ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a novel theoretical perspective for looking at grade inflation. It argues that grade inflation can be attributed to the progressive loss of autonomy by academia as a functional subsystem of modern society and the substitution of exogenous norms that structure interactions within academia for endogenous ones. The chapter focuses on forms of grade inflation observed in the North American and Western European education systems. Research-oriented—or in other words, oriented on investigating truth empirically—universities emerged only by the end of the eighteenth century, after the Humboldtian model of the university and research institutes was largely replicated in Germany and other European countries. The obvious limitation of inquiries going beyond particular national boundaries and cultural contexts consists in the researcher’s background and mind-set. The preliminary data about the research income of Canadian universities do not refute the thesis about the possible impact of their top officials’ disciplinary background.
