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
The Knowledge Economy: Some
Provocations
• What concepts structure the discourse?
• Are the drivers economic and/ or social
(inclusion/ citizenship/ distributive justice)?
• What form does Education take in a KE?
• Can a KE exist without democracy?
• Has knowledge:
 been colonised by the ‘cultural circuits’ of
capitalism
(Mills and Ratcliffe, 2012)?
 become overtly aligned with the values of
neo-liberal and austerity policy cultures?
• Are some forms of knowledge and knowing
misrecognised/ unintelligible/ absent
(De Souza Santos, 2001; Walby, 2011)?
Global Policy Architecture in
Late Capitalism
Knowledge Economy =
•Economics of abundance
•Annihilation of distance
•De-territorialization of the
state
•Investment in human
capital
•Meta-cognitive skills
•Future orientated
(OECD, 1996a, b,c,; World Bank, 1998,
2002)
Higher Education
From
•Planned scarcity
To
•Demand-led and claimed form of
citizenship
•The citizen now constructed as:
 an economic maximiser
governed by self-interests
aspiring for nation-building and
wealth creation.
• It is now almost a civic duty to
aspire to HE (Biesta, 2006).
Global Knowledge Race
European Union
•..to become the most competitive and
dynamic knowledge-based economy in
the world, capable of sustainable
economic growth with more and better
jobs and greater social cohesion.
(Lisbon Council, March 2000).
ASEAN Region
•Providing citizens with higher incomes
and more fulfilling work (Marginson et al, 2011)
Gulf States
•Oil rich nations transforming themselves
into knowledge economies
(Donn & Al
Manthri,2013)
•Latin America
• From agriculture to industry to
knowledge (Piaggesi & Chea 2011).
What Does Knowledge Do?
• Economic progress via creation/
utilisation of knowledge.
• National economic asset
• Basis of national competitive
advantage.
• Drives innovation
• Social and geographical
mobility
• Insurance against pubic/ private
poverty.
• Democratisation/ citizenship.
• Social Cohesion/ Peace.
Operationalising the Knowledge
Economy
• Technologisation/ The Network
Society/ Connectivity
• Rethinking of relationships
between education, learning
and work (Young, 2010)
• Perpetual Training/ Lifelong
Learning (Burton-Jones,1999)
• Growth of intellectual, human
and social capital
(competencies) (Peters, 2004)
• Knowledge diffusion/ openness
• Global convergence
• Widening Access/Participation/
Massification
Desiring Higher Education
• Aligning aspirations with needs of
economy
(Morley et al. 2010; Walkerdine, 2003).
•
Globally: 1960 - 13m
2005 - 137.8m
2009 – 170m
Largest HE sectors:
• China (37m)
• India (28m)
• US (20m)
• Brazil (9m)
• Indonesia (7.8m)
Growth from 5 -6% (2009) to 1-2% (2012)
Economic crisis = Democratic crisis?
Widening Participation in Higher
Education in Ghana and Tanzania
Measuring:
• Sociological variables of gender, age,
socio-economic 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.
• Intertextuality
(Morley et al. 2010)
(www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/wphegt)
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
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
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.
 Trading sex for grades.
(Morley, 2011)
Democratisation = Representational
Space?
Norm- saturated policy narratives
• Gender/ Ethnicity/Social Class =
demographic variables (nouns), not in
continual production (verbs).
• Women’s increased access =
add more under-represented
feminisation crisis discourse.
groups
into current higher education
• HE products and processes = neutral?
systems as students and academic
leaders
• Power and privilege = undertheorisation.
=
• Redistributive measures (Affirmative
Action) = threat to excellence.
a form of distributive justice/ smart
economics
• Access not an end in itself, like voting
organisational and epistemic
(Young, 2010)
transformation
• Knowledge Economy= invested,
enhanced human capital
situated and exclusionary.
From Access/ Participation to
Cognitive/ Epistemic Justice (Fricker, 2007)
Certain people/ social groups:
Wronged in their capacity as
knowers
Suffer Credibility Deficit/ Lack
Rational Authority
•Testimonial injustice
Deflated level of credibility to a
speaker’s world
•Hermeneutical Injustice
Gap in collective interpretative
resources.
Democratisation in Higher
Education/ Knowledge Economy…
IS NOT
COULD INVOLVE
• Access to knowledge/
knowledge production systems • Discovering new
and organisations
conceptual grammars to
monopolised/ dominated by the include social identities
elite.
and cognitive/ epistemic
• Decontextualised knowledge.
• Commodifying knowledge/
exchange value.
• Overlapping social with
epistemological hierarchies.
inclusion.
• Contributing to wealth/
opportunity distribution
as well as to wealth
creation.
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Biesta, G. (2006) What’s the Point of Lifelong Learning if Lifelong Learning Has No Point? On
the Democratic Deficit of Policies for Lifelong Learning, European Educational Research
Journal, 5(2/3), 169-180.
Burton-Jones, A. (1999) Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work and Learning in the New
Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
De Sousa Santos.B. (2001) Towards an epistemology of blindness, European Journal of Social
Theory, 4 (3), 251—279:
Donn, G. and Al Manthri, Y. (2013) Education in the Broader Middle East borrowing a baroque
arsenal. Oxford, Symposium
Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lisbon Council, (2000). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_en.htm
Marginson, S. , Kaur, S. and Sawir, E. (eds.) (2011) Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific:
Strategic responses to globalization. Dordrecht (Springer).
Mills, D. and R. Ratcliffe (2012). After Method: Anthropology, Education and the Knowledge
Economy. Qualitative Research 12(2): 147-164.
Morley, L., Leach, F., Lussier, K., Lihamba, A., Mwaipopo, R., Forde, L. & Egbenya, G. (2010)
Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity
Scorecard. Research Report. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt/impact-outputs/report-summary
References
•Morley, L. (2011). Sex, Grades and Power in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania. Cambridge Journal of
Education 41(1): 101-115.
•OECD (1996a) The knowledge-based economy (Paris, The Organization).
OECD (1996b) Measuring what people know: human capital accounting for the knowledge economy (Paris, The
Organization).
OECD (1996c) Employment and growth in the knowledge-based economy (Paris, The Organization).
Peters, M. (2004). Education and Ideologies of the Knowledge Economy: Europe and the Politics of Emulation.
Social Work & Society 2( 2): 160-172.
•Piaggesi, D. and Chea, M.J. (2011). The Knowledge Economy: A New Development Paradigm for Latin America
and the Caribbean. In D. Piaggesi, K. Sund, & W. Castelnovo (Eds.) Global Strategy and Practice of E-Governance:
Examples from Around the World (pp. 464-477). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
•Young, M. (2010) Alternative Educational Futures for a Knowledge Society. European Educational Research
Journal. 9(1):1-13.
•Walby, S. (2011). Is the Knowledge Society Gendered?’Gender, Work and Organization. 18(1): 1-29.
•Walkerdine, V. (2003). Reclassifying upward mobility: femininity and the neo-liberal subject." Gender and
Education 15(3): 237-248.
•World Bank, The (1998) World development report: knowledge for development Washington DC,: World Bank,
•World Bank. (2002). Constructing Knowledge Societies. Washington DC: World Bank.