Taking the evolution of the quality agenda in the UK as its centrepiece, this article analyses the politics of legitimation accompanying the emergence of quality assurance and the contribution of quality enhancement to the power play therein. This article argues that over the last 25 years the quality agenda has been used as a proxy--a state…

Significant challenges confront many Westernised institutions of higher education. Financial pressures, the increasing commodification of higher education and the insistent demands of the global marketplace, have changed the configuration of academe. One of the immediate consequences has been that the role of the professoriate has altered through…

This article examines the nature of an on-going educational partnership between a Higher Education institution and a number of Further Education (FE) colleges in the West Midlands region of England, forged against the backdrop of sectoral marketisation and neoliberal reform. The partnership originates in the organisation and administration of…

This paper argues that the "Times Higher" provides a powerful tool for understanding the changing character of UK higher education (HE) and can usefully be seen as representative, and in some ways constitutive, of that changing character. Drawing on an analysis of a sample of stories from the "Times Higher," it documents the…

This paper argues that the "Times Higher" provides a powerful tool for understanding the changing character of UK higher education (HE) and can usefully be seen as representative, and in some ways constitutive, of that changing character. Drawing on an analysis of a sample of stories from the "Times Higher," it documents the…