louise morley - imagining the inclusive university of the future
DESCRIPTION
A keynote speech delivered to the Widening Participation Conference 2012 'Discourses of Inclusion in Higher Education' 24-25 April 2012 www.open.ac.uk/disourses-of-inclusionTRANSCRIPT
8 April 2023
Imagining the Inclusive University of the Future
Professor Louise Morley University of Sussex, UK
(http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cheer/).
Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER)
8 April 2023
The University of the Past
•Elitism
•Exclusion
•Inequalities
8 April 2023
The University of Today
•Diversified•Liquified•Expanded •Globalised•Borderless/ Edgeless•Marketised•Technologised•Neo-liberalised•Privatised?
8 April 2023
Turbulence and Torpor
Caught between: Archaism Hyper-modernisation
Negotiating: Nostalgia Frenzy Inertia
Tensions between: Desire Desiccation Distributive justice
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Do These Discourses Excite and Delight You?
Quality Assurance Excellence Knowledge Economy Innovation and Enterprise Knowledge Transfer Teaching and Learning Lifelong Learning Employability Globalisation Internationalisation Civic Engagement Digitisation Economic Impact League Tables
8 April 2023
Futurology
Are current HE policy discourses:
Limiting or generating creative
thinking about the future of
universities?
Commensurate with aspirations/
desires of students/ staff?
Reducing universities to delivery
agencies for government-decreed
outcomes? (Young, 2004)
8 April 2023
Technology or Ideology?
• Quality is frequently invoked
when equality is raised.
• Is equality invoked in quality
discourses?
• Top Universities in League
Tables have lowest numbers of
women professors.
UK = 20%Oxford = 9.4%
8 April 2023
Whose Imaginary?
• Neo-liberalism/ austerity rather
than academic imaginaries or
social movements?
• Who/what is currently
informing policy? (Ball and Exley,
2009)
• What new vocabularies can be
marshalled to consider the
morphology of the university of
the future?
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What Type of Future?
•Probable
•Possible
•Desirable
(Appadurai, 2010)
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Imagining the Future
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Dystopian Futures and Cultures of Closure
• Callousness of prestige
• Decline in academic freedom
• Employees permanently temporary
• Job training, not education
• Teacherless classrooms
• Increased political, cultural and economic assault
• Corporatisation/ academic-capitalist values
• Countercultures and opposition crushed.
(Bousquet, 2008)
8 April 2023
The Edgeless University (Bradwell,
2009)
• Open Access Publishing• Flexible learning outside the
university• Social media• Progressive Austerity (Reeves, 2009)
• Strategic technological investment• New providers • Collaborative research/ open
research communities• Universities as partners, not sole
providers of learning, research• Engaging stakeholders in course
design• New forms of accreditation.
8 April 2023
Absences and Silences
• Learning Landscapes/ Aesthetics/ Spatial Justice/ (Lambert, 2010; Neary, 2010)
• Affective Domain (Hey, 2009, 2011)
• Environment and Sustainability (Sterling, 2004)
• Global North/ South Power Geometries and Cognitive Justice (Robinson, 2009; Santos, 2007)
• Equalities and Intersectionality of Social Identities (Morley et al, 2010)
8 April 2023
Equalities and Identities
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Desiring Higher Education
• Aligning personal aspirations with needs of economy
(Appadurai, 2003; Morley et al. 2010; Walkerdine, 2003, 2011).
Globally: 1960 - 13 million 2005 - 137.8 million 2025 - 262 million? (UNESCO, 2009).
• Multiversities (Fallis, 2007)
or
• Multiple providers (Ball, 2008).
8 April 2023
Global Expansion
Asia
China enrolment is now 20% (Marginson et al., 2011)
India (world’s third largest HE system) plans 15% by 2012
Sub-Saharan Africa
8.7% annual expansion5.1% for the world as a whole.
Regional Variations in Participation
Iceland 65.6% Austria 60.7% (UNESCO, 2009)
Tanzania 1% (DFID, 2008)
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Toxic Correlations/ Access and Social Identities
• 4% of UK poorer young people enter higher education.
(David et al, 2009; Hills Report, 2009).
• 5% of this group enter UK’s top 7 universities (HESA, 2010).
• More black young men in prison in UK and US than in HE.
• Attainment gap in UK HE highest between black and white students (Ruebain, 2012).
• Universities = hereditary domain of financially advantaged (Gopal, 2010).
8 April 2023
Why Does This Matter?
The university
• generates social, educational
and cultural opportunities
• plays a major role in social
mobility
• produces workers for other
influential institutions.
(Holmwood, 2011)
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Reproducing Power and Privilege?
Graduates from elite universities control:
the mediapolitics the civil service the artsthe City law medicinebig business the armed forcesthe judiciarythink tanks
(Monbiot, 2010)
8 April 2023
Closing the Gender Gap?
• Global Gender Parity Index of 1.08 (UNESCO, 2009).
• The number of male students globally quadrupled from 17.7 to 75.1 million between 1970-2007.
• The number of female students rose sixfold from 10.8 to 77.4 million.
• UK ranked 16 the Global Gender Gap Index (13 in 2008)
(World Economic Forum, 2011).
In UK, women are:• 57.1% of students • 42.6% of academic staff • 20% of professoriate• 13% of Vice-Chancellors (ECU, 2009).
8 April 2023
Inclusion = Representational Space
• Gender = access, smart economics, disadvantage and remediation.
• Women’s increased access = feminisation.
• Gender not intersected with other structures of inequality.
• HE products and processes = gender neutral.
• Power and privilege = under-theorisation.
• Redistributive measures = social engineering.
• Equity / Affirmative Action = threat to excellence.
8 April 2023
Gender Mainstreaming?
• Sexual harassment (Morley, 2011, NUS, 2010);
• Gender insensitive pedagogy (Welch, 2006);
• Women and Technology (Clegg, 2011);
• Promotion, professional development and tenure (Acker,
2009; Knights and Richards, 2003); • Knowledge production and
dissemination (Hughes, 2002);
• Curricula and subject choices (Morley et al, 2006).
• Inequalities and gender
mainstreaming (Morley, 2010; Rees, 2006).
8 April 2023
Gender…
is a demographic variable (noun), not
something that is in continual production
(verb).
continues to be relayed via everyday
practices that elude quality audits.
is ignored when women suffer
discrimination/under-representation.
is amplified in crisis form when women are
‘over-represented’.
inequalities resistant to
hypermodernisation forces?
8 April 2023
Sociology of Absences
(De Sousa Santos)
8 April 2023
Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania
Measuring:
• Sociological variables of gender, age, socio-economic status (SES)
In Relation to:
• Educational Outcomes: access, retention and achievement.
In Relation to:
• 4 Programmes of Study in each HEI.• 2 Public and 2 private HEIs.
• Intersectionality
(Morley et al. 2010 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt
8 April 2023
Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Tanzania According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status
% of Students on the Programme
Programme Women
Low SES
Age 30 or over
Mature and Low SES
Women and low
SES
Women 30 or over
Poor Mature Women
B. Commerce 32.41 8.59 1.13 0.16 0.32 0.0 0.0
LLB. Law 56.18 13.48 0.0 0.0 5.06 0.0 0.0
B.Sc. Engineering
25.05 11.65 1.36 0.0 1.36 1.17 0.0
B. Science with Education
11.20 28.00 4.80 1.6 0.80 0.0 0.0
8 April 2023
Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Ghana According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status (SES)
Programme
% of Students on the Programme
WomenLow SES
Age 30 or
over
Mature and Low SES
Women and low SES
Women 30
or over
Poor Mature Women
B.Commerce 29.92 1.66 5.82 0.00 1.11 0.28 0.00
B.Management
Studies47.06 2.94 6.30 0.00 1.68 3.36 0.00
B.Education (Primary)
36.36 8.08 65.66 8.08 2.02 21.21 2.02
B.Sc. Optometry
30.77 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
8 April 2023
Steep Social Gradients
• Opportunity hording by
privileged social groups?
• Middle class capture of
affirmative action?
• Are we now educating
‘doctors' daughters rather
than doctors' sons’? (Williams/ Eagleton 2008)
8 April 2023
‘Now’ (Inclusive) Universities Built on Yesterday’s (Exclusive) Foundations
Hyper-modernisation of:
• Liquified globalisation
• Entrepreneurial, corporate, commercialised universities
• Digitisation
• Turbo-charged consuming, multitasking students.
Archaism of:
• Male dominance of leadership
• Gender inequalities and feminisation fears
• Unequal participation rates for different social groups.
8 April 2023
The (Inclusive) University of the Future Needs to...
• Recover critical knowledge and be a think tank and policy driver.
• Discover new conceptual grammars to include equalities, identities and affective domains.
• Consider the collective/ public as well as the private benefits of knowledge/ HE.
• Include more accountability on social inequalities.
• Contribute to wealth/ opportunity distribution as well as to wealth creation.
8 April 2023
CHEER
ESRC Seminar Series:
‘Imagining the University of the
Future’ http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cheer/esrcseminars
Special issue of Contemporary Social
Science (Volume 6:2, 2011) entitled:
‘Challenge, Change or Crisis in Global
Higher Education?’