World Yearbook of Education 2008: Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Higher Education in the 21st Century

This volume examines higher education in globalized conditions through a focus on the spatial, historic and economic relations of power in which it is embedded. Distinct geometries of power are emerging as the knowledge production capability of universities is increasingly globalized. Changes in the organization and practices of higher education tend to travel from the ‘West to the rest’. Thus, distinctive geographies of knowledge are being produced, intersected by geometries of power and raising questions about the recognition, production, control and usage of university-produced knowledge in different regions of the world.

What flows of power and influence can be traced in the shifting geographies of higher education? How do national systems locate themselves in global arenas, and what consequences does such positioning have for local practices and relations of higher education? How do universities and university workers respond to the increasing commodification of knowledge? How do consumers of knowledge assess the quality of the ‘goods’ on offer in a global marketplace?

The 2008 volume of the World yearbook addresses these questions, highlighting four key areas:

• Producing and Reproducing the University― How is the university adapting to the pressures of globalization?
• Supplying Knowledge―What structural and cultural changes are demanded from the university in its new role as a free market supplier of knowledge?
• Demanding Knowledge―Marketing and Consumption―How can consumers best assess the quality of education on a global scale?
• Transnational Academic Flows―What trends are evident in the flow of students, knowledge and capital, with what consequences?

The 2008 volume is interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on scholarship from accounting, finance and human geography as well as from the field of education. Transnational influences examined include UNESCO and OECD, GATS and the effects of digital technologies. Contrasting contexts include Central and Eastern Europe, Finland, China and India and England.

With its emphasis on the interrelationship of knowledge and power, and its attention to emergent spatial inequalities, Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Framing the Future of Higher Education provides a rich and compelling resource for understanding emergent practices and relations of knowledge production and exchange in global higher education.

The Editors

The editorial team consists of inter-disciplinary scholars drawn from a range of base disciplines and geographical locations.

Rebecca Boden is professor of critical management at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, UK. Her primary focus is the management and financing of sites of knowledge creation, particularly science laboratories and universities. She has published extensively on the issues of how public management policies and practice impact upon knowledge creation and dissemination.

Rosemary Deem is Professor of Education, Graduate Dean & Joint Education Director for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at Bristol University. She has done extensive research on the governance and management of higher education.

Debbie Epstein is a professor at Cardiff School of Social Sciences though of South African origin. She is interested in the construction and maintenance of social inequalities and social identities. Her work on higher education and research concerns questions arising from globalisation, governance and research ethics.

Fazal Rizvi is professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include: comparative and international education; higher education and policy in the Asia-Pacific; cultural globalization and education policy; postcolonial theories of identity, representation and education; global inequalities and educational policy; and international student mobility.

Susan Wright is professor of educational anthropology at the Danish University of Education. She has published widely on the globalisation and reform of higher education. She is editor of Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences.

Rebecca Boden, Rosemary Deem and Debbie Epstein are co-organisers, with Phil Brown of Cardiff University, of a 2006-7 seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council on ‘Geographies of Knowledge/ Geometries of Power: Globalisation and Higher Education in the 21st Century’ which forms the basis for this Yearbook.