Conference Agenda

As noted in the Research Handbook on the Transformation of Higher Education (Leisyte, Dee, & van der Meulen, 2023), higher education transformation has been widely discussed and debated, but the resulting picture remains clouded by multiple, sometimes contradictory perspectives.

While transformation often has a positive connotation in everyday discourse, higher education transformations are also associated with ongoing struggles. Actors who seek to transform higher education encounter a variety of obstacles at system and institution levels (Kezar, 2018). Several barriers are related to the structural arrangements of higher education institutions. High levels of decentralization and structural differentiation can result in decoupling, where academic units in an institution operate with little coordination or communication among them (Bess & Dee, 2008). Furthermore, adherence to institutionalized norms and ritualized practices can result in universities that are highly path dependent (Krücken, 2003), a condition in which previous decisions and strategies lock an organization into a trajectory from which deviation is viewed as undesirable or impractical (Sydow, Schreyogg, & Koch, 2009). The organization becomes rigid and inflexible as a result. Moreover, some transformations of higher education have created new problems or failed to address long-standing challenges (Giroux, 2014).

Collectively, the presentations in this part of the symposium offer in-depth analyses of the socio-political, technological, and market forces that are transforming higher education, also resistance to transformation and their effects. The authors provide a multi-level perspective on higher education transformation by conceptualizing change at the field, system, and organizational levels drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Since the 1970s, around the globe, governments recognised the economic and social benefits of expanding student participation in higher education. A highly skilled workforce came to be identified as a key cornerstone of competitive advantage. And thus, the movement to expand higher education in first world countries began, moving from elite to mass systems typified by that of the United States. The transformational journey, over a number of decades, as explored in this chapter, focuses on key actors in influencing and shaping government policy, with a particular focus on England. Additionally, four key pivot points are identified: firstly, the post-war expansion of higher education: massification. Secondly, the determination of how governments’ increased expenditure on higher education could be justified, i.e., the need for public accountability (which led to the development of quality assurance systems around the globe). Thirdly, the move from base-line approaches to quality enhancement (i.e., added value). And, finally, from the early 2000s, governments placing a much greater spotlight on the purposes of higher education, leading to concerns for equality and equity issues. Meanwhile, technological advances, and the various reports they informed, led to broader access to trend analysis, providing data that highlight diversity and inclusivity issues. The chapter concludes with reference to the Covid-19 pandemic, representing an insufficiently explored additional pivot point in this narrative of post-war massification and quality enhancement.

Ehrenberg, R (2001) ‘American higher education in transition’, Journal of Economic Perspectives. 26(1), 193-196. Fry, H, Ketteridge, S and Marshall, S (2015) ed 4 Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Abington: RKP. European Commission (2005) Mobilising the Brainpower of Europe: Enabling Universities to Make their Full Contribution to the Lisbon Strategy. COM (2005)

In this paper, we consider why efforts to diversify the academy persistently fall short. To do so, we adapt Leong’s theory of identity capitalism and then apply it to an extensive review of research concerning women’s experiences within the academic labor structure. This review of literature illustrates how—despite their growing presence— women are commodified, undervalued, and kept on the margins of the academy. Following this analytic review of literature, we pair insights from organizational change literature with Leong’s work to sketch out what can be done to facilitate not only diversification, but transformation oriented towards inclusion and epistemic justice. This chapter provides a robust foundation for others interested in critically exploring and tackling racialized and gendered conditions within the global academic profession.

Dee, J. R., & Leišytė, L. (2016). Organizational learning in higher education institutions: Theories, frameworks, and a potential research agenda. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 275-348). Springer, Cham. Dengate, J., Peter, T., & Farenhorst, A. (2019). Gender and the faculty care gap: "The obvious go-to Person" for Canadian university students' personal problems. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 49(3), 104–114. Dongre, A.A., Singhal, K., & Das, U. (2020). Presence of Women in Economics Academia: Evidence from India. ArXiv: General Economics. Dutt, K. (2021). Addressing racism through ownership. Nature Geoscience, 14(2), 58-58. Edwards, K. T. & del Guadalupe Davidson, M. (2018). College curriculum at the crossroads. Routledge Publishers.

Resistance to organisational change on behalf of academics is part and parcel of the transformation of higher education. Scholars of organizational resistance have concentrated on the power differentials between employers and employees and have shown how workers resist in terms of appropriation of time, work, and product, where resistance is seen not only as stalling but also as contributing to organizational change (Ford et al., 2008). We aim to investigate how senior and early career academics respond to managerial demands. We show that academics respond both in silent as well as in more proactive ways to the new structures and procedures of evaluation imposed on them when it comes to their academic work. Finally, we observe that manipulation, largely used by senior academics, as a pro-active form of resistance, may bridge the dissonance between academic and managerial values and facilitate hybridity in academic identities.

Ford, F. D., Ford, L. W., & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. The Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362-377. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.31193235 L. Leisyte, J. Dee, & B. van der Meulen (2023) (Eds.). Research handbook on the transformation of higher education. Edward Elgar.

This paper examines the origins of Soviet style university administration, and the reverberations of its practices in the global context of higher education. While the Soviet managerialism of the 20th century differs from its successor, 21st century neoliberal managerialism, features that are common to them, including corporate surveillance, ideological hegemony, and freedom suppression, find fertile ground in societies and universities that are prone to an authoritarian style of governance. In post-Soviet contexts, managerialism has unique cultural characteristics that combine colonial and anti-intellectual legacies, making it particularly appealing to corporate powers cultivating the norms of exploitative capitalism in academia. Critical inquiry into university transformations spearheaded by the Soviet characteristics of managerialism is sorely lacking. This paper calls for rethinking the cultural and political legacies of higher learning in a world challenged by undemocratic and revanchist forces.

Hanson, M., & Sokhey, S. W. (2021). Higher education as an authoritarian tool for regime survival: Evidence from Kazakhstan and around the world. Problems of Post-Communism, 68(3), 231-246. Hayden, M. and Thiep, L.Q. (2007). Institutional autonomy for higher education in Vietnam. Higher Education Research & Development 26 (1), 73-85. Heyneman, S. (1998). The transition from party/state to open democracy: The role of education. International Journal of Educational Development 18 (1), 21-40. Hladchenko, M., de Boer, H. and Westerheijden, D. (2016). Establishing research universities in Ukrainian Higher Education: The incomplete journey of a structural reform. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 38 (2): 111-125.