Description:
- The contributors of this volume explore the emerging corporality of the education system worldwide and the impact of this new governance on education practices.
- Explores changes in University regulations against the backdrop of neoliberal trends toward public-private partnerships.
- Details the emergence of faculty positions, educational opportunities and new approaches in teaching.
- Includes pedagogical, multi-cultural accounts of the contributors' personal experiences with the University system.
Brief description:
Boone W. Shear is a Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is on the editorial board of the journal Rethinking Marxism, a member of the Community Economies Collective, and the author of several articles that lie at the intersection of academic engagement, economic subjectivity, and development.
Review Quotes:
"Learning Under Neoliberalism is a seminal contribution in the form of consistently outstanding scholarship with respect to college and university level practices and policies vis-à-vis corporate and governmental entities." - Midwest Book Review
"In all, this volume provides an expansive, in-depth exploration of the current state of higher education and how changes are being brought upon it by global political and economic forces. It would be a valuable read for anyone working in higher education, as well as those who have or will have students moving through the system." - Anthropos
"All in all, Learning under Neoliberalism is an important contribution to the critical studies of HE transformations taking place in the Western world today. It goes some way in helping us figure out the ways the university as an institution and the student as a telling figure are changing, for better or worse, in neoliberal times. Notwithstanding the Euro-American focus, this volume has much to offer in terms of inspiring similar kinds of endeavours in other geographical and sociocultural contexts. It stands out because of the rich original ethnography and critical thoughts it offers. It is very well-edited and/or written, a delightful read, and will likely make readers feel they are taking part in an engaging conversation." - Social Anthropology
"As scholars, we rarely look systematically at the ways that neoliberalism affects students and faculty in our home institutions. Learning under Neoliberalism successfully fills this gap: the volume does an excellent job of getting at the cultural specificities of how neoliberalism manifests in various facets of academic life... Each chapter functions on its own as a superb analysis of neoliberalism in each author's context and includes strategies for activism, collaboration, and resistance. However, taken together, all of the chapters in the volume provide a new way of seeing the many facets of neoliberalism in institutions of higher education. This text should be required reading for those who teach, learn, and research in higher education as well as scholars of neoliberalism and those who are interested in activist or community engaged scholarship." - Anthropology & Education Quarterly
"The authors...offer rich accounts of how universities are governed and how they govern themselves. A finegrained picture of learning and academic work in public universities emerges supported by policy readings, ethnographic vignettes and data gathered in interviews and through participant observation. Close attention is given to documenting the micropolitics of university reforms on the bodies and emotions of students and academic staff." - Australian Review of Public Affairs