Philanthropy and the sustaining of global elite university domination
采用布迪厄理论框架，揭示全球精英大学如何通过慈善捐赠优势维持主导地位，吸引优质资源并完成社会再生产，从而固化特权、加剧不平等。
How is it that global elite universities operating in a hyper-competitive world replete with aspirational challengers maintain positions of dominance within the field of higher education decade after decade? Taking a Bourdieusian approach, we argue that the highest-ranking universities strategically leverage pronounced philanthropic advantages to differentiate themselves from would-be challengers. Philanthropy is a critical differentiator because it enables elite universities to sustain privileges that attract highly qualified students, faculty and powerful supporters, who in turn boost their competitive positions through acquisition of valuable cultural, social and symbolic resources. Elite universities co-create with stakeholders strong bonds of identification, honing the disposition to give back philanthropically and complete the socially reproductive cycle of elite domination. At a time of increasing concern about social inequalities, our contribution is to uncover how higher education philanthropy – an essentially conservative force – operates to entrench privilege and magnify social differences while purporting to do the opposite.