Cultural Perspectives on Higher Education

Book info: Cultural Perspectives on Higher Education (Hardcover, 286 pages) – Springer, 2008. Language: English.

This book analyses higher education from cultural perspectives and also to reflect on the uses of intellectual devices developed in the cultural studies of higher education over the last decades.

The first part of the book presents fresh perspectives to integrate cultural studies in higher education with wider societal processes. Professor William G. Tierney speaks about trust and culture in higher education, whereas Professor Imanol Ordorika opens a political perspective to higher education institutions.

The second part of the book studies the internal life of higher education. Relying on a variety of cultural perspectives, the chapters explore the actual day-to-day practices taking place in higher education, ranging from student socialisation, student consumerism, tensions in combining academic and market-oriented targets in knowledge production to the formation of academic identities in different disciplinary and organisational cultures.

The focus in the third part of the book is to use cultural perspectives developed in previous studies on disciplinary and organisational cultures as a framework to understand a variety of processes and reforms taking place at the institutional level of high education. The chapters in this part of the book analyse the Bologna Process, the evolution of scientific fields in American universities, organisational cultures in Chinese post-merger universities, and doctoral education and cooperation with industry.

From the reviews:

"The book offers a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of culture within higher education. … One of the book’s major strengths is a range of perspectives from scholars in various parts of the globe in seven countries. … The book would appeal to scholars and students of higher education and organizational studies. The book can also serve as a useful course textbook for focused seminars on higher education culture." (Jenny J. Lee, Higher Education, March, 2009)

Cultural Perspectives on Higher Education takes a critical look at what cultural perspective means, and how it works in higher education institutions. What is actually happening in the internal life of the higher education institutions, and how can we study the topic from a cultural perspective?

The chapters selected for this book consist of studies in which culture has been either the object, or the structuring principle of the study, or in which cultural studies have been used as intellectual devices in the analysis. We are not only interested in gaining a better understanding of the cultural aspects of higher education, but also in analyzing the potential of cultural perspectives as intellectual devices.

The main aim of the book is to provide the readers with a good understanding of the variety of possible cultural perspectives to higher education, and to show how they can be used in both qualitative and quantitative research.

The editors of the book invite you to read the chapters of the book not only because they open fresh perspectives to higher education as a social phenomenon, but also because they tell interesting stories about the small worlds of academia where we live and work.