CALL FOR CHAPTERS:

The Marketisation of Higher Education: Policies, Practices, and Perspectives

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Editors: Bryan Christiansen (Global Training Group, Ltd., UK);

John Branch (University of Michigan, USA)

Rationale

In recent years, higher education has operated more and more like a traditional market, with universities (and similar providers of higher education) competing like any other ‘economic actor’. This marketisation of higher education reflects a paradigmatic shift from a government-controlled system of higher education in which higher education is for the public good, to a market-based system of higher education in which higher education is a good for the public. Indeed, it suggests a kind of commodification in higher education.

Consequently, universities have been forced to consider that higher education is a product which can be packaged and sold—that universities must ‘take their wares’ to market. Indeed, adopting the simple and pithy definition that marketing is “to go to market”, universities are now more and more engaged in marketing…and all its associated activities, such as segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, pricing, promotion, and even exporting.

Purpose

The purpose of this proposed book, therefore, is to explore the nature, scope ,and consequences of the marketisation of higher education, by 1. enumerating the various policies for stimulating and regulating the marketisation of higher education, 2. identifying the numerous practices which constitute the marketisation of higher education, and 3. discussing the different perspectives on the marketisation of higher education. The proposed book takes a global perspective, with no single geographic focus. Similarly, it adopts a holistic approach, examining the marketisation of higher education along multiple dimensions, and subscribing to the notion that the marketisation of higher education both drives, and is driven by, the universities of which the higher education market is comprised.

Audience

The primary targets of the proposed book are scholars, students, and other researchers whose interests are situated in and around the marketisation of higher education, including the marketing of higher education and its associated activities. The proposed book will also serve practitioners and policy-makers in higher education.