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The struggle for “fairness” in HE: universities behaving badly?

Launch of University of Sussex Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER)

15 November 2007

David Watson, Institute of Education, University of London

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The agenda: “developing theory on equity in higher education.”

Three cheers:

•Widening participation

•Equal opportunities

•An ethical community

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The University and Society: expectations

Conservative and radical

Critical and supportive

Competitive and collegial

Charitable and commercial

Autonomous and accountable

Excellent and equal

Entrepreneurial and caring

Certain and provisional

Ethical and Technical

Traditional and innovative

Ceremonial and iconoclastic

Local and international

Private and public

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Public/private hybrids

The armed forces

The Church of England

The National Trust

The NHS

Schools

BAE systems

The university?

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Privatising education

“…what I am referring to here is the production by education and consultancy companies of policy ‘texts’ and policy ideas for and within the state, and the export of ‘statework’ to private providers and ‘agencies’ and the formation and dissemination of policy discourses which take place through the participation of those companies in report writing, evaluations, advice, consultancy and recommendations.”

Stephen Ball, Routledge Lecture to the 2007 BERA Annual Conference.

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HE “exceptionalism”

•“Flatness:” professionally argumentative communities

•Stability

•Public purpose/social business

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Academic membership: the “deal”

Honesty (inc. scientific procedure)

Reciprocity

Manners

Self-motivation

Discipline

Respect for the environment

Collective agreement

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Higher education and “fairness:” hard questions

A positional good

Excellence

Ethical responsibility

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Hard question 1: a positional good?

“You can only enjoy a positional good if others don’t have it,”

The Economist 23.12.06

“It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

Gore Vidal

“The trouble with fairness is that there isn’t enough to go around.”

Guy Browning

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Hard question 2: excellence and merit

“It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new class without room in it for others….A social revolution has been accomplished by harnessing schools and universities to the task of sieving people according to education’s narrow band of values.” Michael Young, author of “The Rise of the Meritocracy” (1958), 29.6.01

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Hard question 3: the ethical “idea of a university”

“The university reveals its own ethical standards in many ways, including its scrupulousness in upholding ethical standards, its decency and fairness in dealing with students and employees, and its sensitivity in relating to the community in which it resides.” Derek Bok, “Our Underachieving Colleges” (2006).

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Universities behaving badly

“Like hospitals colleges have generally got the benefit of the doubt on ther question of why they cost so much, and many people still regard them as selfless institutions above and beyond the self-serving rules of the marketplace. But their reputation for probity and virtue is deteriorating fast.” Andrew Delbanco, The New York Times 30.0.07

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Universities behaving badly (1): students (and their sponsors)•Promotion and advice

•Admissions

•Merit vs. need

•Condescension

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Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1998).

Students these days are, in general, nice. I choose the word carefully. They are

not particularly moral or noble. Such niceness is a facet of democratic character when times are good. Neither war nor tyranny nor want has hardened them or made demands upon them. The wounds and rivalries caused by class distinction have disappeared along with any strong sense of class…..Students these days are pleasant, friendly and if not great-souled, at least not particularly mean-spirited. Their primary preoccupation is themselves, understood in the narrowest sense (Bloom, 1998: 82-83).

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Universities behaving badly (2): staff

•Intimidation

•New managerialism?

•False consciousness

•Academic populism

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The question of civility

“Being a dean in an arts faculty is very tough. Why? Because colleagues in the social sciences and humanities have been trained to be hyper-critical. Their disciplinary expertise provides them with a toolbox of devices to dissect and unravel the implementation of the best-intended strategic initiatives. They increasingly exercise this talent in extraordinarily difficult funding environments…. They operate in an environment in which a quickly written email may generate detailed semiotic analysis and imputation of ill intent.In the academic environment, very clever people may turn their very clever minds to negative ends. We can understand and rationalise this. It reflects in some ways colleagues' passionate commitment to their discipline, to their scholarship and their intellectual autonomy. It reflects the influence of the challenging, under-resourced environment in which we work. But it also may reflect an unwillingness to exercise what John Paul Lederach calls the moral imagination, the ability to empathise, to build peace, in this case with those who do their best to lead.” (Sharon Bell, “The Australian” 12 September 2007)

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Universities behaving badly (3): the local community•History

•Facilities

•“Studentification”

•Planning

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Universities behaving badly (4): civil society

•Self-interest

•Stewardship

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Universities behaving badly (5): partners and “stakeholders”•Nurture and noise

•Sharing risk

•The public service alliance

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Universities behaving badly (6): the state (and government)•Crusades

•Truth-telling

•Do we really want autonomy?

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Universities behaving badly (7): the global community

•Beyond the bottom line

•HE and development

•Environmental responsibility

•The mirage of “world-classness”

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World-classness

•Statistics

•Politics

•Journalism

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World-classness

What counts

•Research

•Media interest

•Graduate destinations

•Infrastructure

•International “executive” recruitment

What doesn’t count

•Teaching quality•Social mobility•Services to business and the community•Rural interests•Other public services•Collaboration•The public interest

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Universities behaving badly (8): the sector

•A “controlled reputational range”

•“Gangs”

•Reputation and quality

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Reputation over quality

“Institutions such as my own are outposts of serious and bright students of modest or low-income background taught by dedicated faculty who are often respected researchers as well. These institutions are home to a democratic institutional culture simply not possible at elite institutions…It is time that the national agonizing about the income bias of elite institutions shifts its focus to these institutions.” Lawrence Blum, The New York Review of Books.

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A theory of equity in higher education

Self-reflection/Self-study, incorporating:

•outside-in perspectives;•Inside-out perspectives;•history;•social justice and the public interest;•the “psychological contract.”

Discussion