Collective action has always been the heartbeat of social justice movements. However, existing systems pressure people to focus on hyper-competition and eradicate the ability to collectively resist systemic oppression. Unfortunately, education scholars rarely critically and theoretically analyze how they can and do collectively refuse neoliberal…

One of the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the nature of it: it has been, and still is, an evolving situation in which there are many questions, but not always immediate or easy answers. Some of the pandemic experience has been shared, as almost 1.6 billion learners' educations have been disrupted and teachers have reported…

This article examines the national and European policy contexts that shaped the Swedish internationalisation agenda in higher education since 2000, the policy ideas that were mobilised to promote it, and the national priorities that steered higher education debates. The analysis highlights how domestic and European policy priorities, as well as…

In this chapter, the issue editors set the stage for the chapters that follow by delineating recent developments in higher education and common strategies for creating globally competitive higher education institutions. The editors consider social justice concerns that arise with global competition and contend that contextualized priorities can…

Branding of higher education institutions (HEIs) is an expanding area of research. The existing literature mainly draws on the strategic management perspective that argues that HEIs are pressured to develop brands which differentiate them from their competitors. Past studies, however, do insufficiently take into account that most HEIs are…

This paper discusses the emergence of aspiration as a keyword linked to higher education equity policy in England and Australia since 1997. Aspiration serves multiple purposes when constructed as a problematic site in which policy must intervene. For example, it can be understood as a vector for new technologies of governance that operate through…

In higher education today, an overwhelming acceptance of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies that advance corporate logics of efficiency, competition and profit maximization is commonplace. Market-driven logics and neoconservative ideals shape decision-making about what is taught, how material is taught, who teaches, who does research, who…

To compete in the global marketplace, numerous reports point to the need for the United States to increase its production of highly educated workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Although estimates suggest that the number of STEM-related jobs will grow faster than other jobs, the rate of bachelor's degree production…

It is against such a wider socio-economic background that the private/"minban" higher education providers have paid for much of the sector expansion, leading to revolutionary changes and imparting a growing "privateness" to China's higher education system. The adoption of pro-competition policy instruments along the lines of…

The dominant view today is of a global knowledge-based economy, driven by the application of new technologies, accelerating the shift to high-skilled, high-waged European economies. This view is reflected in the expansion of higher education and the key role of higher education in national and European economic policy. The Lisbon agenda seeks to…

The paper addresses a number of issues concerning policy and curriculum in post-compulsory education and training (PCET). Firstly, it seeks to locate PCET within its socio-economic context as it is this that frames curricula within the learning and skills sector and serves to legitimate its particular form. Secondly, the paper addresses the manner…