Author: Daniel Nehring

My career so far has taken me to a fairly wide range of places, and this has allowed me to experience a wide range of approaches to sociology and social science. In my blog, I reflect on this diversity and its implications for the future of the discipline. Over the last few years, I have also become interested in exploring the contours of academic life under neoliberal hegemony. Far-reaching transformations are taking place at universities around the world, in terms of organisational structures, patterns of authority, and forms of intellectual activity. With my posts, I hope to draw attention to some of these transformations.

The Never-Ending Audit®
Higher Education Reform
May 13, 2015

The Never-Ending Audit®

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Is Higher Education Losing Its Progressive Potential?
Career
February 26, 2015

Is Higher Education Losing Its Progressive Potential?

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The New Realism in Academic Life
Higher Education Reform
February 17, 2015

The New Realism in Academic Life

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UK Universities and the Clash of (Organizational) Cultures
Higher Education Reform
February 11, 2015

UK Universities and the Clash of (Organizational) Cultures

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What Role Should Overseas Students Play in British Society?

What Role Should Overseas Students Play in British Society?

The rich and diverse ways in which students and scholars of diverse national and cultural origins collaborate at British universities, argues Daniel Nehring, belie the economic reductionism currently fashionable in public debates about higher education.

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How Will Zero-Hour Contracts Change UK’s Academic Culture?

How Will Zero-Hour Contracts Change UK’s Academic Culture?

‘I did not contemplate the possibility that academics might rewarded for years of study, teaching, hard work with a no-obligations, no-guaranteed-income employment contract,’ says Daniel Nehring. And yet with zero-hour contracts entering academe, that un-reality is now here.

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View From Korea: Higher Education Without Utopia

View From Korea: Higher Education Without Utopia

South Korea’s educational edifice has been praised near and far. But after a year spent among attentive and excellent students, Daniel Nehring wonders if the ‘pressure cooker’ apsects of the system aren’t sowing the seeds of a permanent status quo.

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What Happens When Lectures Are Ranked?

What Happens When Lectures Are Ranked?

What does happen happens when lecturers are ranked? Daniel Nehring offers some thoughts on the uses and misuses of student evaluations

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What Do Academia’s Ubiquitous Rankings Accomplish?

What Do Academia’s Ubiquitous Rankings Accomplish?

Why does it matter whether you study or work at the sociology department that comes first, 12th or 89th in a ranking? Why does it matter whether the journal you publish in is included and ranked in a certain index, or not? Let us know your thoughts.

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What Do Sociology Students Read?

What Do Sociology Students Read?

Just as scholarship now is more and more about the generation of economic benefits, for many studying is now less about ‘reading for a degree’ than about ‘getting a degree,’ suggests Daniel Nehring.

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Academic Excellence and Other Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Academic Excellence and Other Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

‘It’s not what you know but who you know’ is a trope that’s common in many careers but which the academy often claims to avoid. Except that in many cases it doesn’t.

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A Postdoc’s Lament: Creativity and Innovation in Academic Sphere

A Postdoc’s Lament: Creativity and Innovation in Academic Sphere

How does the experience of impermanent, precarious employment on the margins of academia affect young scholars’ ability to engage in creative labor? Is such creative labor still possible?

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