The changing seascape of higher education

research: three generations and the global

archipelago

Transforming Identities in Globalised Higher Education? Newer researchers’ perspectives

Bruce Macfarlane

Key questions

� Is higher education really globalised?

�Are identities being transformed? What does

that mean ‘on the ground’?

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

� Comparative institutional performance data – world rankings

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

� Comparative institutional performance data – world rankings

� Common patterns in career specialisation – research, teaching, management

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

� Comparative institutional performance data – world rankings

� Common patterns in career specialisation – research, teaching, management

� Development of academic capitalism, intellectual metrics (eg ISI Web of Science, Google scholar)

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

� Comparative institutional performance data – world rankings

� Common patterns in career specialisation – research, teaching, management

� Development of academic capitalism, intellectual metrics (eg ISI Web of Science, Google scholar)

� Mergers among publishers and publication in English

Is higher education really globalised?

� The growing market for international students: global

regionalism

� Comparative institutional performance data – world

rankings

� Common patterns in career specialisation – research, teaching, management

� Development of academic capitalism, intellectual metrics (eg ISI Web of Science, Google scholar)

� Mergers among publishers and publication in English

YES, BUT still many market barriers: language, funding models, etc

Are identities being transformed?

• Emergence of para-professionals in a range of

professions (eg health, policing, education, etc)

• Intensification, massification, casualisation &

competitiveness

• Disaggregation of academic practice...now

teaching OR research OR service (not all 3)

• Upskilling and de-skilling

The disaggregation of academic life

Macfarlane, 2011

The para-academic: up-skilling and de-skilling

Macfarlane, 2011

Effect of changing identities: hollowing out• The decline of faculty engagement: personal

tutoring and the ‘referral’ culture

• Withering of academic citizenship as service to

the university and beyond

• What is the impact of unbundling on the

academic profession’s identity and collective

sense of purpose?

Are identities being transformed?

What does that mean ‘on the ground’?

The ‘case study’ of higher education

research

Question 2

Who are ‘higher education researchers’?

�A refugee

You came from a field in decline or where jobs were

scarce

�A nomad

You associate with HE among other cognate fields

�A tourist

Your involvement is only temporary or tangential for

a one-off or occasional purpose

� (Almost ) a native

You did/are doing your Masters or PhD in Higher

Education

A divergent community

Disciplinary communities which are convergent

and tightly knit in terms of their fundamental

ideologies, their common values, their shared

judgements of quality, their awareness of

belonging to a unique tradition – in short their

fraternal sense of nationhood – are likely to

occupy intellectual territories with well-defined

external boundaries.

...The inverse is true of disciplinary groups which

are divergent and loosely knit. (Becher, 1989:37)

How do academic fields emerge?

�Forerunners – established academics in their

disciplines

�Pathfinders – created new knowledge and

sought legitimacy for it

�Pathtakers – new generation able to select

intellectual interests from the territory

legitimised by the pathfinders

Gumport (2002)

The forerunners – the theorists

�Forerunners – established academics in their

disciplines (the first, ‘long’ generation)

Pierre Bourdieu (2) John Henry Newman

Michel Focault (1) Jean-Francois Lyotard

John Dewey (31) Edward Shils

Martin Heidegger (14) Max Weber (8)

Robert Merton Amartya Sen

Jurgen Habermas(7) John Rawls (19)

The forerunners – the shapers

�Politician-academics who shaped modern

higher education systems

eg Cai Yuanpei, Abraham Flexner, Fukuzawa

Yukichi, Wilhelm Von Humboldt , Jennie Lee,

Ron Dearing

�Scholar-leaders who were key (re)shapers of

university cultures

eg Derek Bok, Eric Ashby, Patrick Nuttgens

The pathfinders

�Pathfinders – created new knowledge and

sought legitimacy for it (the second generation)

Burton Clark Noel Entwistle

A.H. Halsey Lewis Elton

Martin Trow Ference Marton

Tony Becher John Biggs

Maurice Kogan Clark Kerr

The pathtakers

A new generation able to select intellectual

interests from the territory legitimised by the

pathfinders (the third generation)

• Higher education specialists

• Social scientists with an interest in HE - disciplinary

nomads?

• Academic developers

• Institutional researchers

• Pedagogic researchers

Understanding the territory

Tight’s (2003) analysis and chapter headings for

International Handbook of Higher Education (2009):

�Teaching and Learning

�Course Design

�The student experience

�Quality

�System policy

� Institutional management

�Academic work

�Knowledge

A divided field? The journals

Teaching and Learning Policy

Teaching in Higher Education Higher Education Quarterly

Assessment & Evaluation in Journal of Higher Education

Higher Education Policy and Management

Active Learning in Higher Higher Education

Education

Innovations in Education Higher Education Policyand Teaching International

Studies in Higher Education, 14:3, 1989The cardinal and the samurai: Reflections on the purpose of education inthe works of J.H.Newman and Fukuzawa Yukichi

Historians on history

University management observed – A method for studying its unique nature?

Inter-group encounters of a different kind: The experiential research model

The American community colleges: A time for reappriasal

Providing higher education to socially disadvantaged populations

Continuing education: Do the universities mean business?

Perry revisited – A fresh look at Forms of Intellectual and Ethical development in the College Years

Studies in Higher Education, 34:2, 2009The academic attainment of students with disabilities in UK higher education

Relationships between students’ strategies for influencing their study environment and their strategic approach to studying

Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing

The student as co-producer: learning from public administration about thestudent-university relationship

Student models of learning and their impact on study strategies

Doctoral students’ experience of information technology research

Routes to qualified status: practices and trends among UK professional bodies

The SRHE Governing Council: 1997

Prof. Oliver Fulton (Chair) Dr Gareth Parry

Prof. Diane Green Richard Pearson Prof. John Dickinson Michael Shattock

Prof. Peter Scott Prof. Leslie WagnerProf. Geoffrey Alderman Prof. Gareth Williams

Jennifer Bone Dr Peter Wright

Harriet Croft Prof. Mantz YorkeDr Sinclair Goodlad

Prof. Lee HarveySusanne Haslegrove

Prof. Ian McNay

The SRHE Governing Council: 2010

Prof. Yvonne Hillier (Chair) Prof. Sue Clegg

Prof. Bruce Macfarlane Dr Kelly CoateProf. George Gordon Prof. Miriam David

David Palfreyman Prof. Vaneeta D’Andrea

Jill Armstrong Dr Linda EvansProf. Ronald Barnett Prof. Joelle Fanghanel

Prof. Paul Blackmore Dr Lesley GourlayDr Richard Blackwell Prof. Sue Law

Rebecca Bunting William LockeJanice Malcolm

Prof. Malcolm Tight

Dr Denise Whitelock

TEACHING & LEARNING

ISLAND

The higher education research archipelago

POLICY ISLAND

TEACHING & LEARNING

ISLAND

Evaluation

Pedagogic research marshes

Course design

Assessment & feedback

Student experience

Threshold concepts

e-learningSociology of education

Learning theory

SOTL

TEACHING & LEARNING

ISLAND

Evaluation

Pedagogic research marshes

Course design

Assessment & feedback

Student experience

Threshold concepts

e-learningSociology of education

Learning theory

Bourdieu Bay

Marton & Saljo cove

SOTL

Boyer Beach

Career rocks

Ge

nd

er c

oast

Laurillard land

Equity and accessPOLICY ISLAND

Historical & comparative analysis

National systems

Equity & access

Institutional leadership & management

Funding & economics

Quality

Employment & careers

Globalisation

Marketing

Equity and accessPOLICY ISLAND

Historical & comparative analysis

National systems

Equity & access

Institutional leadership & management

Funding & economics

Quality

Employment & careers

Globalisation

Marketing

Shattock sands

Harvey Hills

Teichler cove

Trow coast

Clark coast

Academic Development reef

Reflection coast

Academic workIdentity

Professionalism

Portfolios

TEACHING & LEARNING

ISLAND

The higher education research archipelago

POLICY ISLAND

Philosophy reef

Academic Development reef

Ge

nd

er c

oast

SEAOF

DISJUNCTURE

Conclusion: Two definite answers!

Question 1

HE is being ‘globalised’ but there is an increasing

stratification with expansion. Elite form of the

research university being ‘globalised’

Question 2

Academic identities are fragmenting and priorities

being re-shaped by intellectual metrics and

institutional isomorphism. HE maturing as a ‘field’