7/15/2009

Lindsay wins NAEd fellowship to study elites' educational backgrounds

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

Michael Lindsay is interested in the backgrounds of the people who run the United States. Having won a 2009 Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Academy of Education (NAEd), he is now able to pursue his research into elite education.


	MICHAEL LINDSAY

For his study titled "Structuring Elite Power: The Role of Formal and Informal Education," Lindsay plans to explore how elites come to learn about power and its exercise. "I want to attend to both formal education -- what you learn in school and in your major at college -- as well as informal education -- what you learn around the lunch table at residential colleges or from colleagues during your first weeks on the job," said Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology and the associate director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life. "All of these are critical to mastering the tacit and explicit 'rules of the game' of how to move up in the world."

The fellowship will allow Lindsay to dedicate his time to research and writing on the topic. It will support travel costs to conduct interviews with prominent leaders in business, politics and nonprofit life.

Lindsay's book, "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite," was named one of the best books of 2007 by Publishers Weekly. The Economist described it as "an impressive and admirably fair-minded book."

Lindsay's new endeavor will cast a wider net, looking at the role education has played in the lives of powerful people, both religious and secular. The Spencer fellowship will free him of teaching and university service responsibilities so that he can be devoted to his research full time.

Lindsay said he is deeply honored to receive the fellowship. "It will provide me with a wonderful opportunity to go deeper in learning about the intersection of education and power, and I'm excited to meet other NAEd/Spencer fellows who have similar interests. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of my dean, department and the university. I'm very grateful to have this opportunity as a faculty member at Rice."