REPLY: University Rankings

John Schwaller Discussion

Colleagues,

 

Earlier this year, one of our members queried about which were the most widely regarded of Latin American universities.  The discussion was brief but intense, with several members decrying the use of rankings at all.

 

Apropos of the earlier query, today there was a blog post in Inside Higher Education that seeks to understand why some world universities have risen in international rankings while those in Barzil, in particular, have not.  The facile answer is that in many of the others at the advanced level English is the language of instruction, while in Brazil it remains Portuguese.  One might conclude that many Latin American universities who offer advanced only in Spanish (or Portuguese) might be equally disadvantaged.  Lastly, since the source of the rankings is the Times Higher Education of London, there might also be a built-in bias.

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/five-reasons-why-brazil-doesn%E2%80%99t-move-rankings?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=df16c5da25-DNU20171205&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-df16c5da25-198487717&mc_cid=df16c5da25&mc_eid=d0a581ca25

Or this compact URL:

 

http://bit.ly/2A6Ay70

 

John F. Schwaller

Moderator, H-Latam and H-Nahuatl

Professor of History

University at Albany