Until recently government policy in the UK has encouraged an expansion of Higher Education to increase participation and with an express aim of creating a more educated workforce. This expansion has led to competition between Higher Education institutions, with students increasingly positioned as consumers and institutions working to improve the extent to which they meet ‘consumer demands’. Especially given the latest government funding cuts, the most prevalent outlook in Higher Education today is one of business, forcing institutions to reassess the way they are managed and promoted to ensure maximum efficiency, sales and ‘profits’. Students view the opportunity to gain a degree as a right, and a service which they have paid for, demanding a greater choice and a return on their investment. Changes in higher education have been rapid, and there has been little critical research into the implications. This volume brings together internationally comparative academic perspectives, critical accounts and empirical research to explore fully the issues and experiences of education as a commodity, examining: the international and financial context of marketisation the new purposes of universities the implications of university branding and promotion league tables and student surveys vs. quality of education the higher education market and distance learning students as ‘active consumers’ in the co-creation of value changing student experiences, demands and focus. With contributions from many of the leading names involved in Higher Education including Ron Barnett, Frank Furedi, Lewis Elton, Roger Brown and also Laurie Taylor in his journalistic guise as an academic at the University of Poppleton, this book will be essential reading for many.

This edited volume explores the nature, scope, and consequences of the marketisation of higher education. Chapters identify different practices which reflect the marketisation of higher education, and offer various perspectives on the policies and procedures which stimulate and regulate it. The volume takes a holistic approach, following the notion that the marketisation of higher education both drives and is driven by the universities which form the higher education market.

Dimensions of Marketisation in Higher Education is a critical analysis of the various dimensions of marketisation in a global context, exploring governance, policy, financial, ethical and pedagogical aspects. Bringing together a selection of influential authors who draw on the work of Roger Brown, the book is a timely examination of the impact that policies regulating cost, entry and practices in higher education can have on universities, students and academics. This book explores the tensions and dilemmas marketisation brings into the educational environment for academic leaders, managers and students, arguing that they can be managed through rebalancing the relation between the market and the educational dimensions. Key topics include: The economics of higher education Students in a marketised environment Regulating a marketised sector Marketisation and higher education pedagogies Universities’ futures. Unveiling nuanced and multifaceted perspectives and providing readers with collective and forward-thinking critical analyses, Dimensions of Marketisation in Higher Education will be an authoritative reference book on policy and practice, appealing to higher education leaders, managers and scholars worldwide.

Children are significant consumers of services such as health, welfare, educational institutions and the environment. Alongside this, the marketization of childhood means that children are exposed to advertising and marketing through a wide range of media on a daily basis. Examining key debates on children’s power, status and citizenship issues, it considers the wider implications of how consumerism impacts on children‘s health, well-being and life chances. This timely book explores childhood and consumerism through four key strands: children as consumers of services; children as consumers of space; the link between citizenship and consumption; the influences of the marketization of childhood. Rethinking Children as Consumers will be essential reading for students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers who are interested in the topic of consumerism across early childhood, childhood, youth and society.

This volume serves as a critical examination of the discourses at play in the higher education system and the ways in which these discourses underpin the transmission of neoliberal values in 21st century universities. Situated within a Critical Discourse Analysis-based framework, the book also draws upon other linguistic approaches, including corpus linguistics and appraisal analysis, to unpack the construction and development of the management style known as managerialism, emergent in the 1990s US and UK higher education systems, and the social dynamics and power relations embedded within the discourses at the heart of managerialism in today’s universities. Each chapter introduces a particular aspect of neoliberal discourse in higher education and uses these multiple linguistic approaches to analyze linguistic data in two case studies and demonstrate these principles at work. This multi-layered systematic linguistic framework allows for a nuanced exploration of neoliberal institutional discourse and its implications for academic labor, offering a critique of the managerial system in higher education but also a larger voice for alternative discursive narratives within the academic community. This important work is a key resource for students and scholars in applied linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, sociology, business and management studies, education, and cultural studies.

Universities are viewed by many as institutions that should impart quality education to enrolled students and foster a learning environment, which, in turn, would benefit the accumulation of knowledge worldwide. Enhancing university education is at the top of most governmental agendas. In this knowledge-driven economy, every nation wants to have the world's top-ranked universities. Every parent wants to send their child to a top university. And most people want to have a good university degree that gives them good prospects for landing a respectable job. But universities are currently in turmoil: mass redundancies and department closures have become routine. Once revered as ivory towers of learning, today’s universities are forced to regard their students as consumers and customers. Many universities are now torn between labor market forces and increasing public expectations and accountability. University administration departments struggle with declining funding and increased cost scrutiny. Challenged on multiple fronts, universities are faced with conflicting agendas. They are expected to develop world-class reputations in research (an academic agenda) while teaching increasing numbers of students (a commercial agenda). They are required to be engines of economic development while maintaining comprehensive scholarly profiles. Numerous reports and headlines predict the demise of universities, emphasizing that the current educational and business model is not viable. Reshaping Universities for Survival in the 21st Century: New Opportunities and Paradigms suggests possible paths which universities might take to survive in the future by providing a compelling account of the landscape of today’s universities and the challenges they face. Readers will learn about the current crises which universities face followed by an explanation of the ideologies and paradigms that have shaped the current academic landscape. New trends and concepts in university education are also explained, such as academic capitalism and MOOCs. Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, it is a must-read for anyone who studies, works or is interested in the higher education sector, including university and government leaders and educational policy makers.

As one of the pioneers and leading advocates of neoliberalism, Britain, and in particular England, has radically transformed its higher education system over the last decades. Universities have increasingly been required to act like businesses, and students are frequently referred to as customers nowadays. Higher Education and the Student investigates precisely this relation between the changing function of higher education and what we consider the term ‘student’ to stand for. Based on a detailed analysis of government papers, reports, and speeches as well as publications by academics and students, the book explores how the student has been conceptualised within the debate on higher education from the birth of the British welfare state in the 1940s until today. It thus offers a novel assessment of the history of higher education and shows how closely the concept of the student and the way we comprehend higher education are intertwined. Higher Education and the Student opens up a new perspective that can critically inform public debate and future policy – in Britain and beyond. The book should be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education; educational policy and politics; and the philosophy, sociology, and history of higher education.

This insightful book offers a wide-ranging collection of lively discussions on contemporary issues, policies and practices in higher education. Bartram integrates contributions from experienced academics, teachers and students in a unique approach and structure, designed to enable students with both specific and wide-ranging interests in higher education to extend their understanding. Including discussion points, research tasks and suggestions on further reading in each chapter, Understanding Contemporary Issues in Higher Education discusses a range of topics, such as: universities and the mental health ‘crisis’; knowledge, the state and the market; the role of technology in teaching and academic celebrification; disability, diversity and inclusive placement learning. Written specifically for Education Studies students, this book constitutes a timely addition to student-focused themed studies looking at aspects of higher education.

This book explores questions of care in higher education. Using Joan Tronto’s seven signs that institutions are not caring well, the authors examine whether students and staff consider universities to be caring institutions. As such, they outline how universities systematically, structurally, and actively ‘undercare’ when it comes to supporting students and staff, a phenomenon which was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on scholarly ideas from the sociology of care, higher education, social justice, and feminist critique, and in dialogue with empirical insights gathered with people who work and study in universities in Australia, South Africa, and the UK, the book questions why people care, as well as why adopting a caring position in higher education can be viewed as radical. The authors conclude by asking what we can do to counter that view by thinking carefully about the purpose, power, and plurality of care, before imagining how we can create more caring universities.

Student engagement is a catch-all term, irresistible to educators and policy makers, and serving many agendas and purposes. This ground-breaking book provides a powerful theory of student engagement, rooted in critical theory and social justice. It sets out a compelling argument for student engagement to promote social justice and to repel neoliberalism in, and through, higher education, addressing three key questions: Student engagement in what? Student engagement for what? Student engagement for whom? The answers draw on Habermas, Honneth, Gramsci, Foucault, and Giroux in examining ideology, power, recognition, resistance, and student engagement, with examples drawn from across the world. It sets out key features, limitations, and failures of neoliberalism in higher education, and indicates how student engagement can resist it. Student engagement calls for higher education institutions to be sites for challenge, debate on values and power, action for social justice, and for students to engage in the struggle to resist neoliberalism, taking action to promote social justice, democracy, and the public good. This book is essential reading for educators, researchers, managers and students in higher education, social scientists, and social theorists. It is a call to reawaken higher education for social justice, human rights, democracy, and freedoms.