Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization

Understanding higher education and the knowledge economy in the Age of Globalization. Today, nearly every aspect of higher education—including student recruitment, classroom instruction, faculty research, administrative governance, and the control of intellectual property—is embedded in a political economy with links to the market and the state. Academic capitalism offers a powerful framework for understanding this relationship. Essentially, it allows us to understand higher education’s shift from creating scholarship and learning as a public good to generating knowledge as a commodity to be monetized in market activities. In Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, Brendan Cantwell and Ilkka Kauppinen assemble an international team of leading scholars to explore the profound ways in which globalization and the knowledge economy have transformed higher education around the world. The book offers an in-depth assessment of the theoretical foundations of academic capitalism, as well as new empirical insights into how the process of academic capitalism has played out. Chapters address academic capitalism from historical, transnational, national, and local perspectives. Each contributor offers fascinating insights into both new conceptual interpretations of and practical institutional and national responses to academic capitalism. Incorporating years of research by influential theorists and building on the work of Sheila Slaughter, Larry Leslie, and Gary Rhoades, Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization provides a provocative update for understanding academic capitalism. The book will appeal to anyone trying to make sense of contemporary higher education.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Acknowledgments Part I: Academic Capitalism Revisited Chapter 1. Academic Capitalism in Theory and Research Chapter 2. Retheorizing Academic Capitalism: Actors, Mechanisms, Fields, and Networks Chapter 3. University Revolutions and Academic Capitalism: A Historical Perspective Chapter 4. Exploring the Academic Capitalist Time Regime Chapter 5. Learning to Litigate: University Patents in the Knowledge Economy Chapter 6. Academic Capitalism and Practical Activity: Extending the Research Program Chapter 7. Extending Academic Capitalism by Foregrounding Academic Labor Part II: Academic Capitalism and Globalization Chapter 8. The Global Enterprise of Higher Education Chapter 9. Transnationalization of Academic Capitalism through Global Production Networks Chapter 10. How to Explain Academic Capitalism: A Mechanism-Based Approach Chapter 11. Peripheral Knowledge-Driven Economies: What Does Academic Capitalism Have to Say? Chapter 12. Academic Capitalism in Greater China: Theme and Variations Chapter 13. Risky Business: Academic Capitalism, Globalization, and the Risk University Chapter 14. Developing a Conceptual Model to Study the International Student Market List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Brendan Cantwell is an assistant professor of higher, adult, and lifelong education at Michigan State University. Ilkka Kauppinen is a university lecturer in sociology in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at University of Jyväskylä and a fellow at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education.

Review :
As a collection, Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization presents ways that universities have become more entrepreneurial, more interdisciplinary, more competitive, and more marketable as postsecondary institutions and labor markets have become progressively globalized. —Canadian Journal of Higher Education o