The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education

Abstract

This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically related) moves. First, we identify a range of market exchanges that have emerged in the context of wider ideological and political changes in the governance of higher education to make it a more globally competitive producer of knowledge, and a services sector. Second, we explore the ways in which making markets involve a considerable amount of microwork, such as the deployment of a range of framings, and socio-technical tools. Taken together, these market-making processes are recalibrating and remaking the structures, social relations and subjectivities, within and beyond the university and in turn reconstituting the university and the higher education sector.

Keywords:

• Markets
• market-making
• higher education
• university
• Callon and Çalışkan
• Berndt and Boeckler

Notes

1. We followed BERA ethical standards (Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research 2011) and all material we processed is subject to confidentiality agreement. The main ethical moments are: informed consent, avoiding harm in collecting data, doing justice to participants in analysing data, confidentiality in all stages of research including in writing research outputs. We had to take special care of protecting the identity of individuals and Newton University due to the changing nature of the sector, as much of information is now treated to be commercially sensitive.

2. Most recently, UK policy enables adjustments of fees to take account of inflation (BBC 2015).

3. It is important to keep in mind that companies work globally and this statistical data can act purely as indicative of the phenomenon. In order to have better view, one would need to combine data from different countries around the world.