Revisiting Academic Capitalism in Canada: No Longer the Exception

Metcalfe, Amy Scott

doi:10.1080/00221546.2010.11779062

Cited by 54 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In the specific case of the West Review, Global Alliance Limited (GAL), a Tokyo-based transnational financial institution, played a key role in informing many of the policy prescriptions that found their way into the review, explicitly calling for Australian universities to adopt a far more neoliberal market-based approach to their current funding structures [48]. With discussions such as these occurring with greater and greater frequency throughout the 1990s [36,49], the emergence of neoliberal discourses in the language of the sustainability declarations seems inevitable. This is not to say that there is a linear progression of -intensity‖ with respect to the presence of such discourses, only that after a certain point in time, they seem to become embedded in the manner in which the declarations are constructed and, as a result, may be embedded in the way the texts are (re)producing a vision of the university and sustainability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This shift in the contemporary university is often framed in terms of the corporatization or neoliberalization of higher education (HE) [12][13][14]. In the Canadian context, lack of government funding has created the conditions for a shift away from traditional arrangements that tended to favour academic autonomy to institutional managerialism in decision-making processes, the adoption of performance indicators as measures of success and targeted funding in research as a means of driving innovation [15,16]. Moreover, the focus on education has shifted away from transformative or emancipatory conceptions toward more instrumentalist forms predicated on imparting the skills and knowledge required to be successful in a rapidly changing global economy [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Talloires to Turin: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Declarations for Sustainability in Higher Education

2013

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Declarations for sustainability in higher education are often seen as a set of guiding principles that aid institutions of higher learning to incorporate the concept of sustainability into their various institutional dimensions. As the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development draws to a close and in the shadow of the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, it seems appropriate to re-evaluate how these declarations have changed over the past two decades. In this study, we apply critical discourse analysis to examine how sustainability and the university are socio-politically constructed within these documents. Our analysis uncovers evidence of ideological assumptions and structures that are potentially misaligned with notions of sustainability often discussed in the Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) literature. It is not the purpose of this study to provide a definitive reading of the documents, but rather to ply a novel critical lens to help elucidate how some taken-for-granted assumptions present in the declarations may work against their stated goals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Talloires to Turin: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Declarations for Sustainability in Higher Education

2013

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“…Although degree-granting status has conventionally distinguished Canadian universities from colleges, there has been an expansion of degree-granting status to the college sector beginning in the 1990s, and an associated renegotiation of institutional identities and boundaries between institutional types [20]. Recent research has highlighted regional differences in higher education policy across the country, such as commercialization trends that are profoundly impacting accountability, research, and other policy areas in varied ways across provinces [21,22].…”

Section: Canadian Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As previous research has emphasized, the use of academic autonomy as an excuse for not engaging with sustainability, including in relation to long-established institutional identities, can be a significant barrier to innovation in SHE [1,40]. Another way of interpreting the accommodation of sustainability as a sectoral interest of environmental organizations rather than a higher-level institutional priority is to look at the marginalization of environmental issues by the global economic shifts associated with neoliberalization [68,69], which are also continuing to reshape schooling and higher education around the world [22,[70][71][72][73][74]. In this context, HEIs are understood as competing with each other in the global economy, and as conducting research and training for this economy [72].…”

Section: Strategic Planning For Sustainability In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Canadian Higher Education

Bieler

McKenzie

2017

Sustainability

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This paper reviews representations of sustainability in the strategic plans of Canadian higher education institutions (HEIs). A content analysis of the strategic plans of 50 HEIs was undertaken to determine the extent to which sustainability is included as a significant policy priority in the plans, including across the five domains of governance, education, campus operations, research, and community outreach. We found 41 strategic plans with some discussion of sustainability, and identified three characteristic types of response: (i) accommodative responses that include sustainability as one of many policy priorities and address only one or two sustainability domains; (ii) reformative responses that involve some alignment of policy priorities with sustainability values in at least a few domains; and (iii) progressive responses that make connections across four or five domains and offer a more detailed discussion of sustainability and sustainability-specific policies. Accommodative responses were dominant. More progressive responses were typically from institutions participating in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The paper concludes with consideration of the political and economic contexts contributing to this relative prevalence of accommodative responses to sustainability.

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“…152-158), [29]. This transformation is often framed as the neoliberalization, or commoditization of higher education [23,30,31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Tale of Two (or More) Sustainabilities: A Q Methodology Study of University Professors’ Perspectives on Sustainable Universities

Wright

Sherren

2014

Sustainability

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Abstract:If change for sustainability in higher education is to be effective, change efforts must be sensitive to the institutional culture in which they will be applied. Therefore, gaining insight into how institutional stakeholders engage with the concept of sustainable universities is an important first step in understanding how to frame and communicate change. This study employed Q methodology to explore how a group of professors conceptualize sustainable universities. We developed a Q sample of 46 statements comprising common conceptions of sustainable universities and had 26 professors from Dalhousie University rank-order them over a quasi-normal distribution. Our analysis uncovered four statistically significant viewpoints amongst the participants: ranging from technocentric optimists who stress the importance of imbuing students with skills and values to more liberal arts minded faculty suspicious of the potential of sustainability to instrumentalize the university. An examination of how these viewpoints interact on a subjective level revealed a rotating series of alignments and antagonisms in relation to themes traditionally associated with sustainable universities and broader themes associated with the identity of the university in contemporary society. Finally, we conclude by discussing the potential implications that the nature of these alignments and antagonisms may hold for developing a culturally sensitive vision of a sustainable university.

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Revisiting Academic Capitalism in Canada: No Longer the Exception

Cited by 54 publications

References 23 publications

From Talloires to Turin: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Declarations for Sustainability in Higher Education

From Talloires to Turin: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Declarations for Sustainability in Higher Education

Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Canadian Higher Education

A Tale of Two (or More) Sustainabilities: A Q Methodology Study of University Professors’ Perspectives on Sustainable Universities

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