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The notion of World Class University suggests that this category of universities operates at a global and not national level. The rankings that have made this notion recognised are global in their scope, ranking universities on a worldwide scale and feed an audience from north to south, east to west. The very idea of ranking universities on such a scale, it is argued here, must be understood in relation to the increasing internationalisation and marketisation of higher education and the creation of a global market for higher education. More precisely, this contribution links the rankings of world class universities to the global space of international student flows. This space has three distinctive poles, a Pacific pole (with the US as the main country of destination and Asian countries as the most important suppliers of students), a Central European one (European countries of origin and destination) and a French/Iberian one (France and Spain as countries of destination with former colonies in Latin America and Africa as countries of origin). The three poles correspond to three different logics of recruitment: a market logic, a proximity logic and a colonial logic. It is argued that the Pacific/Market pole is the dominating pole in the space due to the high concentration of resources of different sorts, including economic, political, educational, scientific and not least, linguistic assets. This dominance is further enhanced by the international ranking. US universities dominate these to a degree that World Class Universities has become synonymous with the American research university. However, the competition has sharpened. And national actors such as China and India are investing heavily to challenge the American dominance. Also France and Germany, who are the dominant players at the dominated poles in the space, have launched initiative to ameliorate their position. In addition, we also witness a growing critique of the global rankings. One of the stakes is the value of national systems of higher education and the very definition of higher education.

L’absence de filieres d’excellence elitaire distingue la Suede de presque tous les autres pays. Il n’y a, dans l’enseignement superieur, quasi aucune institution qui se distingue des autres par un recrutement d’etudiants d’origine sociale exceptionnellement elevee ou ayant des references scolaires brillantes. Aucun frais de scolarite n’est percu a quelque niveau que ce soit du systeme educatif, et des bourses d’etudes et des prets sont alloues a tous les etudiants suedois – ce qui creuserait une ligne de partage fondee sur l’economie. Pratiquement toutes les institutions d’enseignement superieur etant publiques, l’opposition entre prive et public est non pertinente. De plus, aux niveaux inferieurs du systeme suedois il n’existe que tres peu d’ecoles ou de voies institutionnelles ou l’on puisse percevoir facilement la preeminence des enfants des actuelles elites ou qui soient consacrees a la selection et a la formation des elites futures. Ainsi, pour comprendre le role de l’enseignement dans la reproduction et la production des elites suedoises, n’est-il pas possible de differencier un secteur specifique d’institutions elitaires. Il faut, au contraire, prendre en compte l’ensemble du systeme. Cet article propose d’analyser l’education de l’elite comme un sous-espace de l’espace de l’enseignement superieur suedois dans son entier, caracterise par une distribution inegale de differents types de capitaux. Cette perspective tient compte de la distinction entre elites et membres de la classe sociale superieure, aussi bien que des distinctions entre les differents types de capitaux – herites et acquis – qu’ils soient economiques, sociaux, culturels ou educatifs. Nous tenons pour centrale la distribution de ces capitaux entre hommes et femmes, puisque ces dernieres ont tendance a surclasser de plus en plus les premiers. Il est egalement notable que dans un pays peripherique comme la Suede les investissements educatifs dans des ressources transnationales soient d’une importance cruciale et croissante, tant pour les etudiants que pour les institutions. Une des principales conclusions est que le systeme educatif suedois est en cours de differenciation et n’est ainsi plus autant une singularite par rapport au reste du monde.

The purpose of this review is to investigate cross-cutting researchthemes and issues related to access and stratification in Nordichigher education (H.E.) (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway andSweden). We synthesise how recent changes in H.E. policy, prac-tise, and appropriations have influenced educational opportunitiesalong social class, gender and age. In this review we highlightresults and conclusions shared by various recent Nordic studies.The emphasis is on the common trends and patterns related tosocial stratification in access., NordForsk

The idea of a strong tie between culture and education, advocated by Bourdieu and his colleagues from the 1960s, is in this article explored in detail by investigating cultural capital in both its embodied state, expressed in tastes and cultural practices among students in the elite subfield of Swedish higher education, and its institutionalised state, through an analysis of the same students’ enrolment patterns. By applying Specific MCA to a questionnaire answered by 1152 students at 20 socially and scholarly selective programmes we identify three main dimensions in the space of lifestyles. The first dimension separates advanced and legitimate cultural practices and tastes from mainstream ones. In a second dimension, elaborate and often costly body-oriented practices in training or clothing are distinguished from a more ascetic lifestyle. The third dimension opposes a pole of establishment from a pole of non-establishment. The study programmes are well dispersed in the space of lifestyles, which suggests a close relation between embodied and institutionalised states of cultural capital. We finally argue that the pursuit of field-specific capital best explains this dispersion: the future trajectories into specific regions of the field of power tend to correspond to distinct lifestyles of various categories of elite students. The Struggle for Students. The Swedish Field of Higher Education and the Recruitment Strategies of the Institutions