Neoliberalism,new public management and the sustainable development agenda of higher education: history,contradictions and synergies

This paper explores the ideological and the practical relationship between neoliberalism and New Public Management (NPM) and the sustainable development agenda of western higher education. Using the United Kingdom and specifically English universities as an example, it investigates the contradictions and the synergies between neoliberal and NPM ideologies and the pursuit and practice of the sustainability agenda, focusing in particular on education for sustainable development (ESD) and ESD research. This paper reveals a range of challenges and opportunities in respect of advancing sustainability in higher education, within the prevailing neoliberal context. It illustrates using examples how neoliberal and managerialist control mechanisms, which govern institutional, departmental and individual academic, as well as student behaviour, are working conversely to both drive and limit the sustainability education agenda. The case is made for further exploration of how ‘nudging’ and ‘steering’ mechanisms within English HE might provide further leverage for ESD developments in the near future, and the implications of this for sustainability educators.     

Exploring a systems approach to mainstreaming sustainability in universities: a case study of Rhodes University in South Africa

This paper explores the use of systems theory to inform the mainstreaming of sustainability in a university’s functions as it responds to sustainable development challenges in its local context. Offering a case study of Rhodes University, the paper shows how the use of systems models and concepts, underpinned by a critical realist ontology and an understanding of morphogenetic change processes, have the potential to enable universities to mobilise their operations to respond to local sustainability challenges. In this instance, the success of such an approach is shown to depend on commitments from the university community and the availability of enabling inputs, such as financial and human resources. The paper concludes with reflections and recommendations to inform further development of a newly emerging systems approach in sustainability mainstreaming at Rhodes University, and other institutions pursuing similar approaches and goals.     

Logics of business education for sustainability

This paper explores various kinds of logics of ‘business education for sustainability’ and how these ‘logics’ position the subject business person, based on eight teachers’ reasoning of their own practices. The concept of logics developed within a discourse theoretical framework is employed to analyse the teachers’ reasoning. The analysis takes its starting point in different approaches to how a business ought to or could take responsibility for sustainable development. Different approaches to business ethical responsibilities, in combination with assumptions about how educational content is legitimised and presupposed purposes of education, are used to construct logics of business education for sustainability. In the paper, the results of this analysis are presented as: the logic of profit-, social- or radical-oriented business education. Our results also show how the different logics position the subject business person differently, as one who adapts to, adds or creates ethical values. The results are first discussed in terms of how environmental and social challenges could be dealt with in the future and secondly, considering the risk of de-subjectification with regard to profit-oriented business education, the implications this may have for the educational quality itself.     

Doing Diversity Work in Higher Education in Australia

This paper explores how diversity is used as a key term to describe the social and educational mission of universities in Australia. The paper suggests that we need to explore what diversity ‘does’ in specific contexts. Drawing on interviews with diversity and equal opportunities practitioners, the paper suggests that ‘diversity’ is used in the face of what has been called ‘equity fatigue’. Diversity is associated with what is new, and allows practitioners to align themselves and their units with the existing values of their universities. However, given this, diversity can mean potentially anything: and practitioners have to re‐attach the term ‘diversity’ to other more marked terms such as equality and justice if it is to ‘do anything’. The paper explores the appeal of diversity, the strategic nature of diversity work, and the role of commitment, leadership and training. It also offers some more general reflections on how language works within organisations by showing that words, although they do things, are not finished as forms of action: what they do depends not only on how they are used, but how they get taken up.     

Rating and rewarding higher education for sustainable development research within the marketised higher education context: experiences from English universities

This paper explores one key aspect of marketisation in English universities, the quality-related research funding (QR) system, which central government in the United Kingdom uses to allocate funds to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), based on a system of reviewing and rating the ‘quality’ of research at different HEIs. Specifically, it focuses on the experiences of 30 members of academic staff from eight universities across England who were engaged in research and/or scholarly activity in the broad field of Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD), during the time leading up to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission period. Interviewees were asked to talk about their experiences of being a HESD researcher/scholar within the context of the QR system and their perceptions of the relationship between the QR system and interdisciplinary, sustainability, pedagogic and HESD research. Findings from the semi-structured interviews and resulting qualitative analysis, reveal a number of obstacles facing HESD researchers which are outlined and explored in the paper. Strategies and rationale for improving the quality, reputation and ultimately, the ‘REF-ability’ of HESD research are discussed, and highlight the complex interface between marketisation and sustainability in higher education.     

‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university education

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, specifically how they imagined universities and university participation. For these young people, universities were imagined as ‘big’, ‘massive’ alienating schools. The paper explores how the elements of schooling from which these young people disengaged became tangible barriers to imagining and pursuing participation in university education. The primary barrier they described was their relationships with school teachers. Our analysis shows how relationships with teachers can impact the imagined improbability/probability of university participation. We offer suggestions for how barriers to university created by poor relationships with teachers may be overcome.     

Understanding students’ conceptions of sustainability

There has recently been significant emphasis placed on environmental education through, for example, the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Despite this, there is still considerable debate within the literature as to how the aims of environmental education can be achieved within schools. It seems likely that if there is a lack of agreement as to what education for sustainable development should include, then this will impact students’ understanding of sustainable development. This paper presents findings from research investigating how one class of 12‐ to 13‐year‐old geography students in the UK understands the concept of sustainability. The research used concept‐mapping and semi‐structured interviews to explore the students’ understandings of sustainability, within a case study framework. The substantive findings of this research suggest that there is a wide variety of understanding of sustainability among the students, but that generally they allude to three: the nature, purpose and timescale of sustainability. The paper also considers the impact of method on researching students’ subject understandings, in particular the use of context when considering abstract concepts, such as sustainability, and the different results obtained when conducting interviews versus concept maps.     

Student satisfaction and perceptions of quality: testing the linkages for PhD students

Student satisfaction and the quality of education are of compelling interest to students, academic staff, policy-makers and higher education researchers internationally. There is a widespread belief in their ‘cause and effect’ relationship. This paper tests these beliefs and explores how the level of student satisfaction is linked with the perceived quality of PhD education. Using expectancy value theory as a framework and interview data from PhD students and their supervisors, this paper suggests that satisfaction is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of quality education. Levels of student satisfaction can be influenced by students’ expectations prior to their study and their preconceived beliefs regarding the value of a PhD education. Concern is raised that an overemphasis on student satisfaction may pose a threat to the quality of PhD programmes, making it increasingly difficult for universities to retain their integrity and reducing the intellectual challenges that PhD students need to experience.     

University agency in peacebuilding: Perspectives on conflict and development in Kenya

In 2007, Kenya erupted into violence as a result of heavily contested elections. Because identity divisions lay at the heart of the conflict, the nation’s public universities were deeply impacted, at times pitting students, faculty, and staff against one another, and disrupting the ability of Kenyan higher education to contribute to the development process. This qualitative case study explores how faculty and administrators, at two public institutions in a conflict zone, understand and describe their university’s contributions to development. Analyzed through the lens of conflict transformation, the data reveal that the universities changed internal policies and practices to accommodate constituents impacted by the conflict and to cut across conflict lines, and that participants shifted in their thinking about the institution’s internal and external relationships and purposes. The article has two aims. It offers preliminary heuristics for peacebuilding as a university process, providing a framework of practices and policies that engage university constituencies and may transform conflict. It also shows how conflict changed participants’ perspectives about the relationships between themselves, higher education, and development in their country. Further, this article explores a connection between participant beliefs about peacebuilding and development in Kenya.     

Environmental and sustainability education in a post-truth era. An exploration of epistemology and didactics beyond the objectivism-relativism dualism

This article focuses on environmental and sustainability education (ESE) in the context of the topical post-truth debate. It aims to progress theoretical research as well as empirical investigations on how ESE practices can avoid the pitfalls involved in an objectivist as well as a relativist approach to teaching and learning. After elaborating the problems implied in both these approaches, the article explores concepts developed in science and technology studies (STS) that have the potential to inspire ESE research and practice to move beyond this problematic dichotomy: Latour’s ‘matters of concern’ and ‘compositionism’ and Jasanoff’s ‘co-production’ and ‘socio-technical imaginaries’. Drawing on pragmatist educational theory the author develops a conceptual framework that serves as a theoretical model for investigations of how ESE subject matter and teaching methods can be introduced, handled and experienced in a way that moves beyond the dualism of objectivism versus relativism. Building on the work of scholars who have connected Dewey’s pragmatic, transactional perspective to the domain of didactical research, it is shown how this theoretical model can be operationalised for empirical studies with the help of well-chosen analytical methods. The article is concluded with some reflections on the limitations and potential of the presented framework.     

Sustainable assessment for lifelong learning

This paper explores the alignment of assessment practices in universities and lifelong learning as a key process and outcome for expansive student development. It outlines Boud’s approach to assessment, operationalises this to analyse practices in two contrasting national contexts: the sociology departments of the Midlands University in the UK and Nam Du University in Vietnam, and reframes this framework as a guide to improving practices and better-supporting lifelong learning. The paper thus contributes to recent debates about sustainable assessment and how to change assessment to better support students for lifelong learning in different countries. The findings suggest that although more elements were found at Midlands University than Nam Du University, assessment in both cases was an imperfect realisation of this framework. Nonetheless, the paper argues that the framework can offer guidance for changes to align assessment practices with lifelong learning, but to do this it should be adapted to the education context and also expanded to include explicit social commitments to others for expansive lifelong learning.     

Evidence of hybrid institutional logics in the US public research university

While the ascendancy of market behaviours in public research universities is well documented, the extent to which universities have transformed themselves into industry-like organisations has been called into question. So to what extent are universities displaying transformation in their core values? The concept of institutional logics, with its focus on the relationship between organisational design and underlying beliefs and values, shows potential to address this question. Yet study of institutional logics at the campus level has to date been limited. This paper presents an empirical analysis of three US research universities’ organising principles as expressed in key mission and planning documents over a 15-year period. Of the multiple strategies at play in the universities’ responses to potentially competing values, the creation of new, hybrid logics is of particular interest. The concept of hybrid logics suggests a promising framework for understanding how universities can and do manage tensions in their mission.     

Toward an international measure of global competence? A critical look at the PISA 2018 framework

This paper focuses on the OECD’s PISA 2018 international framework for global competence. Given the growing national and international attention on educating for global competence, and absent of other measures, there is a need to scrutinise this framework. Our critical analysis is conceptually framed by academic literature related to (a) the OECD’s influential role in facilitating neoliberal education policy trends, (b) disjuncture and debate surrounding global competence, and (c) how influence is garnered through measurement technologies. We conclude by encouraging the OECD to be transparent in the reporting of results and educational stakeholders to be cautious interpreters of forthcoming results and rankings.     

Turning around low-performing private universities in China: A perspective of organisational ecology

While China has a long history of private institutions of higher learning, they disappeared almost entirely after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and did not re-emerge until the 1980s. Their reappearance is one of the ramifications of economic marketisation and privatisation in China. But private higher education institutions are now facing new challenges and competition in the education system. Approximately 500 of them were shut down between 2000 and 2009 for financial, legal or other reasons. Looking through the theoretical lens of organisational ecology – a sociological theory that applies ecological principles to organisational studies – this paper traces how the social and economic environment induced the re-emergence of private universities in China and how it has had an impact on their non-linear pattern of development. Using a number of relevant theory fragments from the overarching framework of organisational ecology as tools, the author then explores possible strategies for turning around low-performing private universities in China.     

Evaluating sustainability education: lessons from international development experience

Since the mid 1970s, a series of international declarations that recognize the critical link between environmental sustainability and higher education have been endorsed and signed by universities around the world. While academic initiatives in sustainability are blossoming, higher education lacks a comprehensive evaluation framework that is specifically tailored to the challenges of assessing sustainability programs. The article elaborates a novel framework for assessing the diverse set of higher-education curricular, research, and community-outreach programs devoted to sustainability based on critical review of quantitative- and qualitative-evaluation methods and on lessons drawn from experience in international development. The proposed multidimensional evaluation framework links process, outputs, outcomes, impacts, and continuous programmatic improvement based on sustained, contextually relevant observations. It engages three core purposes: management evaluation, capacity- and capability-development evaluation, and sustainability evaluation. Embedded in these purposes are key evaluation criteria adapted from an assessment of UNDP contributions to national development: long-term outcomes and impacts; evidence of cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional synergy; and resource mobilization for program enhancement. Along with practical examples of evaluation approaches used by universities in Europe, Japan, and the United States and the lessons that academic sustainability evaluators can draw from these practices, competencies required of graduates from sustainability programs are identified. The specific evaluative questions and methods presented offer universities a useful, conceptually grounded framework for adaptation and application in academic-sustainability assessments.     

Role of human and relational capital of universities as underpinnings of a knowledge economy: A structural modelling perspective from north Indian universities

Authors propose a research framework that human capital of universities enhances performance through the mediating mechanisms of relational capital. Against the backdrop of the report issued by the National Knowledge Commission set up by the Indian government with a vision to transform India into a global knowledge hub, this study explores how universities can contribute in contriving a knowledge economy. Data collected from 13 north Indian universities has been tested empirically using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings reveal that human capital has a significant influence on a university’s performance and relational capital partially mediates that effect. The results of this study will be of paramount importance for planners in the Indian higher education sector to achieve the goals that have been laid down in the report. Furthermore, it will help administrators and policy makers at universities to take cognizance of the global shift towards the knowledge economy and leverage human and relational capital in the process.     

Tensions in Higher Education Leadership: Towards a Multi‐Level Model of Leadership Practice

UK higher education is undergoing a period of significant change that generates a series of tensions and difficulties for universities and university leaders. This paper explores these tensions through analysis of findings from a study comprising 152 semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews in 12 UK universities. Building on from theories of ‘distributed leadership’ in schools, five main constituent elements of leadership practice in higher education are identified (personal, social, structural, contextual and developmental) and explored to show how they shape perceptions and experiences of leadership. The paper concludes with a refined model that teases apart the multilayered nature of higher education leadership at individual, group and organisational levels. In particular, it is argued that ‘social capital’ and ‘social identity’ act as important bridges between individual agency and organisational structure and that although widely distributed, higher education leadership may be best regarded as ‘hybrid’.     

Developing team skills through a collaborative writing assignment

Employers want students who are able to work effectively as members of a team, and expect universities to develop this ability in their graduates. This paper proposes a framework for a collaborative writing assignment that specifically develops students’ ability to work in teams. The framework has been tested using two iterations of an action research project, with this paper focusing on the second iteration. The paper provides detailed information on how the framework was implemented, and then reports on the students’ perceptions of their learning about teamwork.     

“双一流”视域下高校创新创业教育影响因素探究

聚焦于以高校为评价主体的创新创业教育如何描述与分析,以及影响高校创新创业教育发展的关键性因素及其相互之间的关系如何。采用定量研究与定性研究相结合的研究方法,首先,通过梳理和分析美国、欧盟的高校创业评价框架,结合我国创新创业评价现状及“双一流”建设需要,构建我国高校创新创业教育的描述框架。其次,选择12所高校为学校样本,邀请领域专家对样本学校采用该分析框架进行逐项评价,并利用Amos建立SEM结构方程模型,提出研究假设进行假设验证分析,得出以高校为主导的创新创业教育工作主要涉及校方支持、人力资源、过程管理、课程与教学、学生表现、教育环境、社会影响力等七个方面,其中,校方支持是基石,学生表现是落脚点,过程管理起到调节反馈作用,校方支持与社会影响力的作用在整个创新创业教育中逐渐凸显,预示我国高校创新创业教育将逐步迈向以重视“办学理念、国际化视野、服务地方经济”的2.0时代。     

The inherent vulnerability of the Australian Curriculum’s cross-curriculum priorities

National curriculum development is a complex and contested process. By its very function, a national curriculum serves to organise diverse interests into a common framework, a task fraught with cultural and political tensions and compromises. In the emergent Australian Curriculum these tensions are manifest in and around the cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs): sustainability, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. These priorities have been under fire since their introduction to the curriculum and the announcement of a review of the emerging curriculum prompted fears of a renewed attack. Studies from diverse fields of education research suggest that a lack of high-level institutional support for initiatives such as the CCPs places them in jeopardy. This paper focuses on two priorities: Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. It employs interest convergence theory as a framework to understand connections between the intentions behind the inclusion of the CCPs and the outcomes of the Review of the Australian Curriculum. Furthermore, this paper draws on interview-based research that explores how the priorities are constructed by those who are expected to work with them, from pre-service through to experienced teachers. This theoretical framework provides an explanation for the perennially precarious nature of these kinds of curriculum initiatives.