Global Inequalities and Higher Education (Whose interests are we serving?)

Global Inequalities and Higher Education seeks to examine how universities operate within a context of global inequality. The relationship between the university as an international institution and the process of globalization is an ambivalent one. The expansion of higher education can generate inequalities but can also contribute to the development of new social democratic structures through teaching, research and the development of student and staff dispositions with a potential to promote social justice. This book seeks to examine the promises and tensions by bringing together the themes of inequalities entailed in looking at global higher education through an interdisciplinary perspective. The book offers a picture of inequalities in higher education understood in relation to access, processes of learning and teaching practices and identities. This entails considering inequalities in higher education at the interface of the external (political, social, economic and cultural forces shaping global and national higher education policies) and internal contexts (the teaching and learning process and its actors including institutions, student and staff). The book thus examines the interfaces between the micro and macro environments of universities and identifies changes and continuities with regard to inequality across time and space. Global Inequalities and Higher Education is a compelling exploration of higher education's contribution to widening global inequalities, assessing its potential to contribute to change in the future.