In education, sorting students according to attainment is common. Such sorting clearly sets up the potential for exclusion, based on the attainment ideals and on the modes of selection. Ideals of inclusion suggest diversity, and those of equity, by reference to impartiality, suggest freedom from bias. Honors education, which celebrates excellence, and references “honor” and all that word and concept infers, heightens and promotes the principled recognition of attainment, giving rise to questions of diversity, equity and inclusion. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development...

How does the pursuit of an undergraduate honors education support excellence, innovation and ingenuity? This book offers examples of these things as they occur in honors colleges and programs throughout the USA. However, it additionally throws light on questions of how education generally (and in this case, particularly higher education) impacts on what we can do to contribute to our pool of human knowledge, to support individual and social aspiration, to empower creativity and invention, and, indeed, to make positive individual and communal futures through education. In many ways, the...