Full Description
This book explores the radical reform experienced by universities worldwide, as reformers, inspired by extreme economic thinking, seek to transform the university into part of a global academic industry. With attention to the implied passage from a focus on education and the advancement of knowledge, to an emphasis on the provision of human capital and economic benefits, the author describes the growing regulation of universities by the state, the substitution of academic government for business management and the implementation of quantitative measurement systems to replace the qualitative evaluation of teaching and research.
Based on interview material collected among academics around the world, The University Under the Rule of Global Technocracy examines the deep causes and conceptual errors of this reformist project and offers a series of alternative proposals. It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and social policy with interests in higher education, the professions, and academic work and life.
Contents
1. Brief Adornoian Prelude 2. The Big Shift: From the Autonomous University to the Global Academic Industry 3. In the Realm of Performance: Management and Productivism in the Current University 4. A Map of the Academic Industry 5. The Voice of the Discontented: Paradoxes, False Solutions, and New Problems 6. Conceptual Errors of the New Public Management, the Theory of Human Capital, and Economics of Education 7. Root Causes 8. Diagnostics and Alternative Pathways 9. Is It Possible to Recreate Today the Classic Idea of University? 10. Conclusion: Six Tasks for a Renewal from the Sources
