This volume examines higher education in globalized conditions through a focus on the spatial, historic and economic relations of power in which it is embedded. Distinct geometries of power are emerging as the knowledge production capability of universities is increasingly globalized. Changes in the organization and practices of higher education tend to travel from the ‘West to the rest’. Thus, distinctive geographies of knowledge are being produced, intersected by geometries of power and raising questions about the recognition, production, control and usage of university-produced knowledge in different regions of the world. What flows of power and influence can be traced in the shifting geographies of higher education? How do national systems locate themselves in global arenas, and what consequences does such positioning have for local practices and relations of higher education? How do universities and university workers respond to the increasing commodification of knowledge? How do consumers of knowledge assess the quality of the ‘goods’ on offer in a global marketplace? The 2008 volume of the World yearbook addresses these questions, highlighting four key areas: Producing and Reproducing the University— How is the university adapting to the pressures of globalization? Supplying Knowledge—What structural and cultural changes are demanded from the university in its new role as a free market supplier of knowledge? Demanding Knowledge—Marketing and Consumption—How can consumers best assess the quality of education on a global scale? Transnational Academic Flows—What trends are evident in the flow of students, knowledge and capital, with what consequences? The 2008 volume is interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on scholarship from accounting, finance and human geography as well as from the field of education. Transnational influences examined include UNESCO and OECD, GATS and the effects of digital technologies. Contrasting contexts include Central and Eastern Europe, Finland, China and India and England. With its emphasis on the interrelationship of knowledge and power, and its attention to emergent spatial inequalities, Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Framing the Future of Higher Education provides a rich and compelling resource for understanding emergent practices and relations of knowledge production and exchange in global higher education.
Author(s): Debbie Epstein:
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 352
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Figures......Page 9
Tables......Page 10
Contributors......Page 11
Series editors’ introduction......Page 20
1 Introduction: Geographies of knowledge, geometries of power......Page 22
Part I: Producing and reproducing the university......Page 30
2 Repairing the deficits of modernity: The emergence of parallel discourses in higher education in Europe......Page 35
3 The university and the welfare state in transition: Changing public services in a wider context......Page 53
4 University leadership in the twenty-first century: The case for Academic Caesarism......Page 71
5 (Re)producing universities: Knowledge dissemination, market power and the global knowledge commons......Page 88
6 New tricks and old dogs?: The ‘third mission’ and the re-production of the university......Page 106
Part II: Supplying knowledge......Page 126
7 The constitution of a new global regime: Higher education in the GATS/WTO framework......Page 132
8 In quality we trust?: The case of quality assurance in Finnish universities......Page 149
9 HRM in HE: People reform or re-forming people?......Page 163
10 Policy incitements to mobility: Some speculations and provocations......Page 182
Part III: Demanding knowledge – marketing and consumption......Page 202
11 Towards a high-skills economy: Higher education and the new realities of global capitalism......Page 211
12 International student migration: The case of Chinese ‘sea-turtles’......Page 232
13 Government rhetoric and student understandings: Discursive framings of higher education ‘choice’......Page 253
14 Higher education: A powerhouse for development in a neo-liberal age?......Page 269
15 Shaping the global market of higher education through quality promotion......Page 287
16 The rise of private higher education in Senegal: An example of knowledge shopping?......Page 301
Part IV: Transnational academic flows......Page 320
17 Have global academic flows created a global labour market?......Page 326
18 Transnational academic mobility in a global knowledge economy: Comparative and historical motifs......Page 340
19 The Chinese knowledge diaspora: Communication networks among overseas Chinese intellectuals......Page 359
20 Internationalisation and the cosmopolitical university......Page 376
21 The social web: Changing knowledge systems in higher education......Page 392
Index......Page 406
