Social Science Space

Higher education is striving to address problems such as access, inclusion, and elitism, but is a neoliberalist foundation undermining these efforts—or even the system itself? An online forum held on April 21, “Deconstructing Neoliberalism in Higher Education: How can we promote greater equity and re-professionalize the professoriate?” addressed this quandary.

Research from Loren Falkenberg and Elizabeth Cannon shows universities must “future proof” themselves, which happens when an institutional strategy is focused on the future while mitigating the impact of unforeseen events.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the university sector under greater scrutiny. In some cases, this has prompted new conversations about […]

Sharing our findings beyond academia isn’t typically seen as part of our academic workload. This is problematic for academics who are already struggling to find time to do all the things their complex workload requires of them

There is no doubt that student experience as a whole will not be the same if universities move entirely online. But we must not assume that online teaching is automatically inferior to face-to-face teaching.

This summer, universities around the world planned for an unprecedented back-to-school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In most universities, […]

University rankings might claim to provide an index through which students, faculty, and the general public might ascertain a number of things: the quality of education provided by an institution, the potential for networking at an institution, the breadth and depth of research being performed at an institution, and more. The institutional quest towards topping the university rankings can, however, derail efforts towards the improvement of society and higher education at large.

[We’re pleased to feature an interview, originally posted on the SAGE Connection blog, with Bailey Baumann and Stephen Pinfield. Stephen Pinfield […]

Academics do not simply teach and do research: they are teacher-researchers, notes Steve Fuller. In reviewing the UK spending review, he says, it is the value added to society by nurturing this complex role that should be at the forefront of the state’s thinking about the criteria used to fund universities.

Research and teaching have never been free from external constraints and public universities have long been expected to justify the resources society devotes to them. But universities feel threatened and increasingly incapable of fulfilling their primary functions.

Some Australians have looked to the United States as a model for revamping Oz’s higher education system. U.S.-based sociologist Steven Ward suggests they ought to take another look.

Along with good SAT scores, it now takes passing a background check to get into many colleges as universities explore […]