Higher Education and Intellectual Retrogression

Higher Education and Intellectual Retrogression PDF Author: Arup Maharatna
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000840522
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
This monograph critically analyses the historical evolution of ideas, perceptions and principles on higher education and unravels a few of its interlinked aspects – content, quality, standard, massification, privatization and commercialization. It presents both original and penetrative critique of neoliberal ideas and policies reigning higher education since World War II. The volume argues that with the proliferation of ‘academic capitalism’ the academic quality of higher education has been inevitably compromised and it has thereby heralded a comprehensive ‘intellectual retrogression’. The book offers a meticulous evaluation of global research reflecting on impeccable evidence of decline in academic learning – in its effort, quality, standards and overall intellectual level and rigour. Finally, it illuminates why it is dangerous to continue clinging ideationally to neoliberal reign in education and thereby evading or effacing some of the lasting and universal wisdoms and precepts of the educational reign preceding neoliberal marketoriented predominancy. The book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of education, higher education, sociology of education, economics and politics of education. It will also be useful for academicians, higher education administration, policymakers, schoolteachers and those interested in debates and issues around higher education.

Higher Education and Intellectual Retrogression

Higher Education and Intellectual Retrogression PDF Author: Arup Maharatna
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000840522
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book

Book Description
This monograph critically analyses the historical evolution of ideas, perceptions and principles on higher education and unravels a few of its interlinked aspects – content, quality, standard, massification, privatization and commercialization. It presents both original and penetrative critique of neoliberal ideas and policies reigning higher education since World War II. The volume argues that with the proliferation of ‘academic capitalism’ the academic quality of higher education has been inevitably compromised and it has thereby heralded a comprehensive ‘intellectual retrogression’. The book offers a meticulous evaluation of global research reflecting on impeccable evidence of decline in academic learning – in its effort, quality, standards and overall intellectual level and rigour. Finally, it illuminates why it is dangerous to continue clinging ideationally to neoliberal reign in education and thereby evading or effacing some of the lasting and universal wisdoms and precepts of the educational reign preceding neoliberal marketoriented predominancy. The book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of education, higher education, sociology of education, economics and politics of education. It will also be useful for academicians, higher education administration, policymakers, schoolteachers and those interested in debates and issues around higher education.

The Future of American Higher Education

The Future of American Higher Education PDF Author: Joseph L. DeVitis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000971260
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
"This impressive anthology presents the reader with an introduction to a gallery of public intellectuals through the critical eyes of a wide array of contributing writers from various academic fields. Both the latter and the public intellectuals themselves are responding to the state of American higher education. Importantly, most of them (there are a few public intellectuals in the book who cling closer to the status quo) do not separate colleges and universities from the political, economic, and social currents of American society. They attack the realities of growing social inequality, the intractable presence of institutional racism, and the recurrent reliance on the free market as the arbiter of value. Public intellectuals assess the impact of these social factors on the organization and practices of contemporary American higher education. They force the reader to consider serious challenges to the current arrangement of higher learning and, as such, they ask us to assess the efficacy of their respective perspectives. Do they present the reader with insight or idealism, pathways or dead ends? This compendium provides an abundance of ideas for higher education leaders, policy makers, faculty members, trustees and governmental officials as well as social theorists and graduate students interested in higher education careers."—Richard Guarasci, President Emeritus of Wagner CollegeJust as our society is polarized, higher education is no less divided as to its mission and purpose, whether it should be preparing students for employment or for engagement as citizens, whether it should be corporatist and profit-driven or promote intellectual curiosity and independent thinking, and whether it should pursue a neoliberal agenda or promote a liberal education. Whose scholarship, culture and epistemologies should be validated? Should it be a private or a public good? Preserve tenure or erode it? What role should colleges and universities play in addressing economic inequality and systemic racism? The answers to these questions are critical for the future of our society as our universities and colleges are the nurseries of the values and philosophies that shape it.The chapters in this book review the contributions of seventeen public intellectuals who have been at the forefront of these issues and significantly contributed to these debates. Each describes the genesis of each scholar’s ideas and presents and critiques his or her core insights and arguments. The seventeen public intellectuals represent a spectrum of opinion, from the conservative to the progressive.At this pivotal moment when much of higher education is in economic crisis, and public trust in it has been eroded, this book offers a robust entry point for considering the options and directions ahead for anyone in a leadership position. The book will also be valuable for higher education courses to stimulate debate about these critical issues and introduce readers to the seminal thinkers in the field.Public Intellectuals PresentedStanley AronowitzMichael BérubéMarc BousquetPatricia Hill CollinsLori Patton DavisWilliam DeresiewiczStanley Fish Marybeth GasmanHenry GirouxSara Goldrick-RabbAmy GutmannRussell JacobyRandall KennedyDavid KirpDavid F. LabareeChristopher NewfieldMichael Roth

The Future of American Higher Education

The Future of American Higher Education PDF Author: Joseph L. DeVitis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781003447818
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Crisis in the Academy

Crisis in the Academy PDF Author: Christopher J. Lucas
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312176860
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Not since student turmoil and unrest wreaked havoc on the nation's campuses three decades ago has American higher education been the subject of so much controversy and popular criticism. Countless indictments compete for the public's attention as critics explore vital issues confronting today's institutions of higher learning: curricular fragmentation, declining academic standards, the apparent erosion of liberal learning within academe, widespread neglect of undergraduate education in favour of academic research and unprecedented financial woes. Confusion over fundamental priorities and purposes, the author argues, lies at the heart of the dilemma facing end-of-the-century higher education. Thoughtful and timely, Crisis in the Academy offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary higher education while making an important contribution to the ongoing public debate over the future of America's beleaguered and diverse institutions of higher learning.

In Defense of American Higher Education

In Defense of American Higher Education PDF Author: Philip G. Altbach
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801866545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The current era in higher education is characterized by increased need for accountability and fiscal constraint coupled with demands for increased productivity. Higher education is expected to meet the demand of changing student demographics, as well as requests for research and service from government and industry. To preserve the academy's ability to meet these demands, the editors and contributors to this volume argue that, while change is inevitable and desirable, any radical alterations to the practices that have established and upheld the excellence of higher education in the United States must be carefully considered.The editors and contributors cherish the best ideals of higher education: academic freedom, commitment to both inquiry and teaching, and preservation of an independence of mind and spirit in the face of external pressures. At the same time, the authors of these essays also reflect upon the failings of higher education, including problematic historical legacies such as racism, sexism, and anti-semitism. In Defense of American Higher Education is a careful analysis of what we have inherited, undertaken with a critical eye for constructive reform. It will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of American higher education.

Higher Education in the Information Age

Higher Education in the Information Age PDF Author: Dennis Everette E.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000677206
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
College and university education has long been a material and intellectual luxury in American life. Fewer than 38 percent of Americans have ever attended college, and only about half that number hold bachelor's degrees. While post-World War Two legislation greatly democratized higher education, the editors of this volume contend that the system has never been a public stewardship. Many universities are devoted to private sector research rather than public learning, to productivity rather than democratic discourse, and because of diminished financial opportunities, increasingly exclude poor, working and lower middle class students, many of them people of color.The contributors to this volume recognize that the American system of higher education is the most open and egalitarian in the world. Largely for this reason, it is the only American institution which today enjoys a positive balance of trade. Many more foreign students come to study at American universities than do Americans go to study abroad. The study of higher education in an information age means examining higher education. The place of economics in decision-making is as a vehicle for social mobility.The volume covers a myriad of themes: the role of media ranking universities, and their contribution to low expectations of universities; the disjunction between massive support for college and university sports events and the intellectual and presumed academic missions of these institutions of higher learning; and boosterism as a general phenomenon in funding. Yet, editors and contributors alike emphasize new currents in the educational agenda. The essays cover efforts to close the gap between the mutual recriminations of universities and media leaders. The theme of this volume is that there is a crisis in higher education and a crisis hi knowledge - who produces it, controls it, uses it, and benefits by it. Properly understood, the issues common to both higher education and the media have profound implications for public life.This volume is critical of current practices, but also mindful that the university remains a place in which civil forms of discourse are central, and hence of great potential benefit to the dissemination of information and ideas as such. It will be of interest to professional interested hi communication and education.

Higher Education Cannot Escape History

Higher Education Cannot Escape History PDF Author: Clark Kerr
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791417072
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Our taste for blood sport stops short at the bruising clash of football players or the gloved blows of boxers, and the suicide of a politician is no more than a personal tragedy. What, then, are we to make of the ancient Romans, for whom the meaning of sport and politics often depended on death? In this provocative, thoughtful book, Paul Plass shows how the deadly violence of arena sport and political suicide served a social purpose in ancient Rome. His work offers a reminder of the complex uses to which institutionalized violence can be put. Violence, Plass observes, is a universal part of human life, and so must be integrated into social order. Grounding his study in evidence from Roman history and drawing on ideas from contemporary sociology and anthropology, he first discusses gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome. Massive bloodshed in the arena, Plass argues, embodied the element of danger for a society frequently engaged in war, with outsiders--whether slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war--sacrificed for a sense of public security

Higher Education in Transition

Higher Education in Transition PDF Author: John Brubacher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351515772
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
At a time when our colleges and universities face momentous questions of new growth and direction, the republication of Higher Education in Transition is more timely than ever. Beginning with colonial times, the authors trace the development of our college and university system chronologically, in terms of men and institutions. They bring into focus such major areas of concern as curriculum, administration, academic freedom, and student life. They tell their story with a sharp eye for the human values at stake and the issues that will be with us in the future.One gets a sense not only of temporal sequence by centuries and decades but also of unity and continuity by a review of major themes and topics. Rudy's new chapters update developments in higher education during the last twenty years. Higher Education in Transition continues to have significance not only for those who work in higher education, but for everyone interested in American ideas, traditions, and social and intellectual history.

We’re Losing Our Minds

We’re Losing Our Minds PDF Author: R. Keeling
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137001763
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
America is being held back by the quality and quantity of learning in college. Many graduates cannot think critically, write effectively, solve problems, understand complex issues, or meet employers' expectations. The only solution - making learning the highest priority in college - demands fundamental change throughout higher education.

Perspectives on Higher Education

Perspectives on Higher Education PDF Author: Burton R. Clark
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520325915
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.