AbstractHigher education lacks an intellectually coherent sociology; varied re-search on colleges and universities is dispersed widely throughout thediscipline. This review initiates a critical integration of this scholarship.We argue that sociologists have conceived of higher education systemsas sieves for sorting and stratifying populations, incubators for the de-velopment of competent social actors, temples for the legitimation ofofficial knowledge, and hubs connecting multiple institutional domains.Bringing these lines of scholarship together facilitates new theoreticalinsights and research questions.127Click here for quick links toAnnual Reviews content online,including:• Other articles in this volume• Top cited articles• Top downloaded articles• Our comprehensive searchFurtherANNUALREVIEWSAnnu. Rev. Sociol. 2008.34:127-151. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.orgby University of Michigan on 06/02/10. For personal use only.
This is where the intervention of discursive analysis in higher education becomes useful, because we can simultaneously approach the material stratification, referred to here as "the sieve" and the ideological component "the temple" which legitimates official knowledge/power, as one sort of sublated discursive formation.