Academic Accreditation and the Postmodern Condition: A Critical Analysis of Practices In Postsecondary Education

Abstract

As an admissions officer at a public university, I rely on institutional accreditation. Accreditation involves itself in the postmodern condition in both the rejection of a metanarrative (e.g., the assumption that some institutions are inherently better than others) and the commodification of knowledge. Although there is a risk that accreditation may come to form a metanarrative and produce a hierarchy of its own, it can be seen as indicative of the positive nature of the postmodern condition: a force that seeks to dismantle metanarratives of totality and supposed authority. This it does by allowing previously unrepresented institutions to be heard and valued.