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

8 April 2023

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?

8 April 2023

What Type of Future?

•Probable

•Possible

•Desirable

(Appadurai, 2010)

8 April 2023

Imagining the Future

8 April 2023

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

8 April 2023

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)

8 April 2023

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)

8 April 2023

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?’