Time future - the dominant discourse of higher education

Abstract

The paper presents a critique of the dominant temporality of higher education policy in the UK and globally. It argues that the temporality of ‘employability’ is what Barbara Adam and Chris Groves describe as the ‘present future’; a conception of the future as empty and open. Drawing on the work of Margaret Archer, the paper explores the differing existential temporalities associated with different forms of reflexivity and explores the complex temporalities of personal development planning. The increasing tempo of university life makes imagining otherwise, based on an ethical care for the future, increasingly difficult but nonetheless imperative.