Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education
Top Cited Papers
- 1 May 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in British Journal of Sociology of Education
- Vol. 29 (3), 303-315
- https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690801966386
Abstract
This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu’s notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position‐taking; drawing on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu’s reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self‐determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and ‘scapes’. The dynamics of Bourdieu’s competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests.Keywords
This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit:
- Prospects of Higher EducationPublished by Brill ,2007
- What is Changing in Academic Research? Trends and Futures ScenariosEuropean Journal of Education, 2006
- Interrogating global flows in higher educationGlobalisation, Societies and Education, 2005
- Academic Mobility and ImmigrationJournal of Studies in International Education, 2005
- Fields and institutional strategy: Bourdieu on the relationship between higher education, inequality and societyBritish Journal of Sociology of Education, 2004
- Nationalisation, Localisation and Globalisation in Finnish Higher EducationHigher Education, 2004
- Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristicHigher Education, 2002
- Globalisation, New Managerialism, Academic Capitalism and Entrepreneurialism in Universities: Is the local dimension still important?Comparative Education, 2001
- Die Internet-GalaxiePublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,2001
- MORAL INFORMATIONThe Journal of Philosophy, 1984