Full Description
The World Yearbook of Education 2026 discusses the shifting geopolitics of Higher Education, directly engaging with an urgent call to theorize the academy as a site of power, politics, protest, and possibility.
The volume brings together leading and new generations of thinkers from across the globe who draw on theoretical resources from sociology, politics, international relations, geography, gender studies, cultural studies, and post- and decolonial studies. Taken together, the chapters show how these epistemic resources can help us understand the current state of affairs in higher education and beyond. They reflect key dimensions of shifting geopolitics and their impact on higher education: multipolar superpower rivalry, autocratic populism, decolonial justice, and digital transformations. By anchoring the study of higher education in prevailing geopolitical tensions, the volume seeks to uncover the critical role of the university in contemporary global politics.
By exploring higher education as a central institution caught within competing visions of world order; one rooted in international cooperation, another asserting the nation state, and yet another challenging the very notion of the university as territorially fixed, the book offers a perspective on the university, which is in line with pivotal global developments. It is a must-read book for anyone interested in the new geopolitics of higher education and the future of the university globally.
Contents
Introduction
Katja Brøgger, Hannah Moscovitz, Susan L. Robertson & Jenny Lee
Part I. Governing Higher Education Knowledges and Spaces
1. The changing dynamics of space and scale: The university between nationalism and globalism
Simon Marginson
2. Academic Freedom, Openness, and the Shifting Geopolitics of European Higher Education
Katja Brøgger & Dorota Dakowska
3. Unravelling the Missing Geopolitical Dimension in Latin American Universities
Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela
4. Confronting Colonialism and Mobilizing Reparations in Higher Education
Sharon Stein & Vanessa Andreotti
5. Perforated Nations, Universities, and the Zonal Politics of Knowledge Production
Susan L. Robertson, Chris Muellerleile, Jian Wu & Kris Olds
6. Universities in Exile: A Conceptual Framework
Kyle A. Long & Carly O'Connell
7. Generative AI and the Next Phase of the Platform University
Mark Carrigan & J.J. Sylvia IV
Part II. Sites and Strategies of Domination and Resistance
8. Students Revolt, State Revenge: Universities and Authoritarianism in Iran
Shahrzad Mojab & Mahdi Ganjavi
9. Reclaiming Knowledge, Rebuilding University: Higher Education against War and Repression in Autonomous Northeast Syria/Rojava
Sardar Saadi
10. Translocal Articulations in Student Activism for Social Justice: Resonances Across the World
Gritt B. Nielsen & Thierry M. Luescher
11. Illiberal politics and threats against academic freedom
Andrea Pető, Alina Dragolea & Bogdan Florian
12. Critical Thinking and Solidarity Dilemmas in Global Higher Education: an Autoethnographic Perspective on Academics in the Context of Transnational Conflicts
Anatoly V. Oleksiyenko
13. Crusading Against an "Immoral Academy": The State, Universities and the National Fantasy
Rasmus Harsbo & Ester Zangrandi
14. Internationalising Higher Education, Nation Branding, and Geopolitical Anomalies: Scotland and Northern Cyprus in perspective
Théotime Chabre & Hannah Moscovitz
15. Academic diaspora and the rise of transnational repression in international higher education
Annette Bamberger
