This special issue focused on "Digital Media and Contested Visions of Education" provides an opportunity to examine the tendency to hypothesise a rupture in the history of the university. It does so by contrasting the traditional Humboldtian ideals of the university with a neoliberal marketised version and in order to ask questions…

This article argues that imparting literacy through the mother tongue of the child and in the setting of an inclusive classroom are the two essential steps for fostering universal elementary education. Nurturing appropriate methodological orientations specific to the material, life and human sciences is critical in accelerating the development of…

The combination of neo-liberalism and the massification of higher education combined with the diminished public funds for higher education contributed to the rise of academic capitalism and entrepreneurship across higher education systems and institutions across the world. With the focus on human capital development and its contribution to…

Higher education institutions are under pressure to produce employable graduates who are required to contribute to the sustainability of strong economic growth and development. As such, the onus is on the higher education sector to present graduates to the labour market who are both work ready and have attained employability. This article…

Increasing complexity and rapid change associated with globalization and the knowledge economy have diminished the relevance of traditional linear models of leadership. Researchers have begun to view leadership not in terms of individuals and hierarchal exchanges but as a collective influence process among members of a group to achieve shared…

Today, most high education experts consider value creation (a term different from entrepreneurship or entrepreneur) as a condition necessary for the survival and development of universities and higher education systems. In this era of advanced technologies and knowledge-based industries in global, regional, national and even local economies,…

This study investigated academic norms related to faculty engagement with industry in one public research-intensive university in the United States in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medical (STEMM). Primary methods included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, logistic regression, and ANOVA applied to…

Since 1997, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has invested in higher education and its expansion as part of its commitment to building a knowledge-based society. Though the UAE has prioritised quality higher education, it still faces challenges in producing graduates who are capable of actively participating in building its knowledge base. The…

Academics are under increasing pressure to publish, particularly in peer-reviewed journals. This external pressure is clearly expressed by the "publish or perish" dictum. Studies have shown that academics' engagement in research and their research productivity are influenced by personal as well as environmental factors. Based on an…

21st century skills is a global network of corporate and governmental influences that promotes competences suited to fit the future knowledge economy. Through a discourse analysis of an influential Official Norwegian Report, 'The School of the Future. Renewal of Subjects and Competences' (NOU 2015:8), this paper explores how ideas of 21st century…

The age of knowledge and social responsibility awareness raises the question about the role of the instructor as the leader of the educational process in a learning community. Based on qualitative analysis referred to students' reflective diary instructors' reports, and interviews -- the study sheds light on three features of the leader of a…

Within the process of harmonizing and strengthening Europe as a competitive knowledge economy education is presented as a basic pillar of economic growth in a multitude of European policy papers. But how do individuals respond to incentives coming from European education politics? (How) are they appropriating given targets and how do they engage…

The aim of this article is to investigate the impact neoliberalism has in shaping the discourse of the European Union's policy of Lifelong Learning. The literature review initially presents the theoretical framework of neoliberalism as the dominant ideological and economic paradigm of our time. Thereafter, it takes a view on how neoliberalism…

Contemporary composition's equipment for knowledge making is an ample assortment of theories and methods from Western social science and humanities traditions, as well as, increasingly, non-Western traditions. These are applied to an ever-growing list of locations, events, and subjects of writing, rhetorics, and literacies. Periodically, the field…

The highly imagined and contested space of higher education is invested with an affectively loaded "knowledge economy optimism". Drawing on recent work in affect and critical geography, this paper considers the e/affects of the promises of the knowledge economy on its knowledge workers. We extend previous analyses of the discursive…