We explore the literature on internationalization in higher education and distinguish between the mainstream and radical approaches to critical scholarship. We argue that the mainstream approach continues to steer internationalization towards socially progressive and equitable aims, while growing concerns have surfaced especially with regard to…

The process of reversing a neoliberal regime in highly marketised higher education systems entails the discussion of such a regime's normative principles and policy frameworks. Little has been said about what decommodification would involve or the implications of such a project for the constitution of a public regime in higher education. Two…

This paper explores some of the fundamental contradictions related to the commercialisation of education and how Pearson plc -- 'the world's leading multinational education company' -- is trying to overcome these challenges through discourse and semiotics. Pearson's "Efficacy Framework" is a semiotic-calculative device created to measure…

'Platform capitalism' and 'surveillance capitalism' describe the new business model and market form of the web. These forms of digital capitalism have begun to infuse the higher education landscape by merging with existing political demands for universities to become more data-driven, competitive, and market-focused. This article presents a case…

Both the consumer subjectivity and partnership models are receiving increasing attention within higher education institutions. In this article, I explore the impersonality that characterises the social role of the consumer and its impact on the formation and implementation of meaningful relationships between undergraduates and academics. I draw…

This paper examines the increasingly diverse range of roles played by the corporate sector in shaping education policy. While a growing body of scholarship has documented the deepening embeddedness of the corporate sector within policy-making processes, empirical research on the strategies mobilized by corporate actors remains unsystematised and…

This paper explores the state of critical thinking in higher education's everyday pedagogical encounters, against the backdrop of increasing commodification and marketisation. Illustrated by observation, focus group and interview data from 15 first-year undergraduate social-science students at a UK research-intensive university, I explore how…

This paper adopts the concept of a moral economy as a lens through which to analyze the neoliberalisation processes that have transformed the field of higher education in recent decades. Specifically, I consider a case study of the commodification of a senior citizen course-auditing program at an Israeli university in the early 2000s. The program,…

In the last two decades, global citizenship education (GCE) has become a catchphrase used by international and national educational agencies, as well as researchers, to delineate the increasing internationalisation of education, framed as an answer to the growing globalisation and the high values of citizenship. These developments, however, have…

Building on the definition of critical education residing in the crossroads of cultural politics and political economy, this theoretical article offers an inquiry into the intersection between critical education research and the central ritual of contemporary capitalism -- capitalisation. This article outlines four current approaches in education…

In English higher education, the Teaching Excellence Framework represents a very significant recent policy lever in the continued operation of a measured market in the sector. Conceived as a policy to enhance and make further transparent the quality of teaching, it utilises a variety of key measurements to establish sets of related outcomes upon…

Academic capitalism is an outcome of the interplay between neoliberalism, globalisation, markets and universities. Universities have embraced the commercialisation of knowledge, technology transfer and research funding as well as introducing performance and audit practices. Academic capitalism has become internalised as a regulatory mechanism by…

This article examines the re-professionalization of teaching across a transformative decade of market-based and standards-based reforms in the U.S.A. The first section works with the sociological concept of the 'new professionalism' to situate the No Child Left Behind act, Race to the Top, and CAEP accreditation within a broader movement to align…

The paper reports on an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with staff from four Australian universities. These universities are shown to be undergoing significant social change as processes of marketisation impact on the everyday practices of academic workers. The universities are analysed as sites of contestation between the new…

Educational change in the neoliberal state is permeated by the effects of forces from outside the field of education itself. The process of governmentality welcomes, indeed demands, the participation of those non-state actors valorised by neoliberalism as well as government agencies dedicated to the advancement of such groups. Inevitably, the…