The Labour of Words in Higher Education

Is It Time to Reoccupy Policy?
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-39536-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 168 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 294 g

As Higher Education has come to be valued for its direct contribution to the global economy, university policy discourse has reinforced this rationale. In The Labour of Words in Higher Education: Is it Time to Reoccupy Policy? two globes are depicted. One is a beautiful, but complete artefact, that markets a UK university. The second sits on a European city street and is continually inscribed with the markings of passers-by. A distinction is drawn between the rhetoric of university McPolicy, as a discourse that appears to no longer require input from humans, and a more authentic approach to writing policy, that acknowledges the academic labour of staff and students, in effecting change.

Inspired by the work of George Ritzer on the McDonaldisation of Society, the term McPolicy is adopted by the author, to describe a rational method of writing policy, now widespread across UK universities. Recent strategies on ‘the student experience’, ‘technology enhanced learning’, ‘student engagement’ and ‘employability’ are explored through a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Findings are humourously compared to the marketing of consumer goods, where commodities like cars are invested with human qualities, such as ‘ambition’. Similarly, McPolicy credits non-human strategies, technologies and a range of socially constructed buzz phrases, with the human qualities and labour activities that would normally be enacted by staff and students.

This book is written for anyone with an interest in the future of universities. It concludes with suggestions of ways we might all reoccupy McPolicy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hayes, Sarah

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Affektive, soziale und ethische Ziele in der Erziehung
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Bildungssystem Bildungspolitik, Bildungsreform
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Lehrerausbildung, Unterricht & Didaktik Allgemeine Didaktik Hochschuldidaktik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: What This Book Is Not

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 The Labour of Words and Academic Labour

Academic Labour
Rationalising Human Activity
A Def.icit Model Ignores Human Strengths
2 The Words of Labour

Progressing Rationalisation via Rational Policy Discourse
Reflecting on What Neoliberalism Has Taught Us
3 The Labour and Delivery of Buzz Phrases

Packaged Consumption
Increasing Consciousness of the Labour of Words
4 Technology Enhanced Learning McPolicy

The Value of Technology Enhanced Learning
The Labour of ethe Use of Technologyf
5 Student Engagement McPolicy

The Value of Student Engagement
The Labour of Student Engagement
6 Employability McPolicy

The Value of Employability
The Labour of Employability
7 Re-Writing Human Labour into HE Policy

What Might be Learned from the Labour of Words in HE?

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sarah Hayes, Ph.D., is a Professor of Higher Education Policy at University of Wolverhampton. Sarah has published articles in a variety of journals and is an Associate Editor for the journal Postdigital Science and Education.