate as both a social structure and an ideology? The Democracy, Race, and American Education Book Club will be in conversation with Dr. Nadirah Farah Foley about elite education and meritocracy. 

Dr. Nadirah Farah Foley is an interdisciplinary social scientist working across the fields of sociology and education. Their work understands schools as an essential site for understanding issues of race, class, and place in contemporary American society, and uses qualitative methods to investigate how people experience, make sense of, and resist those systemic inequalities in and around educational settings. Nadirah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education and a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Equity (CRE2) as well as the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Democracy, Race, and American Education Book Club has met approximately bi-weekly throughout the semester. Comprising a committed group of staff, students, and faculty, we collectively ask: what function does education play in a healthy democracy? How has the United States’ history of race relations informed its institutions–both governing and educational ones? And perhaps most critically, what do we hold as hopes for the future of education and how can we shape that future?

With generous support from the Bryn Mawr Office of the Provost and the Haverford/Bryn Mawr Education Department.