The Knowledge Economy:
Democratisation, Distributive
Justice or Domination?
Professor Louise Morley
Centre for Higher Education and Equity
Research (CHEER)
University of Sussex, UK
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer
23 March, 2016
The University of the Past
•Elitism
•Exclusion
•Inequalities
23 March, 2016
The University of Today
• Diversified
• Liquified
• Expanded
• Globalised
• Borderless/ Edgeless
• Marketised/ Corporatised
• Hierarchically Ordered
• Economically Theorised
• Technologised
• Neo-liberalised
• Privatised?
23 March, 2016
Turbulence and Torpor
Caught between:


Hyper-modernisation
Archaism
Negotiating:

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
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Nostalgia
Frenzy
Inertia
Anxiety
Tensions between:
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Desire
Desiccation
Democratisation
Distributive justice
23 March, 2016
Futurology
• Whose imaginary is informing
policy? (Ball and Exley, 2009)
• Do policy discourses limit or
generate creative thinking
about the future of universities?
• Are social inequalities resistant
to hypermodernisation forces?
• Is the University of the Future
the University of the Past?
23 March, 2016
Why Democratise Higher Education?
Major site of:
 Knowledge formation & dissemination
 Opportunity structures for social mobility
 Worker production for other influential
institutions
 Identity formation
 Symbolic control
 (Holmwood, 2011; Morley, 2011)
Fears that:
 Economic crisis = Democratic crisis =
Austerity driven affective ecologies.
 Punitive moral economy.
Calls for:
 Cognitive & epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007)
 Development of a sociology of absences
(Santos, 1999) (2007/8- ECU, 2009).
23 March, 2016
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).
• Steep Social Gradients
23 March, 2016
Reproducing Power and Privilege?
Graduates from UK elite
universities control:
the media
politics
the civil service
the arts
the City
law
medicine
big business
the armed forces
the judiciary
think tanks
(Monbiot, 2010)
23 March, 2016
Democratisation =
Representational Space?
Norm- saturated policy narratives
• Gender/ Ethnicity/Social Class =
demographic variables (nouns), not in
continual production (verbs).
add more under-represented
groups
• Women’s increased access =
into current higher education
feminisation crisis discourse.
systems as students and academic
• HE products and processes = gender
leaders
neutral.
=
• Power and privilege = undertheorisation.
a form of distributive justice/ smart
economics
• Redistributive measures = social
organisational and epistemic
engineering.
transformation
• Equity / Affirmative Action = threat to
a happiness formula (Ahmed, 2010)
excellence.
23 March, 2016
• Knowledge Economy= gendered
networks (Walby, 2012)
Widening Participation in Higher
Education in Ghana and Tanzania
Measuring:
• Sociological variables of gender, age, socioeconomic status (SES)
In Relation to:
• Educational Outcomes: access, retention and
achievement.
In Relation to:
• 4 Programmes of Study in each university.
• 2 Public and 2 private universities.
• Quantitative Data -100 Equity Scorecards
• Qualitative Data - 200 interviews with
students and 200 with staff and policymakers.
(Morley et al. 2010)
(www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/wphegt)
23 March, 2016
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
Women
Low
SES
Age 30
or over
Mature
and
Low
SES
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
25.05
11.65
1.36
0.0
1.36
1.17
0.0
11.20
28.00
4.80
1.6
0.80
0.0
0.0
Programme
B.Sc.
Engineering
B. Science with
Education
Women
and low
SES
Women
30 or
over
Poor
Mature
Women
23 March, 2016
Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4
Programmes at a Public University in Ghana
According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status
(2009)
% of Students on the 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
29.92
1.66
5.82
0.00
1.11
0.28
0.00
B.
Management
Studies
47.06
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
Programme
23 March, 2016
Reverse Discrimination
17 men and 9 women out of 100
students in Ghana
 Gender difference = preferential
treatment for women.
 Women’s failure = evidence of lack of
academic abilities/ preparedness for
HE.
 Women’s achievement = attributed to
women’s ‘favoured’ position in
gendered academic markets.
Women constructed as:
 Corrupt/ fraudulent learners.
 Not entitled to higher education.
 Post-feminist strategic agents, not
victims.
 Deploying corporeal style to manipulate
essentialised male desire.
(Morley, 2011)
23 March, 2016
Democratising Higher
Education Leadership
Iceland
43%
Female
Rectors/ Vice-chancellors
Female Professors
27%
Female Graduates
66.2%
Kuwait
2%
Sweden
43%
Turkey
7%
UK
14%
No data
70%
20%
65%
28.5%
46%
20%
57%
• Are women desiring, dismissing or being disqualified from academic
leadership?
• Who self-identifies/ is identified by existing power elites, as having
leadership legitimacy?
• Is leader identity still constituted through gendered power relations?
• Do cultural scripts for leaders coalesce or collide with normative gender
performances?
• How does gender continue to escape organisational logic/rationalities?
23 March, 2016
The Gendered Research Economy:
Misrecognition and Misogyny
Women Cast as Unreliable Knowers
Women less likely to be:
 Journal editors/cited in top-rated
journals (Tight, 2008).
 Principal investigators
(EC, 2011)
 On research boards
 Awarded large grants
 Awarded research prizes
(Nikiforova,
2011)
23 March, 2016
Absences and Aspirations in the
Global Academy
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Australia (Fitzgerald, 2011)
Canada (Acker, 2012)
China (Chen, 2012)
Finland (Husu, 2000)
Ghana (Ohene, 2010)
Guyana (Austin, 2002)
Ireland (Lynch, 2010)
Kenya (Onsongo, 2004)
Nigeria (Odejide, 2007)
Norway (Benediktsdottir, 2008)
Pakistan (Rab, 2010)
Papua New Guinea (Sar & Wilkins, 2001)
South Africa (Shackleton et al., 2006)
South Korea (Kim et al., 2010)
Sri Lanka (Gunawardena et al., 2006)
Sweden (Peterson, 2011)
Tanzania (Bhalalusesa, 1998)
Turkey (Özkanli, 2009)
Uganda (Kwesiga & Ssendiwala, 2006)
UK (Deem, 2003)
USA (Bonner, 2006)
23 March, 2016
Accounting for Absences/
Expanding the Theoretical Lexicon
• Gendered Division of Labour
• Gender Bias/ Misrecognition
• Management & Masculinity
• Greedy Organisations
• Women’s Missing Agency/ Deficit
Internal Conversations/ Resilience
(Morley, 2012, 2013)
23 March, 2016
Leaderism
Evolution of Managerialism?
• Social and organisational technology
• Disguises the corporatisation and values shift
Diverts attention to personal qualities, skills
for organisational transformation.
Certain
• Subjectivities
• Values
• Behaviours
• Dispositions
• Characteristics
Can
• Strategically overcome institutional inertia
• Outflank resistance/ recalcitrance
• Provide direction for new university futures
However
• The leaderist turn is not innocent
• Transformative leadership is value-laden.
23 March, 2016
(O’Reilly and Reed, 2010, 2011).
Vertical Career Success or
Incarceration in an Identity Cage?
Leadership Can Involve
• Multiple/ conflicting affiliations
• Unstable engagements with hierarchy &
power (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009)
• Working with resistance & recalcitrance
• Colonising colleagues’ subjectivities
towards the goals of managerially
inspired discourses
• An affective load/ identity work
• Managing self-doubt, conflict, anxiety,
disappointment & occupational stress
(Acker, 2012; Watson, 2009)
• Women in ‘velvet ghettos’ (Guillaume &
Pochic, 2009), or ‘glass cliffs’ (Ryan &
Haslam, 2005) or adjunct roles (Davies,
1996)
• Restricting, rather than building
23 March, 2016
capacity and creativity.
Democratisation in Higher
Education …
IS NOT
• Access to knowledge and
knowledge production systems
and organisations monopolised/
dominated by the elite.
• Women/minorities = accessing
some aspects of the knowledge
economy.
• Lack capital (economic, political,
social and symbolic) to redefine
the requirements of the field
(Corsun & Costen, 2001).
COULD INVOLVE
• Discovering new conceptual grammars
to include equalities, identities and
affective domains.
• Considering the collective/ public as
well as the private benefits of
knowledge/ HE.
• Including more accountability on social
inequalities e.g. global league tables.
• Contributing to wealth/ opportunity
distribution as well as to wealth
creation.
• Undoing gender (Butler, 2004)
23 March, 2016
Follow Up?
• Morley, L. (2012) "The Rules of the
Game: Women and the Leaderist Turn
CHEER
in Higher Education " Gender and
Education. 25(1).
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/
• Morley, L. (2013) International Trends in
Women’s Leadership in Higher
Education In, T. Gore, and Stiasny, M
(eds) Going Global. London, Emerald
Press.
• Morley, L. (2013) Women and Higher
Education Leadership: Absences and
Aspirations. Stimulus Paper for the
Leadership Foundation for Higher
Education.
23 March, 2016