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The Knowledge Economy: Democratisation, Distributive Justice or Domination?

The Knowledge Economy: Democratisation, Distributive Justice or Domination? Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer. The Knowledge Economy: Some Provocations.

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The Knowledge Economy: Democratisation, Distributive Justice or Domination?

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  1. The Knowledge Economy: Democratisation, Distributive Justice or Domination? Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer

  2. The Knowledge Economy: Some Provocations • What concepts structure the discourse? • Are the drivers economic and/ or social (inclusion/ citizenship/ distributive justice)? • What form does Education take in a KE? • Can a KE exist without democracy? • Has knowledge: • been colonised by the ‘cultural circuits’ of capitalism (Mills and Ratcliffe, 2012)? • become overtly aligned with the values of neo-liberal and austerity policy cultures? • Are some forms of knowledge and knowing misrecognised/ unintelligible/ absent (De Souza Santos, 2001; Walby, 2011)?

  3. Global Policy Architecture in Late Capitalism Knowledge Economy = • Economics of abundance • Annihilation of distance • De-territorialization of the state • Investment in human capital • Meta-cognitive skills • Future orientated (OECD, 1996a, b,c,; World Bank, 1998, 2002)

  4. Higher Education From • Planned scarcity To • Demand-led and claimed form of citizenship • The citizen now constructed as: • an economic maximiser • governed by self-interests • aspiring for nation-building and wealth creation. • It is now almost a civic duty to aspire to HE (Biesta, 2006).

  5. Global Knowledge Race European Union • ..to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. (Lisbon Council, March 2000). ASEAN Region • Providing citizens with higher incomes and more fulfilling work(Marginson et al, 2011) Gulf States • Oil rich nations transforming themselves into knowledge economies(Donn & Al Manthri,2013) • Latin America • From agriculture to industry to knowledge (Piaggesi & Chea 2011).

  6. What Does Knowledge Do? • Economic progress via creation/ utilisation of knowledge. • National economic asset • Basis of national competitive advantage. • Drives innovation • Social and geographical mobility • Insurance against pubic/ private poverty. • Democratisation/ citizenship. • Social Cohesion/ Peace.

  7. Operationalising the Knowledge Economy • Technologisation/ The Network Society/ Connectivity • Rethinking of relationships between education, learning and work (Young, 2010) • Perpetual Training/ Lifelong Learning (Burton-Jones,1999) • Growth of intellectual, human and social capital (competencies) (Peters, 2004) • Knowledge diffusion/ openness • Global convergence • Widening Access/Participation/ Massification

  8. Desiring Higher Education • Aligning aspirations with needs of economy (Morley et al. 2010; Walkerdine, 2003). • Globally: 1960 - 13m 2005 - 137.8m 2009 – 170m Largest HE sectors: • China (37m) • India (28m) • US (20m) • Brazil (9m) • Indonesia (7.8m) Growth from 5 -6% (2009) to 1-2% (2012) Economic crisis = Democratic crisis?

  9. 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 university. • 2 Public and 2 private universities. • Quantitative Data -100 Equity Scorecards • Qualitative Data - 200 interviews with students and 200 with staff and policymakers. • Intertextuality (Morley et al. 2010) (www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/wphegt)

  10. Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Tanzania According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status

  11. Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4 Programmes at a Public University in Ghana According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status (2009)

  12. Reverse Discrimination 17 men and 9 women out of 100 students in Ghana • Gender difference = preferential treatment for women. • Women’s failure = evidence of lack of academic abilities/ preparedness for HE. • Women’s achievement = attributed to women’s ‘favoured’ position in gendered academic markets. Women constructed as: • Corrupt/ fraudulent learners. • Not entitled to higher education. • Post-feminist strategic agents, not victims. • Deploying corporeal style to manipulate essentialised male desire. • Trading sex for grades. (Morley, 2011)

  13. Democratisation = Representational Space? Norm- saturated policy narratives • add more under-represented groups • into current higher education systems as students and academic leaders = • a form of distributive justice/ smart economics • organisational and epistemic transformation • enhanced human capital • Gender/ Ethnicity/Social Class = demographic variables (nouns), not in continual production (verbs). • Women’s increased access = feminisation crisis discourse. • HE products and processes = neutral? • Power and privilege = under-theorisation. • Redistributive measures (Affirmative Action) = threat to excellence. • Access not an end in itself, like voting (Young, 2010) • Knowledge Economy= invested, situated and exclusionary.

  14. From Access/ Participation to Cognitive/ Epistemic Justice (Fricker, 2007) Certain people/ social groups: • Wronged in their capacity as knowers • Suffer Credibility Deficit/ Lack Rational Authority • Testimonial injustice Deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s world • Hermeneutical Injustice Gap in collective interpretative resources.

  15. IS NOT Access to knowledge/ knowledge production systems and organisations monopolised/ dominated by the elite. Decontextualised knowledge. Commodifying knowledge/ exchange value. Overlapping social with epistemological hierarchies. COULD INVOLVE Discovering new conceptual grammars to include social identities and cognitive/ epistemic inclusion. Contributing to wealth/ opportunity distribution as well as to wealth creation. Democratisation in Higher Education/ Knowledge Economy…

  16. References Biesta, G. (2006) What’s the Point of Lifelong Learning if Lifelong Learning Has No Point? On the Democratic Deficit of Policies for Lifelong Learning, European Educational Research Journal, 5(2/3), 169-180. Burton-Jones, A. (1999) Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work and Learning in the New Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. De Sousa Santos.B. (2001) Towards an epistemology of blindness, European Journal of Social Theory, 4 (3), 251—279: Donn, G. and Al Manthri, Y. (2013) Education in the Broader Middle East borrowing a baroque arsenal. Oxford, Symposium Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lisbon Council, (2000). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_en.htm Marginson, S. , Kaur, S. and Sawir, E. (eds.) (2011) Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic responses to globalization. Dordrecht (Springer). Mills, D. and R. Ratcliffe (2012). After Method: Anthropology, Education and the Knowledge Economy. Qualitative Research 12(2): 147-164. Morley, L., Leach, F., Lussier, K., Lihamba, A., Mwaipopo, R., Forde, L. & Egbenya, G. (2010) Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard. Research Report. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt/impact-outputs/report-summary

  17. References • Morley, L. (2011). Sex, Grades and Power in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania. Cambridge Journal of Education 41(1): 101-115. • OECD (1996a) The knowledge-based economy (Paris, The Organization).OECD (1996b) Measuring what people know: human capital accounting for the knowledge economy (Paris, The Organization).OECD (1996c) Employment and growth in the knowledge-based economy (Paris, The Organization).Peters, M. (2004). Education and Ideologies of the Knowledge Economy: Europe and the Politics of Emulation. Social Work & Society 2( 2): 160-172. • Piaggesi, D. and Chea, M.J. (2011). The Knowledge Economy: A New Development Paradigm for Latin America and the Caribbean. In D. Piaggesi, K. Sund, & W. Castelnovo (Eds.) Global Strategy and Practice of E-Governance: Examples from Around the World (pp. 464-477). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. • Young, M. (2010) Alternative Educational Futures for a Knowledge Society. European Educational Research Journal. 9(1):1-13. • Walby, S. (2011). Is the Knowledge Society Gendered?’Gender, Work and Organization. 18(1): 1-29. • Walkerdine, V. (2003). Reclassifying upward mobility: femininity and the neo-liberal subject." Gender and Education 15(3): 237-248. • World Bank, The (1998) World development report: knowledge for development Washington DC,: World Bank, • World Bank. (2002). Constructing Knowledge Societies. Washington DC: World Bank.

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