Power Discourse And The Purpose Of Policy In Higher Education

In this unique study, emerging higher education leader and policy expert Kenneth D. Gariepy takes a Foucauldian genealogical approach to the study of the intellectually “free” subject through the analysis of selected academic freedom statement-events. Assuming academic freedom to be an institutionalized discourse-practice operating in the field of contemporary postsecondary education in Canada, a specific kind of cross-disciplinary, historico-theoretical research is conducted that pays particular attention to the productive nature and effects of power-knowledge. The intent is to disrupt academic freedom as commonsensical “good” and universal “right” in order to instead focus on how it is that the academic subject emerges as free/unfree to think – and therefore free/unfree to be – through particular, effective, and effecting regimes of truth and strategies of objectification and subjectification. In this way, the author suggests how it is that academic freedom operates as a set of systemically agonistic practices that might only realize a different economy of discourse through the contingent nature of the very social power that produces it. Dr. Gariepy’s use of Foucault’s genealogical analysis provides a wholly different way in which to re-think the construction and practice of academic freedom in Canada and is thus an important contribution to the broader discursive field it seeks to analyze. Given contemporary neoliberal critiques of the university, the issue of academic freedom and the intellectually free subject is a vital problem that is of interest to numerous knowledge producing communities – on and off campus. Equally important in addressing the problem of academic freedom is how the book also contributes a new description of the genealogical method – something Foucault did not stipulate – that is original, ambitious, compelling, and insightful. I commend Dr. Gariepy for returning, to investigate anew, an issue we think we know.” – E. Lisa Panayotidis, PhD, Professor & Chair, Educational Studies in Curriculum and Learning, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Editor of History of Intellectual Culture.

The Dispositif of the University Reform presents a discourse analysis about transformations in higher education in Poland. Combining Foucauldian categories of discourse, dispositif and governmentality with contemporary changes in the area of science and higher education, it proposes an analysis of power in close connection with the development of knowledge. The book researches the tradition built on the works of Michel Foucault, one of the most prominent and inspiring researchers for the contemporary humanities. It introduces the Polish context to the international debate on higher education transformations and the reception of Foucauldian categories in social research. In addition, it presents the original concept of the dispositif of the reform as a heuristic model of describing and explaining the practice of regulating academic life and education policy. As a valuable contribution to the knowledge about the legitimization of educational policy and the practice formed by dominant discourses, the book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and post graduate students in the fields of sociology of education, sociology of knowledge, critical pedagogy, public policy, educational studies, and philosophy.

Written for Higher Education Masters and PhD programs, this landmark textbook joins the theory of feminist post-structuralism with research methods for the purpose of policy analysis in Higher Education. It showcases the different methods that can be applied to a range of topics in Higher Education policy and policy development. Reconstructing Policy in Higher Education highlights the work of accomplished and award-winning scholars, and provides an in-depth examination of theoretical frameworks and concrete examples of how feminist post-structuralism effectively informs research methods and can serve as a vital tool for policy makers and analysts.

This publication is based on the discussions of the 2004 Global Colloquium on Research and Higher Education Policy of the UNESCO Forum for Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, held in Paris in December 2004. It contains contributions from 17 international experts in the field of higher education which explore the global rise of the 'knowledge society' and its implications for higher education and for sustainable human development in the future.

This book analyses accountability and quality policies relating to learning standards and examines their implications for assessment in higher education. Whilst primarily focusing on the Australian setting, this analysis is located within a broader frame of reference that includes the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (US), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Across these settings, comparative measures of learning have been seen as a policy ‘solution’ to the problem of ‘proving quality’ in a globalised and increasingly competitive higher education market. Comparative measures of learning depend on the specification of learning standards. Learning standards attempt to articulate the capabilities expected of graduates, and students’ achievement of these is determined through the practices of assessment carried out within institutions. Quality policy, learning standards and assessment practices all intersect within the broader umbrella of accountability, with relevance to governments, higher education providers, employers, parents, and students. The findings reported in this book highlight a number of policy influences, including the rising demands for national and international comparative data on learning standards to compare quality and inform student choice in a globally competitive market.

« As one of the pioneers and leading advocates of neoliberalism, Britain, and in particular England, has radically transformed its higher education system in recent decades. What was once a public good has turned into a market in which universities are required to perform like businesses, with students being increasingly referred to as customers. The Idea of Higher Education and the Student investigates precisely this relation between the changing function of higher education and how we see the student. But instead of offering yet another critique of neoliberalism and marketisation, it widens the view beyond the present » --

This volume provides a critical examination of the status of women and gender in higher education today. Despite the increasing numbers of women in higher education, gendered structures continue to hinder women’s advancement in academia. This book goes beyond the numbers to examine the issues facing those members of academia with non-dominant gender identities. The authors analyze higher education structures from a range of perspectives and offer recommendations at individual and institutional levels to encourage activism and advance equality in academia.