Higher Education as if the World Mattered

Higher Education as if the World Mattered
A conference to be held on 25 and 26 April 2013 organised by: The Higher Education Research Group (Institute for Education, Community and Society, The University of Edinburgh) in partnership with The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE).
CALL FOR PAPERS
Higher education matters in this world. Indeed, it matters more than ever before in its long history. In the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge society’ higher education is high on every government’s agenda. Higher education, or more precisely the returns expected from investments into higher education, is seen to matter profoundly. But the title of this symposium is precisely not ‘The world as if higher education mattered’. In the current social, political and economic context such a statement would become meaningless, confusing even. It would be like saying ‘Water as if life mattered’. Of course it does. However, when turned around as in ‘Higher Education as if the World Mattered’ it makes us ‘stop and think’. Now the words ‘as if’ assume significance as they imply that there are some real questions to be asked about the extent to which the world is seen to matter in the present policy context characterising higher education.
Viewed in most general terms, the world is the physical and social space that we share with our fellow human beings and non-human species. It involves the various local communities and indeed the global community with whom we live together and with whom we share our natural environment, our planet and the universe. Of course, some may observe, higher education matters because the world matters! Investment in higher education, it might be said, is profoundly important for the world, and not only in developing countries. While this surely is the case, the point is that the value attached to higher education is increasingly seen in economic terms thereby risking that we lose sight of the other goods associated with higher education. We might ask, therefore, to what extent, the increased emphasis on economic returns is associated with a neglect of cultivating and demonstrating a real care for our social and natural world.
While higher education is known to enhance people’s life chances, questions remain to be asked about how the goods to be gained from higher education are presently distributed. Despite policies that are meant to increase access to higher education for under-represented sections of society we know that in a highly stratified society and higher education system even widened entry does not guarantee greater social justice in relation to access, for example. Against this backdrop, broad questions that the symposium will address include: To what extent and how do higher education policies and practices make a difference to this world? What are present priorities and how could things be otherwise? To what extent does higher education address community and environmental concerns?  To what extent are participants encouraged to make a contribution to the world?
This conference, and a book that will be associated with it, therefore, seek to explore social justice in and through higher education by examining recent policies and practices in relation to six broad strands of higher education: Research and knowledge mobilisation; Curriculum; Pedagogy; Access and participation; Institutional leadership; Quality and educational development. Contributions in each section seek to analyse the assumptions underpinning policy and practice, arrive at judgements about the extent to which the world is seen to matter and offer suggestions on how things could be different from how they are. Running across these six strands are concerns related to internationalisation, funding, and lifelong learning.