The neoliberal regime in English higher education: charters, consumers and the erosion of the public good

Abstract

The restructuring of higher education (HE) according to neoliberal market principles has constructed the student consumer as a social category, thereby altering the nature, purpose and values of HE. In England, a key government attempt to champion the rights of the student consumer has taken the form of institutional charters which indicate the level of services students can expect to receive and what they will be expected to do in return. Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework is applied to analyse the dynamics of practice in the context of the intensification of marketisation in English universities. The impact on student identities and learning processes, on the curriculum and on the academic practices of faculty is explored. By studying the production of institutional information related to charters, a particular image of the ‘good’ student is promoted to prospective students, which simultaneously regulates current student expectations. We argue that the marketisation of learning may result in passive and instrumental learners, a reduction in the range of disciplinary knowledge and a deterrence of innovation in teaching practices, all of which impact on the public good functions of universities.

Keywords:

• Bourdieu
• educational policy
• higher education
• inequality/social exclusion in education
• neoconservatism/neoliberalism
• social class

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two referees for their critical and constructive comments which greatly enhanced our thinking. We would also like to thank the editor for his insights.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rajani Naidoo

Rajani Naidoo is a professor of higher education and director of the Centre for Higher Education Management at the University of Bath. Before this she was an inaugural member of an institution which acted as a model for the transformation of higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. She is a past Honorary Secretary of the Society for Research in Higher Education. Multinational research projects have included ‘The Changing Academic Profession’ and she has been commissioned by organisations such as the Higher Education Policy Institute, the British Council and the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency. She has keynoted conferences in various parts of the world including Mexico, Finland, Ireland, England, Trinidad and South Africa. She is on the Executive Editorial Board of the British Journal of Sociology of Education and is co-editor of a book series on Global Higher Education with Palgrave/Macmillan.

Joanna Williams

Dr Joanna Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice in the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Kent. Her book, Consuming Higher Education, Why Learning Can’t Be Bought, was published with Bloomsbury in 2013.