Globalisation and student equity in higher education

Abstract

This special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education is focused on student equity issues arising from the globalisation of higher education (HE). The papers collected here pursue a new imaginary of student equity in response to changed structures of HE produced by (a) the move toward its universal provision (Trow, 1974, 2006) and (b) the transnationalisation of HE policy and provision. These two processes have changed the conditions of access, the nature of participation and the advantages that flow from HE, with significant implications for marginalised groups. The move to near-universal provision in OECD member countries is being driven by policy agendas promulgated through intergovernmental bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD has strongly grounded HE policy in a ‘neoliberal imaginary’ (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), promoting its importance in the formation of human capital to support national competitiveness in global knowledge economies. Through enacting this agenda, national HE systems now increasingly operate as localisations of a global HE space (Sassen, 2000). Further, while institutions and systems remain grounded in nations, the creation of a European Higher Education Area through the Bologna Process provides an example of moves toward greater transnational integration of these systems (European Ministers of Education, 1999). Increasing rates of international student mobility (Varghese, 2008) and increased flows of knowledge mediated by new technologies (Appadurai, 1996) have also contributed to the growing redundancy of ‘national HE’ as a distinct object of analysis. A new imaginary is now required in order understand how these shifts have changed how student equity is taken up in policy, what kinds of equity programs are required, and where new injustices have emerged, or old ones persist, in what has become a global field of HE (Gale, 2011).

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Globalisation and student equity in higher
education
Sam Sellar & Trevor Gale
To cite this article: Sam Sellar & Trevor Gale (2011) Globalisation and student equity in higher
education, Cambridge Journal of Education, 41:1, 1-4, DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2011.549652
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Cambridge Journal of Education
Vol. 41, No. 1, March 2011, 1–4
ISSN 0305-764X print/ISSN 1469-3577 online
© 2011 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education
DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2011.549652
http://www.informaworld.com
EDITORIAL
Globalisation and student equity in higher education
Taylor and FrancisCCJE_A_549652.sgm10.1080/0305764X.2011.549652Cambridge Journal of Education0305-764X (print)/1469-3577 (online)Original Article2011Taylor & Francis4110000002011LizEadesliz.eades@tandf.co.uk
This special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education is focused on student equity
issues arising from the globalisation of higher education (HE). The papers collected
here pursue a new imaginary of student equity in response to changed structures of HE
produced by (a) the move toward its universal provision (Trow, 1974, 2006) and (b)
the transnationalisation of HE policy and provision. These two processes have
changed the conditions of access, the nature of participation and the advantages that
flow from HE, with significant implications for marginalised groups. The move to
near-universal provision in OECD member countries is being driven by policy agendas
promulgated through intergovernmental bodies such as the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD has strongly grounded HE policy
in a ‘neoliberal imaginary’ (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), promoting its importance in the
formation of human capital to support national competitiveness in global knowledge
economies. Through enacting this agenda, national HE systems now increasingly oper-
ate as localisations of a global HE space (Sassen, 2000). Further, while institutions and
systems remain grounded in nations, the creation of a European Higher Education Area
through the Bologna Process provides an example of moves toward greater transna-
tional integration of these systems (European Ministers of Education, 1999). Increas-
ing rates of international student mobility (Varghese, 2008) and increased flows of
knowledge mediated by new technologies (Appadurai, 1996) have also contributed to
the growing redundancy of ‘national HE’ as a distinct object of analysis.
A new imaginary is now required in order understand how these shifts have
changed how student equity is taken up in policy, what kinds of equity programs are
required, and where new injustices have emerged, or old ones persist, in what has
become a global field of HE (Gale, 2011). Global policy agendas shape conceptions
of student equity embedded in national HE policies, which are constituted as assem-
blages of heterogeneous values and ideals that cut across local, national and global
scales (Rizvi & Lingard, this issue). In the current privileging of market efficiency,
academic excellence, and national investment in human capital, student equity tends
to be justified, even conceived, as an objective in their service. Paradoxically, the
global trend of policy development and governance conceived in purely numerical
terms (Lingard, 2010) also legitimises long-standing definitions of student equity in
HE as the pursuit of socially representative participation within nation states (involv-
ing comparisons between institutional enrolment data and national census data).
Measured in these terms, student equity has limited application beyond national
systems. Marginson (this issue) argues for also expanding the participation of under-
represented groups regardless of whether their expanded inclusion changes the social
composition of institutions. This approach would provide one way of globalising our
imagination of student equity.
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2 Editorial
Beyond refiguring conceptions of equity, conjunctions of transnational trends,
national policies and specific contexts have created new possibilities for equity work.
For example, the recent global financial crisis has had significant impact on national
HE funding, prompting increased stimulus spending in some instances (e.g., in
Australia, after a decade or more of underfunding) and drastic funding cuts in others
(e.g., in the UK, after an extended period of significant equity funding). In Australia,
recent funding increases serve the current government’s agenda to boost HE attain-
ment; an agenda couched in terms of the need to produce human capital at rates
comparable with OECD peers. This aim has led to government and institutional policy
to ‘raise’ aspiration for HE – also a key strategy in the UK widening participation
agenda over the past decade – ostensibly to increase social inclusion, but also to stim-
ulate increased demand for expanding places among groups who have not previously
accessed HE in large numbers. In the Australian context, the need to convince new
populations of the value of HE, at a time of increased stimulus spending, has created
new levels of political impetus and resourcing for institutions to engage with margin-
alised groups. This creates possibilities for more transformative community-focused
equity programs, which build capacities in disadvantaged areas rather than focusing
more narrowly on access to individual HE institutions (Sellar, Gale, & Parker, this
issue).
Current Australian HE reforms also aim to forge stronger connections between HE
and vocational education and training (VET), reminiscent of HE and further education
relations in the UK. This has created opportunities to revaluate the purposes of these
sectors, both individually and in tandem, and to challenge established hierarchies of
knowledge and prestige that accord greater status and advantage to HE graduates
(Pardy & Seddon, this issue). Attention to inequalities in capacities to produce knowl-
edge (Appadurai, 2000), and the status accorded to different kinds of knowledge and
knowing in HE (Gale, 2009), is important in the context of a changing geopolitics of
knowledge, which has been spurred by postcolonial critiques (e.g., Connell, 2007;
Said, 1978) and the rising influence of India and China. The proliferation of online
communication technologies has also facilitated a new era of user-created content that
is contributing to these shifts in global knowledge production, creating possibilities
for the democratic knowledge creation and dissemination with implications for HE
teaching and research (Shoemaker, this issue).
In other instances, the shift toward a global field of HE has created new difficulties
in identifying equity issues. Nation-centric ‘equity by numbers’ approaches (cf.
Lingard, 2010; Rizvi & Lingard, this issue) are blind to the advantages and disadvan-
tages produced through transnational student mobilities, at a time when mobility has
become a significant stratifying factor (Bauman, 1998). Global flows of students,
directed in their desires and decision-making by the Times Higher Education Supple-
ment and Jiao Tong world league tables, are now at unprecedented levels and compe-
tition (among OECD nations) is thriving for shares of the growing international student
market in Asia. A new global imaginary of student equity must account for the inequal-
ities experienced by these students as they pursue HE opportunities abroad. For exam-
ple, Indian student’s decision-making about and participation in Australian HE is
complicated by the market mechanisms through which they are connected to institu-
tions and the instrumental logics that often frame their engagement with them. This
can have significant implications for the advantages that these students are able to gain
from their education and can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression, with implica-
tions for social inclusion in their host country (Caluya, Probyn, & Vyas, this issue).
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Cambridge Journal of Education 3
It is also clear that students are increasingly aware that studying abroad can confer
greater distinction from the increasing numbers of graduates being produced through
moves toward universal provision (Findlay & King, 2010), changing the conditions of
social and cultural reproduction. Further, ‘equity by numbers’ approaches can also
hide less measurable injustices. For example, the increased participation of women in
the Ghanaian and Tanzanian HE systems appears to be a positive outcome in equity
terms, however gendered power relations and sexual harassment continue to place
women at a disadvantage (Morley, this issue).
In sum, a new global field of HE requires a new imaginary of equity issues across
this field. Where equity has previously involved measures of fair access to HE insti-
tutions within national systems, new conditions of knowledge production and dissem-
ination occasioned by the hyper-intensified flows that characterise globalisation
during late modernity demand more expansive and sophisticated analytical frame-
works. It is important to account for the ‘relations of disjuncture’ between these flows,
which are producing new kinds of inclusion and exclusion. As Appadurai (2000, p. 5)
argues, ‘it is the disjunctures between the various vectors characterizing this world-in-
motion that produce fundamental problems of livelihood, equity, suffering, justice,
and governance’ (Appadurai, 2000, p. 5). A new global imaginary of student equity in
HE that can help us to identify and work toward redressing these problems must be
multifaceted, incorporating (a) an expanded conception of equity; (b) resources for
interrogating the production of policy or knowledge across multiple scales; (c) atten-
tion to the lived experience of inequality in particular localisations of global HE; (d)
a re-conception of the relationships between tertiary sectors; (e) new designs and
rationales for equity programs; and (f) an understanding of the risks and possibilities
afforded by new communication technologies. The papers in this issue each contribute
different facets to such an imaginary.
Sam Sellar and Trevor Gale
Australian National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
University of South Australia
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank all those who refereed the articles published in this special
issue. Thanks especially to Stephen Parker who greatly assisted us in managing the process of
putting the issue together.
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