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Student perceptions of themselves as ‘consumers’ of higher education
Abstract
This article first offers a survey of what has become an area of increasing interest in higher education: the rise of the so-called ‘student-consumer’. This has been linked in part to the marketisation of higher education and the increased personal financial contributions individual students make towards their higher education. Drawing upon a qualitative study with students across seven different UK higher education institutions, the article shows that while there is evidence of growing identification with a consumer-orientated approach, this does not fundamentally capture their perspectives and relationships to higher education. The article shows the degree of variability in attitude and approaches towards consumerism of higher education and how students still perceive higher education in ways that do not conform to the ideal student-consumer approach. The implications for university relations and how policy-makers and institutions themselves approach the issue are discussed.
... 927). Tomlinson (2017) uses qualitative techniques to survey student responses to the policy positioning of themselves as consumers in seven different UK higher education institutions. He notes that while there is partial evidence of growing identification with a consumer-orientated approach, 'students still perceive higher education in ways that do not conform to the ideal student-consumer approach' (p. ...
... Like Tomlinson's (2017) students, the interviewees were both inside and outside the market. They moved between day-to-day university life and the ideals unfulfilled. ...
In the Anglophone jurisdictions, higher education policy is over-determined by economic policy and subjected to neoliberal regulation based on quasi-market competition between corporatised institutions, regulated by performative comparisons, tuition fees, and outputs imagined as commodities. England installed marketisation in successive policy changes between the Thatcher government’s introduction of commercial fees for international students in 1979 and the full-fee market for domestic students, supported by subsidised income-contingent loans, in 2012. Policy commitment to public good outcomes (the collective and non-pecuniary individual benefits of higher education) was largely emptied out, leaving only attenuated proxies such as widening participation and research impact. Responsibility for public good outcomes was transferred from government to institutions. Following a discussion of Anglophone concepts of ‘public’ and an overview of key policy reports from 1963–2019, the paper reports on qualitative research into approaches to higher education and public good in England. There were 24 semi-structured interviews, with middle and senior manager-leaders in two universities and policy professionals. Nearly all advocated a broad public good role, in contrast to policy in England, and provided examples of public outcomes in higher education. However, these concepts lacked clarity, while at the same time the shaping effects of the market were sharply understood.
... The concern is that students' consumer attitude will undermine their academic engagement. There is evidence that an instrumental focus and a lack of personal engagement with knowledge have a negative impact on the quality of students' engagement with their education (Finney & Finney, 2010;Tomlinson 2017;Brooks & Abrahams 2018;Nixon et al., 2018) leading to lower levels of academic performance (Bunce et al. 2017;Bunce & Bennett, 2021). But it is not clear whether the lack of personal engagement is due to an instrumental focus limiting the transformational potential of students' educational experiences. ...
... However, when reflecting on what they gained from studying chemical engineering, students focused on how the bodies of knowledge they had studied transformed their ways of engaging with the world. This suggests that, rather than consumerist discourses necessarily undermining students' commitment to knowledge (Finney & Finney 2010;Bunce et al. 2017;Tomlinson 2017;Brooks & Abrahams, 2018;Nixon et al., 2018;Bunce & Bennett, 2021), students' reflections on what they gained from higher education was shaped by the context that was evoked when they are constructing their account (Trigwell & Ashwin 2006;Ashwin & Trigwell, 2012;Trigwell et al., 2013). This suggests that rather than students' roles being made up of instrumental and transformational elements (Dusi & Huisman, 2021), they are better understood as different kinds of accounts that students can give about their education depending on the context evoked when they give their account. ...
There are strong concerns about students perceiving their undergraduate education in instrumental, rather than transformational, ways. However, it is not clear whether seeing education instrumentally undermines students’ capacity to see their education as transformational. Based on data from a 7-year longitudinal study of chemical engineering students from three countries, this article shows that all students focused on instrumental outcomes from education in their first year of study. However, by their final year, students tended to give instrumental accounts of what they had gained from their overall university experience and transformational accounts of what they had gained from studying their subject. This suggests that, depending on the context evoked, most students can describe instrumental or transformational relationships to their education. However, developing transformational accounts on their education appeared to be dependent on studying knowledge-rich degrees that supported them to engage with the world from the perspective of a particular body of knowledge. This raises serious questions about educational policies that imply that instrumental outcomes are the most important outcomes from students’ educational experiences as such policies obscure the importance of transformational knowledge-focused relationships that change the way that students engage with the world.
... There is a growing body of higher education (HE) literature centred around unrealistic student expectations, as defined by the terms 'student entitlement' and 'student as customer' . 40,41,42,43,44,45,46 This has been driven by rising university fees, the marketisation of HE and competition between institutions. 47 Most HE establishments also face increasing resource pressures, with an inevitable impact on what they can realistically offer students. ...
... Tomlinson cautions that 'as HE is reconfigured from a largely public good to one that serves largely private interests and values, a dominant ethic of rights and entitlement has entered the fray' . 46 This is a particular concern for professional health care programmes which uphold the public good in the form of patient care. Universities are also increasingly expected to co-create learning experiences with students 48 and to regularly respond to their feedback, as evidenced by the rise in institutional and national student evaluation schemes. ...
Defining professionalism and developing educational interventions that foster and assess student professionalism are integral to dental education. Nevertheless, conceptual, methodological and pedagogic differences define the academic field, leaving students, educators and the profession itself struggling to make meaningful progress on how best to elicit and monitor dental student professionalism. This article proposes that more progress can be made on this important issue when a contextualised, sociological assessment of dentistry and dental professionalism is undertaken. We contend that identifying some of the socio-cultural demands in UK dental students' lives, and acknowledging how these pressures shape their interactions with the UK dental education system, provides a nuanced and contemporaneous understanding of what it means to be an oral health care professional at a time of social and health care upheaval. Dental educators can use this insight to work towards being more understanding of and responsive to dental student professional development.
... The demand for HE provision in the UK led to structural and epistemological changes in the 1990s and 2000s, resulting in a shift towards metrics beyond educational attainment data, to data which include student progress, experience, financial indicators, and employability. This transition to a data-based sector has led to comparability tables and competition between HE providers and such ratings are being premised on consumer-orientated metrics (Tomlinson, 2017). HE in England has become a key part of the State's soft power projection, a key political attribute for spreading the UK's influence in the world, and UK universities are ranked highly in international league tables (de Wit & Altbach, 2021). ...
... However, these transitions have also resulted in transitions for students, which arguably have led to a reconceptualisation of what it means to go to university and the student identity. Specifically in relation to student identity, burgeoning research has explored the impact of student fees and marketisation on students' emerging identities as consumers of HE (Budd, 2016;Brooks et al., 2021;Silverio et al., 2021;Tomlinson, 2017). In addition, research has also demonstrated how students tend to view degrees as commodities to be purchased rather than investing in a programme of learning which promotes intellectual engagement (Williams, 2013). ...
... Research on marketization mechanisms such as competition and students' free choice concludes that these incentivise grade inflation (Vlachos, 2019) and intensify teachers' work (Fitzgerald et al., 2019), affecting public and privately run schools alike (Lundahl et al., 2013). Students become consumers (Symonds, 2021;Tomlinson, 2017), teachers become entrepreneurial salespeople (Gupta, 2021) and principals become public relations managers rather than leaders of educational institutions (Bjursell, 2016). Arguably, this endangers democracy and exacerbate inequalities (Alexiadou et al., 2016;Verger et al., 2016), while disproportionately affecting already disadvantaged groups (Blackmore, 2022;Offutt-Chaney, 2022). ...
... Relationships between stakeholders are constructed differently by these markets. Where other privatisation mechanisms such as free choice position students as costumers (Symonds, 2021;Tomlinson, 2017) and teachers as salespersons (Gupta, 2021), procurement erases both teachers and students as actors, casting them instead as commodities to be managed and traded. Teachers working in MAE experience intensification of work and loss of professional autonomy (Holmqvist, 2022b;Wärvik, 2013), just as in other education systems characterised by competition and devolution (Fitzgerald et al., 2019). ...
Management tools do more than manage and organise – they classify and contribute to the construction of education-as-concept. This article shows how tendering-based procurement, used by Swedish municipalities to outsource adult education to non-public providers, works to commensurate ‘education’ into measurable tender evaluation criteria. Drawing on the sociology of conventions approach and 47 procurement examples, I show that tendering evaluation criteria define what constitutes ‘desirable’ education through various degrees of commensuration. Further, I show how mechanisms intended to evaluate and compare bids also construct the value of education different – for example, promoting cost-efficiency as valuable; constructing education as an on-demand service; or by assuming a supply-and-demand approach and viewing value as fluid. Based on the exemplified commensurations and valuations, I discuss the consequences of education privatization via tendering-based procurement. Since competition is inherently built into the tool, it becomes valuable. Further, procurement recasts education stakeholders into market roles and reshapes their relationships. In short, the article underscores the importance of understanding how education privatization is organized and what role management tools play in shaping education, calling for critical education research to delve into their dynamics and impact.
... Moreover, between configuring the institution as a business, and the pivoting of research towards commercial ends, the reconstitution of the student-university relationship is additionally telling, with the grip of 'student as consumers' models (c.f. Partington, 2020;Tomlinson, 2017). This approach, the treating of students as consumers rather than learners, emphasises customer 'satisfaction' and employability outcomes over critical thinking and intellectual growth (Naidoo & Williams, 2015). ...
Universities are increasingly led by non-academic managers and corporate leaders, rather than academics. This shift comes after the adoption of capitalist logics and corporate practices which undermine the core purpose of higher education. The corporatisation of university governance has shifted the academy away from serving the public good, instead driving profit-driven agendas, academic-military alliances, and the marginalisation of liberatory and transformative scholarship. In this paper, we contemplate a radical reimagination of the current model of governance to reclaim the university as a site of knowledge creation, dissemination and social critique that values diversity, plurality and positive transformation. Drawing on principles of anarcho-syndicalism, we propose a decentralised, democratic model of academic governance that empowers marginalised voices, fosters critical inquiry, and prioritises collective wellbeing over capitalist interests. We emphasise that any reimagining of academic governance must incorporate decolonial and intersectional perspectives to challenge the colonial and imperial legacies that continue to shape higher education.
... Marketisation ostensibly awards prospective students the freedom and sovereignty of rational choice among universities, who are then both compelled to compete with other universities for student custom and seek student satisfaction with the service they provide. As tuition fees have increased, notably in England where fees tripled to £9000 per year in 2012 and fixed at £9250 in 2017, scholars have examined a consumer orientation to HE among students and the associated consequences for pedagogy (Ashwin, Abbas, and McLean 2016;Bunce, Baird, and Jones 2017;Molesworth, Nixon, and Scullion 2009;Naidoo and Jamieson 2005;Tomlinson 2016Tomlinson , 2017). Yet, it is not tuition fees alone that account for the prevalence of a student conceptualised as a consumer. ...
The introduction of market mechanisms into higher education (HE) systems has profoundly reshaped the sector. One prominent aspect of such reforms has been the conceptualisation of the student as a consumer, ostensibly empowered by choice and seeking value for money from their tuition fees. In this article, we report the findings of an empirical study of student representations when HE becomes ‘free’, after four decades of marketisation. The analysis was conducted in Chile, where the HE sector has undergone a controversial reform that removed tuition fees for low and middle income undergraduate students known as Gratuidad. Considering the importance of the student-consumer subjectivity invoked by proponents of marketisation, how are HE students discursively constructed in a context of fee removal? Based on a discourse analysis of news media, we present three representations of undergraduate students during public discussion of Gratuidad that were common in their negative portrayal: students as (1) egocentric, (2) victims of discrimination, and (3) marionettes. Our work thus indicates that in a culture of marketisation, policy efforts designed to democratise can be overshadowed by strong media discourses opposing government efforts to publicly fund HE.
... Studies of English student attitudes to higher education identify multiple ideas of the purposes of higher education, in which personal development, knowledgebased learning, preparation for work, graduate earnings and doing good in the world all figure. However, a minority of students have adopted the student-as-consumer notion fostered by official policy (Tomlinson, 2017). Remarking on social media during an academic symposium on the neglect of the common good, Clara Miller notes 'an increase in self-actualisation' without any connection to a sense of social obligation. ...
Anglophone societies in which the sovereign individual is primary vis and vis social relations, and policy focuses on economic competition and consumption in education, find it hard to grasp non-pecuniary outcomes in higher education. These include the self-formation of students as persons and collective goods like knowledge, technological capability, social inclusion, political connectedness, tolerance and global understanding. While other cultures generate insights into non-pecuniary outcomes, the paper focuses critically on meanings of ‘public’ in English: (1) public as state, (2) public good as universal well-being, (3) public as inclusive-communicative as in ‘public opinion’, (4) public and private goods in economics. None of these meanings of ‘public’ enables the resolution of the non-pecuniary outcomes of higher education. The paper tackles four central questions. First, why is there an undue emphasis on the individual and individualised pecuniary benefits, vis a vis social relations, in Euro-American and especially Anglophone societies? Second, can these societies strengthen public or common goods by augmenting the state in higher education? Third, what other practices of public and common might advance non-pecuniary outcomes? Fourth, how to advance collective outcomes beyond the nation-state? The paper finds that while Anglophone public good is constrained by the state in capitalist society, higher education’s role in the production and distribution of common good through primarily local networks, while also pressuring central states to provide support, offers a promising way forward.
... Following the English Dearing Report, several studies have added to the customer relationship discourse in the higher education sector. For example, concerning the extent of student selfperception as consumers, Tomlinson (2017) presented the result of a survey across seven UK HEIs, which showed the increasing identification of consumer-oriented approaches and variation in attitudes and resulting implications for education policymakers. ...
Purpose
This paper examines the relationship between university resources and student complaint management in Malaysian higher education institutions (HEIs). The paper is premised on organisational justice theory (OJT), which conceptualizes complaint handling, satisfaction and fairness among stakeholders in the educational domain.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a quantitative method using a survey research design. An online survey is administered to 381 students in three selected HEIs in Malaysia. Data are analysed and tested using the SmartPLS 3.0 algorithm to evaluate measurement and structural models.
Findings
Students’ experience in the use of online and offline university resources varies across different levels of education. The findings indicate that offline and online resources contribute substantially to students’ complaints. This study establishes the significance of an effective complaint-handling mechanism for continuous feedback and improvement in HEIs.
Originality/value
Within the context of policy in HEIs, the originality of this paper lies in its focus on the relationship between resources and student complaints based on the diverse complaint-handling mechanisms in Malaysian HEIs.
... The first is the tension between students as consumers and learners and the reality of operating in a neoliberal UK HE sector (Brooks & Abrahams, 2020;Danvers, 2021;Molesworth et al., 2011). This marketised context and considerable levels of personal debt has raised expectations from students on what they perceive a high quality "return on investment" should look like (Tomlinson, 2017). There is a risk that students fail to appreciate or understand departmental efforts at recognising and upholding other socio-environmental benefits that sustainable and inclusive fieldtrips generate, especially if institutional marketing teams continue to push for, and spotlight, international learning opportunities as a "competitive edge." ...
The Higher Education sector has a critical role to play in shaping our global response to “wicked problems” and nowhere is this more evident than in university research, teaching, and public engagement on sustainability that seeks to tackle the increasingly perilous environmental situation. However, despite this critical civic mission, the Global North HE sector faces growing scrutiny and critique over the mechanisms, cultural norms and practices in which staff, students, research partners, and others operate. This paper explores one facet of this scrutiny by focusing on the recent internationalisation of residential undergraduate fieldtrips within geography, earth, and environmental science programmes. Using a UK Department as a case study, it will document the significant carbon emissions and necessary offsetting costs associated with residential undergraduate fieldtrips, particularly those overseas. It will finish by discussing the Department’s revision to its fieldtrip design through the creation of a value-based fieldtrip framework grounded in the twin agendas of sustainability and Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI). This “sustainable and inclusive” fieldtrip framework becomes an important way for the Department to reduce the environmental impacts of this teaching activity and strengthen its accessibility and social justice work, thereby ensuring that the Global North HE sector leads by example.
... Universities in the UK now have the characteristics of both public sector organisations in, for example, costly staffing, and the characteristics of private sector organisations as they compete in a global marketplace for students. Engagement with this global marketplace has inherently brought with it changing student expectations as customers (Calma & Dickson-Deane, 2020;Guilbault, 2016Guilbault, , 2018, consumers or service-users (OfS, 2023;Tomlinson, 2017). Such marketisation and performativity have thus established new frameworks to govern academic work and academic lives (e.g. ...
... Although the project team hesitated to intervene in ways that detracted from the programme's co-creative ethos, some participants interpreted this lack of intervention as logistical inadequacy. In university settings, activity is often so structured as to feel depersonalised (e.g. through automatic timetabling); this depersonalisation aligns with wider trends of university marketisation and increasingly prominent perceptions of higher education students as consumers (Tomlinson, 2017). Creative Connections aimed to offer partially structured but highly personalised experiences for its participants. ...
Studies show that university students report higher levels of mental health problems and lower well-being than their non-student peers. As demand for university well-being services increases, so too does the need for alternative interventions to support student well-being for students in various states of mental health. In this paper, we introduce I Belong: Creative Connections, an arts-based intervention that aims to decrease student loneliness, increase senses of belonging, and support positive mental health and well-being by facilitating social connections through fun, positive, shared experiences based on students’ own interests. We review the first two pilot years of the programme to evaluate the feasibility of the intervention using both quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (focus groups and interviews) methods. We aimed to investigate if Creative Connections reached the intended participants, to evaluate if unconventional execution of focus groups can be used to effectively gain insight into student’s experiences of the programme, and to assess the feasibility of a co-creative approach to the programme’s design, implementation, and evaluation. Evaluation results show that Creative Connections is a feasible intervention that achieves its envisaged aims. These results also offer insight into how the programme’s co-creative approach may be adjusted to better support students’ social experiences of the programme.
... The service aspect in higher education includes various matters related to the services provided by institutions to students, both in academic and non-academic contexts. Academic services include everything related to formal education [9,10], including: 1) Teaching and Learning: An overview of effective teaching strategies, the use of technology in learning, as well as innovative approaches to delivering academic material. 2) Academic Advising: An understanding of the role of academic counselors in helping students plan curriculum, select courses, and navigate academic challenges. ...
This study aims to analyze the student satisfaction index for the services of the Department of Islamic Education Management at IAIN Sultan Amai Gorontalo in 2023. Interview methods, participatory observations, and document studies were used to collect data from students who were active in the department. Participants were asked to assess various aspects of the service, including the quality of teaching, facilities, academic support, and participation in extracurricular activities. The collected data is analyzed to evaluate the overall level of student satisfaction. The main findings show that student satisfaction with the services of the Islamic Education Management Department is relatively high. Students give positive ratings of teaching quality, availability of facilities, academic support, and opportunities for participation in extracurricular activities. However, the study also identified several areas where improvements can be made to improve student satisfaction in the future. This study provides valuable insights for university managers to improve the quality of service and student learning experience in the Department of Islamic Education Management at IAIN Sultan Amai Gorontalo.
... Growing pressures for accountability, transparency, and consistency from universities, government and from potentially litigious students are driving the need to account for validity and reliability in assessment (1). The increase in undergraduate fees further heightens the need for a robust assessment process (2). The quest for reliability can, however, skew assessment away from judgements of complex learning towards the assessment of simple and unambiguous achievements (3). ...
Pressure for accountability, transparency, and consistency of the assessment process is increasing. For assessing complex cognitive achievements, essays are probably the most familiar method, but essay scoring is notoriously unreliable. To address issues of assessment process, accountability, and consistency, this study explores essay marking practice amongst examiners in a UK dental school using a qualitative approach. Think aloud interviews were used to gain insight into how examiners make judgements whilst engaged in marking essays. The issues were multifactorial. These interviews revealed differing interpretations of assessment and corresponding individualised practices which contributed to skewing the outcome when essays were marked. Common to all examiners was the tendency to rank essays rather than adhere to criterion-referencing. Whether examiners mark holistically or analytically, essay marking guides presented a problem to inexperienced examiners, who needed more guidance and seemed reluctant to make definitive judgements. The marking and re-marking of scripts revealed that only 1 of the 9 examiners achieved the same grade category. All examiners awarded different scores corresponding to at least one grade difference; the magnitude of the difference was unrelated to experience examining. This study concludes that in order to improve assessment, there needs to be a shared understanding of standards and of how criteria are to be used for the benefit of staff and students.
... The higher education environment is also undergoing a period of significant change [28]. Viewing students as consumers is one of the changes observed in higher education [29,30]. Scholars found that watching time can greatly affect the promotion and admission of higher education institutions by analyzing the data of the UhamkaTV YouTube channel [31]. ...
Social media platforms provide the public with a forum for interaction and communication with tourism destinations, playing a significant role in the shaping and dissemination of destination images. Similarly, social media plays a vital role in the construction and propagation of online images for higher education institutions. For instance, indicators such as likes, shares, and visits on Weibo can serve as measures of public engagement with university social media. To reveal the triggering rules of social media engagement by projected images of destinations and related factors, this paper builds a Bayesian model using data from posts and interactions on the official Sina Weibo account of a Chinese university from 2018 to 2023. This model simulates to infer the optimal decisions that trigger university social media engagement.
... This consumerist approach to education, as Naidoo and Jamieson (2005) affirm, causes students to shirk their learning responsibilities, viewing education as a product for consumption rather than an interactive developmental process. Such perspectives can potentially reshape the student-teacher relationship, potentially reducing the role of educators to mere providers of a service rather than facilitators of knowledge exploration and academic growth (Tomlinson, 2016). In SA programmes, this consumerist mindset can be even more pronounced due to the high costs and prestige associated with international education (Naidoo and Jamieson, 2005). ...
Purpose
The marketisation of higher education fosters the notion of students as consumers, highlighting the shifting dynamics of student–teacher relationships. This paper aims to contribute to ongoing discussions about students as consumers and their involvement in pedagogical practices. We explore students’ experiences in short-term study abroad (SA) programmes that involve collaborative learning, examining how a consumerism-oriented approach affects students’ perceptions of their pedagogical identities and student–teacher pedagogical relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative exploratory study was conducted to capture students’ rich and subjective perceptions and experiences. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 15 Chinese undergraduate students who participated in a short-term SA programme at a UK university. Following data translation and transcription, a thematic analysis approach facilitated our exploration.
Findings
Chinese students engage in SA programmes as a strategic investment in personal growth and transformation, with their consumer-oriented identity fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with educators and group members. This consumer mindset appears to enhance active student engagement and, to some extent, create reciprocal student–teacher interactions through power sharing and collaborative involvement.
Originality/value
This study presents empirical data exploring the impact of consumer identity on the dynamics of student–teacher relationships in the SA context. It provides recommendations for implementing pedagogical approaches designed to mediate the influence of consumerism on student engagement, particularly in shaping collaborative student–teacher relationships. This study offers insights for future research on the effects of consumerism in higher education within cross-cultural contexts.
... The role of educators extends beyond mere instruction; they serve as conduits and exemplars of life values. Scholarly investigations reveal that educators who embody the values they promote positively influence students' perceptions and attitudes (Mata et al., 2012;Petruzziello et al., 2023;Tomlinson, 2017). Furthermore, educators who prioritize values education contribute to the cultivation of conscientious citizens adept at addressing the ethical intricacies of contemporary society (Campbell, 2014;Venkataiah, 1998). ...
In the dynamic landscape of education, the exploration of life values has emerged as a cornerstone of personal and societal development. This study delves into the shared perceptions of life values between university lecturers and pedagogical students in Vietnam. It seeks to understand the depth of their agreement and the potential ramifications for pedagogical practices. Additionally, this research investigates the multifaceted manifestations of life values among pedagogical students, as perceived by both students and lecturers. A questionnaire was meticulously designed, featuring two vital components: (1) the conceptual awareness of “life value”, and (2) manifestations of life values of pedagogical students. A diverse array of participants, consisting of 816 pedagogical students and 98 lecturers from prominent institutions, was involved in the survey. The collected data underwent rigorous mathematical and statistical analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods were employed, unveiling compelling insights. The perceptions of life values among participants underscored their significance. Both students (86.0%) and lecturers (78.6%) held the perspective that life values encompassed meaningful and beneficial elements. Furthermore, their convergence on the importance of life values in guiding various life aspects is evident. Regarding the manifestations of life values among pedagogical students, nuanced perspectives emerged. Students displayed attributes such as self-care, positive attitudes, willingness to help, and emotional control. While this study offers valuable insights, limitations such as sample specificity and self-reported data bias should be acknowledged. Nevertheless, it lays the foundation for understanding the role of life values in education and informs potential interventions to enrich the educational journey for students and educators alike. Received: 27 October 2023 / Accepted: 23 February 2024 / Published: 5 March 2024
... The way the rise of academic capitalism and neoliberalism alongside changes in organization of academic labour, has increased stress and pressure as well as the experiences of both professional and personal identity among academic staff in universities is already well-reported (e.g. Bottrell and Manathunga, 2018;Gretzky and Lerner, 2021;Holmwood, 2016;Tomlinson, 2017;Urciuoli, 2018). ...
Public debate and media attention concerning mental health problems, stress, psycho-emotional vulnerabilities, and anxiety among university students has reached record level. Informed by media representations, student mental health guides, and our observations, we focus on the ethos of vulnerability as an articulation of psychologized student subjectivity in Finnish academia. We explore the multiple registers in which the ethos of vulnerability tends to operate as an assemblage to depict and govern student subjects.
... "We asked students in groups to read 10 Preconceptions about what a CS course encapsulates are tied to how modern university education is perceived. As university fees increase, students demand greater value for their money, representing the "student consumer" [53]. This consumer identity may legitimise student expectations that educators must teach the technical content students want to be taught, rather than soft skills. ...
Student employability is a key goal of a computer science undergraduate education. A soft skills gap has previously been reported between employer requirements and the skills graduates offer, suggesting that educators are inadequately preparing students for their future careers. It is important to identify the links between educators and the materials they claim to teach as it offers insight into how non-technical aspects of software engineering are promoted. We report on two studies where we first explore the staff perceptions of embedded soft skills in five computer science undergraduate courses, before identifying soft skill presence in curricula across eight UK universities. A multi-site interview with educators identified core skills of critical thinking, communication, and teamwork being included in curricula for student employability. Staff believe students experience a temporal delay between being introduced to skills and actually valuing them. In the second study, we mined publicly-available course and module information, and then analysed non-technical skill references. Soft skills are commonly found in proximity to other soft skills, suggesting they are taught or assessed together. Software engineering was seen to be closely linked to teamwork and communication, emphasising it is taught as a social enterprise. Taking these two studies together, educators show a close alignment to curricula, and the skills valued by higher education institutions reflect the skills valued in software engineering industries, suggesting the skill gap is the result of student misconceptions.
Drawing together the edited collection, this conclusion chapter summarises four main themes apparent across chapters. These themes include Gendered Islamophobia, Muslims as under-served and seen to be undeserving, the dynamic and fluid nature of Islamophobia, and Hope. Whilst there is overlap in these themes, and indeed in the messaging within individual chapters, these four themes represent our collective disruption and symbolise the burgeoning presence of Muslim academics, staff, and students in the sector. This chapter concludes with future directions and poses a series of reflexive questions for readers to consider, as we all play a part in enacting transformative disruption and change.
Research on institutional logics provides ample evidence that market logic and its associated practices have spread across fields within capitalist societies – a phenomenon commonly called ‘marketization’. However, logics research has paid little attention to the individual‐level mental processes that facilitate marketization. Of particular interest are the processes that can lead a stakeholder who embraces a non‐market logic to continue to support an organization that introduces a new market practice (hereafter a ‘marketizer’), even though the stakeholder perceives this practice to violate values encoded in the non‐market logic she adheres to. Drawing on the legitimacy‐as‐perception perspective and insights from social psychology, we argue that four socio‐cognitive mechanisms increase the likelihood that the stakeholder will continue to support a marketizer: compensation, buffering, dependence, and adjustment. After illustrating our theory with the example of soccer fandom, we discuss its broader implications for the phenomenon of marketization. We argue that it would be misguided to assume that marketization can only proceed to the extent that it is deemed desirable by the majority of affected stakeholders. Based on this insight, we launch a reflection on actions that stakeholders can take to curb the spread of market practices that violate values that most of them hold.
This chapter offers reflexive-reflective accounts of three women management academics. We draw upon socio-cultural perspectives of identity, to examine who, as management scholars, we think we are and should be—the ontological assumptions that underpin our self—and to what extent we are who we want to be (our assumed identity). We examine the multiple tensions that we have faced as we tried to craft a true self versus that self that has been expected by others, within our institutions and beyond. In our professional life we operate under multiple identity pressures and expectations—not just our own but a wider academic community, neoliberal university economics, students. We thus observe incidents where our assumed identity has been rejected and an identity ascribed to us, which we have accepted to varying degrees. As we have navigated these tensions there is though evidence to suggest that we have simultaneously disciplined ourselves, being complicit in constraining who we can become, and thus who we are as women academics. We note though that such tensions are of course apparent not only within the academy; that we are not in this way, distinct or “special”. We are for sure, not independent of the social pressures and norms that permeate all work. Indeed, such examples as these could undoubtedly be found in the life-worlds of managers and employees across organisations.
This chapter is dedicated to the concept of marketisation in HE and its relation to neoliberalism. Drawing on the previous chapter, it offers an assessment of the idea that neoliberalism is the driver of marketisation. The chapter differentiates five areas: market, competition, finance, the state, and universities. Each will show that different approaches to neoliberalism fit these themes best.
The concept of social class is now more fragmented in contemporary Britain. It remains a contested concept, one which is difficult to define as definitions have changed over time. It is more complicated than was previously the case with the three-tiered system of upper, middle and lower classes as Savage et al. (2013) purport. The BBCs 2011 Great British Class Survey was the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK, with 161,400 web respondents as well as a nationally representative sample survey, which included questions, which measured social, cultural and economic capital. Analysis of the data resulted in a new breakdown of class structure. Whilst the traditional elite, middle-class and working-class categories still exist, the latter can be further divided into four subcategories, new affluent workers, traditional working class, emergent service workers and the precariat (ibid.). At these lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, ‘precariats’ are characterised by very low levels of capital whilst emergent service workers are relatively young, with a mean age of 34, who tend not to be graduates or come from middle-class families. This is significant because students are allocated the class of their parents, argue Savage et al. (2013). Goldthorpe (2013) concurs acknowledging middle-class parents protect their children from downward mobility. The Boston Consulting Group and Sutton Trust call this building a “glass floor” (2017, p. 15). This suggests those from working-class backgrounds, who are studying for professional careers more associated with the middle classes, are likely to experience the discomfiture of being what Bourdieu considered “a fish out of water”. Caught between worlds, in limbo whilst they aspire to better futures but not having yet arrived at them.
Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are under-represented as students in higher education in England and Wales. Moreover, the communities rarely feature in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategies and practices including race equality initiatives. Drawing upon the reflections and experiences of 14 equality, diversity and inclusion staff across 11 universities (7 post-1992 and 4 pre-1992) in England and Wales, we explore the technologies through which Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are made (in)visible in university EDI discursive spaces. Interview participants included Gypsy, Roma and Traveller academics; subject librarians; Deans of EDI; Widening Participation Managers; Inclusion and Equality Advisors and Managers; and Researchers and Leads on Race Equality Charters and Decolonising the Curriculum. Through inductively analysing our findings, we suggest that the normalisation of neoliberalism across the higher education academy in England and Wales has resulted in Gypsies, Roma and Travellers being constructed as ‘irregular’ in higher education EDI discourse. We demonstrate how neoliberal-informed discursive rules, acting as ‘systems of exclusion’, control what is seen as a legitimate concern and support higher education institutions to intentionally ‘look through’ inequality issues affecting the communities. Informational difficulties, institutional focus on ‘value for money’ and numbers of students which prioritise the market-driven ‘business case’ over social justice, act as technologies of invisibilisation, positioning these diverse communities as not being ‘within the true’ in relation to institutional neoliberal discourses and ‘regimes of truth’. This culminates in ‘institutional inertia’ and neglect towards EDI issues, further contributing to the under-representation of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in higher education.
This chapter engages with the historical developments of the public university: it provides an overview of its rise in the post-war period and subsequent decline with the rise of academic capitalism in the 1980s. Post-war mass higher education set the society in motion towards something like a knowledge society, a society where knowledge is widely disseminated and no longer confined to the elite. Universities embodied societies’ democratic aspirations. Access to higher education was deemed a priority. Furthermore, it was an era where the institutional autonomy of university was respected, and there was a de facto commitment to academic freedom. Academic capitalism represents the contemporary era where universities have to prove their value to the world of practical affairs. Academic disciplines are re-stratified based largely on extra-academic applicability. In a nutshell, the theory provides an account of universities as we know them. England and the USA will be the focus of this chapter. These two countries represent some of the clearest trajectories of the public university. They also stand as pioneers in the world of higher education, subsequently trailblazing a model of the university which has been widely followed globally in recent decades.
This study aims to examine how sociodemographic characteristics contribute to consumer empowerment in Indonesia. Systematic random sampling was used to pick 4200 respondents from 28 of the 34 provinces in the nation. The study examined the connections between sociodemographic traits such as income, location, age, gender, work status, and educational attainment and consumer empowerment. In-person interviews were conducted using structured questionnaires, and multiple linear regression and independent t-tests were utilized for statistical analysis. The overall consumer empowerment index for Indonesia was 32.06, according to the data, with rural areas having a lower rating than metropolitan areas. Significant differences were also seen between the two locations in terms of complaint behavior and legal and consumer protection organization expertise. The highest index, however, was seen in preferences for local products. According to the study, consumer empowerment was significantly impacted by just three of the six independent factors (income, education level, and geographic region). Consumer empowerment indexes were higher among respondents who lived in metropolitan areas and had more incomes and educational attainment. These results highlight the necessity for consumers to take an active role in their empowerment to guarantee that their obligations and rights are fulfilled.
Student academic representation is a staple feature in UK and international higher education. It provides a vital quality function whereby students, who are elected representatives of their programme, canvas the opinions of peers to inform quality assurance processes. In the UK, there is increasing regulatory pressure for universities and student unions to be dual owners of representation activity and much work has been done to enact this model. Nonetheless, little is known about the experiences of those serving as student representatives, despite this being a community of thousands of students across the UK, who hold an instrumental position in institutional quality assurance. We developed an instrument (SARA) to evaluate experiences of 773 active student representatives from 15 UK HE institutions. It explored key areas, including recruitment, training, working approaches and development outcomes. Data indicated low engagement in training in some key areas (e.g., representation of diverse groups and data gathering) and a narrow range of working approaches. These patterns may compromise the value of student representation both from the institutional perspective and that of individual representatives seeking to enhance their skills. Recommendations are suggested for enhancing future practice.
Huijarisyndrooma viittaa ajattelutapaan, jossa yksilö kokee itsensä vähemmän päteväksi kuin hän todellisuudessa on. Huijareiksi itsensä kokevat suoriutuvat opinnoistaan ja työstään erinomaisesti saaden tunnustusta muilta, mutta uskovat silti onnistuneensa antamaan vain vaikutelman kyvykkyydestään. Tarkastelemme tässä artikkelissa suomalaisten yliopisto-opiskelijoiden huijarisyndroomaa: ovatko jotkut heistä muita alttiimpia kokemaan epävarmuutta omasta osaamisestaan, ja ovatko epävarmuuden kokemukset sekä huijarisyndroomaan viittaavat suhtautumistavat yhteydessä opiskelijoiden luokkataustaan, sukupuoleen ja ikään? Tutkimuskysymyksiin vastaamme vuonna 2022 kerätyn kyselyaineiston (n=4994) avulla. Tarkastelemme huijarisyndroomaa ilmiönä, joka liittyy koulutuspoliittisten ja yhteiskunnallisten vaatimusten sekä yksilön elämänkokemusten myötä muotoutuneen habituksen väliseen suhteeseen. Noin joka neljäs kyselyymme vastanneista koki voimakkaita huijarituntemuksia. Voimakkaimpia huijarituntemuksia kokivat muunsukupuoliset, naiset, vähävaraisista työväenluokkaisista perheistä lähtöisin olevat sekä nuorimmat opiskelijat. Vähiten huijarituntemuksia kokivat yli 40-vuotiaat aikuisopiskelijat ja kotitaustaltaan yläluokkaan itsensä identifioineet opiskelijat. Huijarisyndroomaa voidaan lievittää yksilökeskeisillä keinoilla. Varsinainen ongelma ei ole näillä poistettavissa, sillä huijarisyndrooma on enemmänkin looginen reaktio koulutuspoliittisiin vaatimuksiin kilpailua, vertailua ja suoritusten mittaamista korostavassa yhteiskunnassa.
The previous chapter established the white-BAME attainment gap as a longstanding trend in UK universities, one that intersects with, but is not reducible to, class and educational background. This chapter focuses on BAME student choice in higher education. Though one of the more well-trodden paths in attainment gap research, previous studies have been sometimes guilty of taking a deficit approach which undervalues the personal narratives and motivations which may guide and constrain BAME student action. This chapter uses survey and interview data to explore students’ core decision-making: why study at university, which university, and which degree programme. This reveals the cultural and social capital at students’ disposal, foregrounding higher education as a key instrument for social mobility. Qualitative accounts importantly highlight differences between first- and second-generation immigrant narratives, which in turn shape students’ motivations for, and adaptation to, university study.
In England, France, and Germany, the decades prior to Brexit and COVID-19 were marked by the growing significance of the international dimension across national HE systems as well as the Europeanisation of the latter. This chapter first provides an overview of European HE policy integration during the post-war period with a particular focus on student mobility policies that have institutionalised the latter, most notably the Erasmus programme and the Bologna process. Key events surrounding the integration of European HE are summarised in a timeline. The overview of the EU’s HE policies is followed by an introduction into the HE systems of England, France, and Germany; and a characterisation of their respective HE internationalisation strategies until the beginning of the age of disruption in 2016.
Currently, there is a lack of empirical research on the strategies for social reproduction, including study destination and language choices, employed by African international students in China. There is plenty of evidence of ‘Asian’ students and families’ strategies of transnational social reproduction and self-transformation in the field of English language learning and the westward directionality of international student mobility (ISM) (Choi, British Journal of Sociology of Education 42:374–387, 2021; Kim, British Journal of Sociology of Education 37:30–50, 2016; Nguyen, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 19:141–162, 2022; Park, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 14:443–455, 2011; Seilhamer, Gender, neoliberalism and distinction through linguistic capital: Taiwanese narratives of struggle and strategy, Multilingual Matters, 2019; Shin and Park, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 37:443–452, 2016; Waters, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31:179–192, 2006).
The cry that today’s higher education students are particularly individualist is a commonly-heard one. In England, the considerable personal cost of tuition is often blamed for creating a series of negative student traits, including consumerism (an idea that one has bought the right to a degree) and individualism (a sense of the individual as the beneficiary of the bought product, as against any sense of collectivism, or education as public good). This paper explores one element of students’ purported individualism: their resistance to group-work as an aspect of assessment. Presenting interview data with university students in England, it argues that such student disquiet does not stem from a resistance to collectivism in general. Using pragmatic sociology, the paper considers students’ often gentle and humorous comments about group-work as critique, not complaint. Rather than understanding students’ resistance to group-work as individualist grievance about doing something they would simply rather not do, this way of conceptualising their comments understands students as making critical points about what should be assessed for at university. It argues that this way of thinking about resistance to group-work leads us to take that resistance seriously, and in turn to take students seriously as interlocuters on educational matters.
Objectives
There is a range of factors that could affect an undergraduate students’ progress in being able to identify and capitalise on their employability prospects. These factors could be influenced by how the students see themselves and their capabilities and the value of undertaking certain employability activities. Our research sought to explore how students perceived their employability and the factors underpinning such perceptions.
Method
Undergraduate Social Sciences students took part. Perceptions of employability were obtained from two cohorts at the same university. Cohort 1 comprised 30 students across eight focus group interviews, which were conducted in 2013. Cohort 2 comprised 43 students across 11 focus groups with data collected in 2021.
Results
Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to extract two major themes: (1) Having the right ‘equipment’ for successful employability and (2) Social ecological factors. The first theme included taking responsibility, having self-confidence and relevant skills, recognising that experience could be more important than knowledge, having a clear identity, being passionate about a field, and self-awareness. The second theme comprised three sub-themes: (1) Microsystem direct influences on a student’s employability, (2) Dysfunctional mesosystems when microsystems around student employability clash, and (3) Macrosystem indirect wider national social influences on employability.
Conclusions
Implications for bolstering employability support include recognising the social ecologies surrounding students and the need for consistent messaging across microsystems that students are likely to encounter; more harmonious mesosystems should be created to help students to obtain more personalised, time-sensitive knowledge and skills to use on their employability journeys.
Few issues have attracted as much policy interest in the tertiary sector as graduate employability. Graduate employability positions universities and their students as key players in the national economy. At the same time, the standard conception of graduate employability, as it has evolved from human capital theory and modified by neoliberal ideology, has met with significant criticism. This paper reports on our analysis of the strategic plans of Australia’s 42 operating universities current in 2018 to better understand (1) the extent to which employability was embedded in each university’s strategic priorities and (2) the ways in which employability was characterised in those plans. Our paper provides empirical evidence of the way in which Australian universities universally and uniformly adopted a particular model of employability, simultaneously claiming its distinctiveness. Our analysis suggests the need for Australian universities to take a more thoughtful and nuanced approach to graduate employability.
The paper sets out a conceptual analysis of student performativity in higher education as a mirror image of teacher performativity. The latter is well known and refers to targets, evaluations and performance indicators connected with the measurement of the teaching and research quality of university academics. The former is defined as the way that students are evaluated on the basis of how they perform at university in bodily, dispositional and emotional terms. Specifically, this includes rules on class attendance and assessment (‘presenteeism’), an increasing emphasis on participation in class and in groups as part of learning and assessment regimes (‘learnerism’) and the surveillance of students’ emotional development and values (‘soulcraft’). Student performativity is symbolic of the ‘performing self’ in wider society and is transforming learning at university from a private space into a public performance. This negatively impacts student rights to be free to learn as autonomous adults.
In the global university sector competitive funding models are progressively becoming the norm, and institutions/courses are frequently now subject to the same kind of consumerist pressures typical of a highly marketised environment. In the United Kingdom, for example, students are increasingly demonstrating customer-like behaviour and are now demanding even more ‘value’ from institutions. Value, though, is a slippery concept, and has proven problematic both in terms of its conceptualisation and measurement. This article explores the relationship between student value and higher education, and, via study in one United Kingdom business school, suggests how this might be better understood and operationalised. Adopting a combined qualitative/quantitative approach, this article also looks to identify which of the key value drivers has most practical meaning and, coincidentally, identifies a value-related difference between home and international students.
In the context of widening participation policies, polarisation of types of university recruitment and a seemingly related high drop‐out rate amongst first generation, working class students, we focus on the provision offered by the universities to their students. We discuss how middle class and working class student experiences compare across four different types of higher education institution (HEI). Exploring differences between the middle class and working class students locates widening participation discourse within a discussion of classed privilege. We conclude that, whilst there is a polarisation of recruitment between types of universities, there exists a spectrum of interrelated and differentiated experiences across and within the HEIs. These are structured by the differential wealth of the universities, their structure and organisation; their ensuing expectations of the students, the subject sub‐cultures, and the students’ own socio‐cultural locations; namely class, gender, age and ethnicity.
In this paper we express concerns that the marketisation of British higher education that has accompanied its expansion has resulted in some sections becoming pedagogically limited. We draw from Fromm's humanist philosophy based on having to argue that the current higher education (HE) market discourse promotes a mode of existence, where students seek to ‘have a degree’ rather than ‘be learners’. This connects pedagogic theory to a critique of consumer culture. We argue that a ‘market-led’ university responds to consumer calls by focusing on the content students want at a market rate. It may decrease intellectual complexity if this is not in demand, and increase connections with the workplace if this is desired. Once, under the guidance of the academic, the undergraduate had the potential to be transformed into a scholar, someone who thinks critically, but in our consumer society such ‘transformation’ is denied and ‘confirmation’ of the student as consumer is favoured. We further argue that there is a danger that the new HE's link to business through the expansion of vocational courses in business, marketing and related offerings, inevitably embeds expanded HE in a culture of having. This erodes other possible roles for education because a consumer society is unlikely to support a widened HE sector that may work to undermine its core ideology.
The marketisation of higher education is a growing worldwide trend. Increasingly, market steering is replacing or supplementing government steering. Tuition fees are being introduced or increased, usually at the expense of state grants to institutions. Grants for student support are being replaced or supplemented by loans. Commercial rankings and league tables to guide student choice are proliferating with institutions devoting increasing resources to marketing, branding and customer service. The UK is a particularly good example of this, not only because it is a country where marketisation has arguably proceeded furthest, but also because of the variations that exist as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland increasingly diverge from England. In Everything for Sale, Roger Brown argues that the competitive regime that is now applicable to our Higher Education system was the logical, and possibly inevitable, outcome of a process that began with the introduction of full cost fees for overseas students in 1980. Through chapters including: • Markets and Non-Markets. • The Institutional Pattern of Provision. • The Funding of Research. • The Funding of Student Education. • Quality Assurance. • The Impact of Marketisation: Efficiency, diversity and equity; He shows how the evaluation and funding of research, the funding of student education, quality assurance, and the structure of the system have increasingly been organised on market or quasi-market lines. As well as helping to explain the evolution of British higher education over the past thirty years, the book contains some important messages about the consequences of introducing or extending market competition in universities' core activities of teaching and research. This timely and comprehensive book is essential reading for all academics at University level and anyone involved in Higher Education policy.
Although education is generally considered to be an important part of the welfare state, it is largely absent in the comparative welfare state literature. This article tries to fill this void by applying the central concepts of welfare state analysis of decommodification and stratification, as proposed by Esping-Andersen, to the field of higher education. The article tests whether there are systematic differences in higher education policies across 19 developed western countries that are usually categorized in a social democratic, a liberal or a conservative welfare regime. Based on a secondary analysis of the available literature and cross-country statistics, we construct indices for decommodification and for stratification in higher education. The countries studied cluster in three groups that correspond roughly with the classical categorization. The countries in these clusters do not, however, meet all expectations regarding the level of decommodification and stratification. We conclude that countries belonging to the social democratic regime follow the principles of the prototypical social-democratic welfare regime well with respect to higher education. However, the higher education systems in liberal and conservative countries only share some of the characteristics of a prototypical conservative or liberal welfare state. We conclude that including higher education in comparative welfare states analysis might result in a less clear-cut categorization of welfare regimes than when the analysis is restricted to social protection and labour market policies.
Government attempts to enhance the quality of higher education through the encouragement of market forces are based on an assumption that students are informed consumers making rational choices of higher education courses and institutions. This article examines some of the problems associated with this approach, in particular the limitations on applicants' knowledge and understanding of the higher education system, revealed in a recent survey of students in three Australian states. It canvasses some possible remedies associated with meaningful differentiation of institutional missions and approaches, and accurate dissemination of these differences to students facing this crucial choice.
Higher education (as learning and teaching) is increasingly regulated by the state yet is simultaneously being opened up to market forces. Is the system being nationalised or 'marketised'? Opinion is divided, but the debate is often confused by a lack of theoretical explicitness so that inconsistencies, contradictions and dubious elisions are allowed to persist unremarked. Through a critical engagement with the literatures on quasi-markets, the free economy and the strong state, neo-liberalism, and 'steering at a distance', this article identifies three models implicit in discussion of the 'modernisation' of higher education. The first treats marketisation and state intervention as incompatible strategies for reform, the second argues that state intervention may contribute to the success of a higher educational market economy (thus subordinating the state to the market), while the third proposes that market relations are mobilised in the cause of centralised policy objectives.
The paper seeks to link the structural and the institutional to learning outcomes in order to articulate a research agenda capable of evaluating the impact of consumerism on learning and teaching in higher education. Consumerist mechanisms are situated in the context of quasi‐market and new managerial regulatory frameworks and concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu are drawn on to establish a theoretical model of the uneven impact of consumerism across different types of universities. Empirical studies, conducted in a variety of national settings, are outlined to confirm the plausibility of the model. The possible interactions between first, changes in academic identity, teaching and the curriculum; and secondly, on student identities and their impact on teaching and assessment and their consequent learning outcomes, are outlined. Some important questions about the consequences for the labour market are also raised. The paper hypothesizes that attempts to restructure pedagogical cultures and identities to comply with consumerist frameworks may unintentionally deter innovation, promote passive and instrumental attitudes to learning, threaten academic standards and further entrench academic privilege. The paper concludes by outlining key areas that require investigation in order to address some of the problems posed by consumerism in a mass higher education system.
There is a growing literature discussing the experiences and identities of academics working within the ‘new times’ of contemporary academia. Critiques have been levied at the impact of neoliberalism on the nature, organisation and purpose of higher education (HE), highlighting the negative consequences for ‘traditional’ academic identities and practices, and calls have been made for further investigation of the ‘lived’ experiences of academic workers. Most studies to date have focused on ‘older’ (mature) academics and their responses to the new performativity. But what about the ‘new’ generation of academics who have only experienced the current HE context and climate?This article focuses on the identities and experiences of ‘younger’ UK academic staff—notably, those aged 35 and under who grew up during the 1980s (so‐called Thatcher’s children). It discusses their constructions of academic identities and questions whether they are the archetypal new subjects of audit and managerialism whose capacity for criticality is forestalled—or whether they carve out spaces for thinking otherwise? Attention is drawn to the ways in which these younger academics negotiate the pressures of contemporary academia, detailing their strategies of resistance and practices of protection. The article concludes by reflecting on whether it is possible (or not), to do without being an academic neoliberal subject.
The metaphor of “Student as Consumer” appeared upon the social horizon in North America and Western Europe seemingly for all the right reasons: the responsibility of higher education to its publics, the attendant accountability, an interest in practical applications of knowledge, and spiraling increases in the cost of going to college. Widespread adoption of the metaphor, however, can produce some negative educational consequences. Drawing upon the literatures of organizational studies, education, communication and rhetoric, we trace the rise of the student consumer metaphor, explore its limitations, and suggest alternatives to its use. Specifically, we argue that this metaphor (a) suggests undue distance between the student and the educational process; (b) highlights the promotional activities of professors and promotes the entertainment model of classroom learning; (c) inappropriately compartmentalizes the educational experience as a product rather than a process; and (d) reinforces individualism at the expense of community. We conclude with a consideration of a more embracing model of the learning process which we term “critical engagement.”
Introduction. 1. The Scandal of Ambivalence. 2. Social Construction of Ambivalence. 3. Self--Construction of Ambivalence. 4. A Case Study in the Sociology of Assimilation (I):. Trapped in Ambivalence. 5. A Case Study in the Sociology of Assimilation (II):. Revenge of Ambivalence. 6. Privatization of Ambivalence. 7. Postmodernity, or Living with Ambivalence.
Beginning with the example of the National Health Service, this article analyses the phenomenon of very rapid, repeated re-structuring in UK public services. It asks, first, how far the unceasing reorganizations in healthcare are a unique case; second, how such serial changes can be explained; and, third, what consequences ensue. From a review of the evidence, it concludes that, while the NHS case is particularly acute, the phenomenon of repetitive reorganizations has been widespread in the UK public sector. It is argued that there is a degree of ‘British exceptionalism’ displayed here, in terms of the relatively unfettered ability of one party executives in a ‘law-lite’ majoritarian system to implement organizational change. Furthermore, the existence of a growing community of managerially minded professionals encourages and channels the political desire for rapid ‘action’.
Marketing is commonly assumed to be responsible for the consumer society with its hedonistic lifestyle and for undermining other cultures by its materialistic stance. This, for many critics, is the dark side of consumer marketing, undermining its ethical standing. This paper considers the connection between marketing, the consumer society, globalization and the hedonistic lifestyle, and whether marketing is guilty as charged. After all, anything that affects the image of marketing as a profession is important, as this influences both recruitment and social acceptance.
Based on meetings of the Society for Research into Higher Education’s Student Experience Network over the past three years, the genuinely open research question is posed whether there is one or more undergraduate student experience within English higher education. Answering this question depends on whether what is taught or what is learnt is examined. If the latter, then a unitary student experience can be said to exist only in the narrowest of normative senses. What undergraduates actually learn – defined in the widest sense – is the $64,000 question of research on the student experience. Various ways to answer this question are proposed, including using students to research students. Conceptual tools to apply to findings can be developed from youth studies and cognate disciplines, particularly in relation to student identities and aspirations. Lastly, these proposals are placed in the wider context of comparative models of the varieties of student experience, including those emerging in the UK’s national regions.
Speaking about ‘the student experience’ has become common-place in higher education and the phrase has acquired the aura of a sacred utterance in UK higher education policy over the last decade. A critical discourse analysis of selected higher education policy texts reveals what ‘the student experience’ has come to signify, and how it structures relations between students and academics, institutions and academics, and higher education institutions and government. ‘The student experience’ homogenises students and deprives them of agency at the same time as apparently giving them ‘voice’. This paper examines the dominance and sacralisation of the discourse of ‘the student experience’ and questions its positioning as a means of discriminating between the value of different experiences of education.
This paper contributes to current debates about the contradictory character of approaches to learning and teaching in UK higher education by suggesting an ideal-typical distinction between an academic orientation and an instrumental orientation. The paper suggests that these two distinctive orientations are associated with different kinds of student expectations on entry to UK higher education. Furthermore, the instrumental orientation is associated with an increasing preference within institutions for modes of programme delivery that are compatible with the instrumental tendencies of audit and surveillance. Institutions are likely to give priority to instrumental approaches not for pedagogic reasons but because they are convenient for the administration.
The notion of disciplinary cultures and the interests and attitudes that arise from them have been central to much writing
about academe. Loyalty to the disciplinary community nearly always outweighs loyalty to the employing university. Whether
reference is made to the ‘basic unit’ or the ‘academic tribe’ or the ‘intellectual field’, it is a subject or disciplinary
community — locally, nationally and globally — that provides individual academics with their prime source of identity. Burton
Clark, in his classic text on higher education (Clark 1983), remarks that membership of a disciplinary culture generates ,self
identities that may be more powerful than those of mate, lover, and family protector, or those that come from community, political
party, church, and fraternal order- (Clark 1983: 80).
This article argues that in today's knowledge societies, European universities are called upon to make students more employable, by cultivating their skills and by encouraging them to lifelong learning for enhancing their flexibility in the labour market. Employability is emphatically stressed and, to a certain extent, is associated with equity concerns. However, the special emphasis on employability is strongly associated with the emergence of the 'market-driven' or 'pragmatic' university, as pressures increase for the university to abandon the Humboldtian ideals of its autonomy.
Translation of :"Les héritiers, les étudiants et la culture." Incl. bibl.references.
Political, popular and academic debates have swirled around the notion of citizen as a consumer of public services, with public service reform increasingly geared towards a consumer society. This innovative book draws on original research with those people in the front-line of the reforms -staff, managers and users of public services - to explore their responses to this turn to consumerism. Focusing on health, policing and social care, it vividly brings to life the contentious and troubled relationships between government, services and users. Creating Citizen Consumers explores a range of theoretical, political, policy and practice issues that arise in the shift towards consumerism.It draws on recent controversies about choice in public services to bring them in line with the experiences and expectations of a consumer society. It offers a fresh and challenging use of popular understandings of the relationships between people and services to argue for a model of publicness based on interdependence, respect and partnership rather than choice. © John Clarke, Janet Newman, Nick Smith, Elizabeth Vidler and Louise Westmarland 2007.
Work, Consumption and the New Poor
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