Philosophical Perspectives on Affirmative Action

Review Essay on Affirmative Action

Philosophical Perspectives

Philosophical perspectives are worldviews that define the nature of the world, the individual’s place in it, and the possible relationships to that world and its parts. Learning and instructional theories are developed with respect to a particular set of assumptions regarding what it means to know and learn. It is our contention that when situational variables require some decision on the part ...

Affirmative Action, Meritocracy, and Efficiency on Behalf Of: Affirmative Action, Meritocracy, and Efficiency

This article provides a framework for comparing meritocratic and affirmative action admissions policies. The context of the analysis is admissions to public universities; admission rules are evaluated as part of the public investment problem faced by a state government. Meritocratic and affirmative admissions policies are compared in terms of their effects on the level and distribution of human...

Understanding affirmative action.

Affirmative action is a controversial and often poorly understood policy. It is also a policy that has been widely studied by social scientists. In this review, we outline how affirmative action operates in employment and education settings and consider the major points of controversy. In addition, we detail the contributions of psychologists and other social scientists in helping to demonstrat...

Color-Blind Affirmative Action

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the consequences of the widespread adoption of “race-neutral alternatives” to conventional racial affirmative action policies in college admissions. A simple model of applicant competition with endogenous effort is utilized to show that, in comparison to color-conscious affirmative action, these color-blind alternatives can significan...