Neoliberalism,Performativity and Research

This paper provides a critical analysis of New Zealand’s Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF). The first section sketches the development and implementation of the PBRF. The second section evaluates the scheme, concentrating on three themes: the relationship between privatization, competition and research performance; the standardization of research; and motivations for research. The paper acknowledges the thorough work completed by the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission and other policy groups in laying the foundation for the adoption of performance-based research funding in New Zealand. It is argued, however, that when viewed in its larger context, the PBRF constitutes a continuation of neoliberal trends already well established in New Zealand’s tertiary education system.     

Neoliberalism, Performativity and Research

This paper provides a critical analysis of New Zealand’s Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF). The first section sketches the development and implementation of the PBRF. The second section evaluates the scheme, concentrating on three themes: the relationship between privatization, competition and research performance; the standardization of research; and motivations for research. The paper acknowledges the thorough work completed by the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission and other policy groups in laying the foundation for the adoption of performance-based research funding in New Zealand. It is argued, however, that when viewed in its larger context, the PBRF constitutes a continuation of neoliberal trends already well established in New Zealand’s tertiary education system.     

新自由主义与民族保守主义的钟摆交替:欧美国家国际学生流动政策的逻辑与演变

国际学生在一国发展中的战略地位毋庸置疑。在国际学生的招收和使用上,国家和政府不是被动的接收者,政府在国际学生的招收和使用方面扮演重要的建构性角色。通过梳理和解读国际学生流动政策和措施,文章进一步厘清了21世纪以来欧美发达国家国际学生流动政策背后的新自由主义和民族保守主义逻辑。欧美发达国家一方面意识到争夺国际学生对于在"全球人才竞赛"中增强国家竞争优势至关重要;另一方面为照顾本国日益消极的舆论和选民日益高涨的民族主义情绪,严格缩紧国际学生的移民签证。在不同阶段或者不同执政党领导时期,国际学生流动政策呈现出以国家利益为轴心,在新自由主义与民族保守主义之间来回摇摆的演变态势。如何在激烈的"全球人才竞赛"中保持优势与照顾到更加民族主义的国内舆论之间保持平衡,成为欧美国家国际学生流动政策的重点和难点。     

Neoliberalism,internationalisation and higher education: connections,contradictions and alternatives

ABSTRACT

We explore the role of neoliberalism within portrayals of internationalisation in higher education (HE). Through an analysis of four features of internationalisation, we suggest that they embody a complex entanglement of neoliberal categories and assumptions with other, primarily progressive humanitarian ideals. This framing of internationalisation has three affects. One, humanitarian ideals coupled with neoliberal categories normalise inequalities, turning internationalisation into a meritocratic global race, focusing on celebrating the possibility of the few who can achieve, instead of the embedded inequalities within the system, which disadvantage the many. Two, this allows neoliberal practices to be advanced through the discourse of internationalisation and its association with progressive humanitarian values. Three, this neoliberal framing does not explain the nature of internationalisation of HE in many nations; we demonstrate this by analysing internationalisation in China, Israel and Cuba. We suggest that internationalisation in HE cannot be adequately explained by analyses which rely on neoliberalism.     

新自由主义、全球化与高等教育发展

高等教育的存在与发展具有两种特性:理智特性和社会特性。这两种特性的演变在不同的历史阶段都受到不同思潮的影响。新自由主义和全球化是影响当今高等教育发展的两大主要思潮。新自由主义通过强调高等教育所传授知识的可交易性、效率性、个体性、竞争性和自由化来重塑高等教育发展的理智特性,全球化则从时空、制度和组织三个维度影响高等教育的社会特性。应对新自由主义和全球化的挑战,需要扭转通过拥抱市场、放弃公共利益来推进高等教育的做法,但也必须抓住机遇使本国高等教育融入全球知识经济。     

Homework in the Home: How Student, Family, and Parenting-Style Differences Relate to the Homework Process

Parents (n = 709) were surveyed about involvement in their child's homework. A factor analysis revealed three dimensions of homework involvement similar to those found in more general studies of parenting style. These dimensions are autonomy support, direct involvement, and elimination of distractions. A fourth dimension, parental interference, differentiated itself from autonomy support for students in higher grades. Two-thirds of parents reported some negative or inappropriate form of involvement. Parenting style for homework was then related to student and family characteristics and student schooling outcomes. Results indicated parents with students in higher grade levels reported giving students more homework autonomy and less involvement of all other types. Parents in poorer families reported less support for autonomy and more interference. Parents reported less elimination of distractions when an adult was not at home after school and, for elementary school students, when there were more than one child living in the home. Elementary school parents of males reported more direct involvement in homework, while high school parents of females reported more direct involvement. More parental support for autonomy was associated with higher standardized test scores, higher class grades, and more homework completed. More positive parent involvement was associated with lower test scores and lower class grades, especially for elementary school students. Student attitudes toward homework were unrelated to parenting style for homework. Stage–environment fit theory and conceptions of families as varying in resources to support children are used to explain the findings and draw implications for parent behavior and educational practice.     

具身认知之根：从镜像神经元到具身模仿论

兴起于第二代认知科学视域下的具身认知观,认为心智是具身的神经生物现象,人类的认知能力是在身体--大脑活动的基础上实现的.然而,在科学心理学内部,具身认知观缺乏一种普遍认可的神经生理机制以及超越现象的全局性解释理论.当前认知神经科学研究成果显示,灵长类大脑中的镜像神经元系统在社会认知(从动作和意图理解到语言进化)的许多方面扮演着重要角色.基于这些证据,我们讨论了当前认知科学领域一种对具身认知的全新解释框架--具身模仿论.镜像神经元系统和具身模仿论通过有效地共享他人动作表征、意义与意图,为认知具身化的合理性奠定了基础,并重新赋予"身体"在科学心理学研究中的重要地位.     

Neoliberalism,higher education and the knowledge economy: from the free market to knowledge capitalism

The ascendancy of neoliberalism and the associated discourses of ‘new public management’, during the 1980s and 1990s has produced a fundamental shift in the way universities and other institutions of higher education have defined and justified their institutional existence. The traditional professional culture of open intellectual enquiry and debate has been replaced with a institutional stress on performativity, as evidenced by the emergence of an emphasis on measured outputs: on strategic planning, performance indicators, quality assurance measures and academic audits. This paper traces the links between neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and neoliberalism and the knowledge economy on the other. It maintains that in a global neoliberal environment, the role of higher education for the economy is seen by governments as having greater importance to the extent that higher education has become the new star ship in the policy fleet for governments around the world. Universities are seen as a key driver in the knowledge economy and as a consequence higher education institutions have been encouraged to develop links with industry and business in a series of new venture partnerships. The recognition of economic importance of higher education and the necessity for economic viability has seen initiatives to promote greater entrepreneurial skills as well as the development of new performative measures to enhance output and to establish and achieve targets. This paper attempts to document these trends at the level of both political philosophy and economic theory.     

Beyond Commercialization: Science, Higher Education and the Culture of Neoliberalism

Since the 1980s, scholars and others have been engaged in a lively debate about the virtues and dangers of mingling commerce with university science. In this paper, we contend that the commercialization of academic science, and higher education more broadly, are best understood as pieces of a larger story. We use two cases of institutional change at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to shed light on the implications of neoliberalism for public research universities in the United States. We conclude that instead of neoliberalization being a timely strategy for the specific fiscal and other problems facing public universities today, it has become an omnibus solution available to be employed when any opportunity arises and, in fact, helps to define the “problems” of the university in the first place.     

Neoliberalism, globalization, and creative educational destruction in Taiwan

In this article, the authors argue that educational technology is chiefly and increasingly being used as a tool for the privatization of education and the commodification of people by way of top down evaluative structures put in place by governments in collusion with neoliberal interests. This analysis began as a study that sought to illuminate the reasons why teachers in Taiwanese technical colleges have been reluctant to integrate educational technologies for actual instruction. However, what the authors actually found was that teachers in Taiwan are experiencing a forced obsession with top down evaluations and these evaluations are locking teachers in what may be called an amplifying causal loop. By looking up the proverbial food chain of the top–down evaluations, the authors found socio-political and economic forces at work that were less Taiwanese and more global in scope and character and less about teachers and classrooms and more about the rise of educational administration for neoliberal advancement. This article argues that a collusion between neoliberal interests, an obsession with evaluation, and the uninterrogated implementation of educational technologies are giving rise to processes that are wreaking havoc on the Taiwanese education system and similar processes are at work throughout the world.     

Neoliberalism,the public sphere,and a public good

This essay considers the challenges that neoliberalism raises for conceptual models and practices of a multiple public sphere. Engaging difference and attending to inequality, a multiple public sphere facilitates the circulation of a dynamic public good that may articulate mutual standing and relationships among people to enable the construction of a collective “we” for coordinated action. Weakening relationships among people and devaluing coordinated action, neoliberalism envisions a public of atomistic individuals who compete with one another for comparative advantage. Flattening difference and obscuring inequality, a neoliberal public presumes a universal subject that obscures its own particularity and discounts the uneven burdens faced by those who cannot seamlessly identify with its mode of subjectivity. Further, for a neoliberal public, inequality serves as the condition and end of competition. Resistance to neoliberalism may arise in the networked locals of a multiple public sphere, as advocates reclaim connections that neoliberalism seeks to deny.     

Embodied Cognition: Somatic Markers, Purposes and Emotional Orientations

We describe the “somatic marker hypothesis” proposed by Damasio (1996) to account for the ability of most people to make decisions quickly and continually in the course of their lives. We relate this hypothesis to two other theoretical constructs, emotional orientations and purposes, which we have used in our research on students' reasoning and teachers' decision making. Given that somatic markers are a part of unconscious mental activity, they cannot be observed by introspective reflection. How then can we research something we cannot see? Beginning with the hypothesis that somatic markers influence actions, we observe, particularly, the actions of student teachers, teachers and children in mathematics classrooms at points where they make decisions. This process is illustrated through examples both of teaching and learning in mathematics, and through the account (see Op't Eynde and Hannula, this issue) of ‘Frank’ reflecting on his decision-making in mathematical activity. We use the case of Frank to illustrate some differences between viewing mathematical activity from our perspective and from those of some other contributors to this special issue. The connections between emotional orientations, somatic markers and purposes are further illustrated by two examples drawn from our research into teacher development and students' reasoning processes.     

Dewey and Possibility: Challenging Neoliberalism in Education

In recent decades, critiques of neoliberalism have been widespread within the scholarly literature on education. Despite the lack of a clear definition of what neoliberalism in education is and entails, researchers from different fields and perspectives have widely criticized the neoliberal educational mindset for its narrowness, lack of democratic engagement, and objectification of educational practices. In this essay, through an analysis of a particular aspect of Dewey's oeuvre — namely, Dewey's commitment to the “unattained” and “wonderful possibilities” of experience and education — I argue that educational neoliberalism should be refuted above all on the basis of its lack of intelligence and professional weakness. With regard to this, I contend that educational neoliberalism, despite its relative sophistication, is but another form authoritarian teaching. Dewey, in contrast, challenged the view of education as a means for achieving predetermined goals, and instead conceived of education as an end in itself, something imbued with the unpredictable space of pure possibility.