The knowledge based economy as a discursive context

Posted by Marielk. This guest entry is written by Dr. Carrie Hunter who works at the University of British Columbia. Carrie earned her Master of Education in adult and workplace learning at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario, Canada and her PhD in Higher Education from the University of British Columbia where she focused on lifelong learning in the context of the knowledge economy. She currently works as a research coordinator for the Centre for Health Education Scholarship at UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. The post draws on a recent article “Shifting themes in OECD country reviews of higher education”, published in Higher Education, Vol 66. Issue 6.
OECD, Political Economy and Domestic Higher Education Policy
Domestic policy is increasingly developed in international contexts and influenced by international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Through various forms of soft governance (Mahon & McBride, 2008a) including its prolific publications, expert groups, policy recommendation papers, and its research muscle, the OECD has the potential to both reflect and affect how we understand higher education and its relationship with the economy and how we construct domestic higher education policy. More...