Abstract
This short discussion aims to delineate the discourse similarities between Tuchman’s landmark contribution Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate Universityand the latest White Paper Kultur for kvalitet i hoyere utdanning by Norway’s Ministry of Education. Initially, it reviews in detail Tuchman’s book by means of providing a critical foil for articulating the rhetorical and political identity of an inspiring higher education institution. Next, it outlines the rudiments of the Norwegian White Paper and argues for the striking similarities between the two documents with regard to the subsisting discourses of competitiveness. The discussion concludes with a criticism of the dearth of actionable and evidence-based solutions regarding the lexis of higher education’s institutional competitiveness.
Highlights
In recent years, the excellent ethnographic study of Wannabe University, the Ameri can archetype of the ambitious—but yet not fully established— university, by Gaye Tuchman has already become an instant classic in the study of the sociology of American higher education
This association of education with economic prosperity through ranking ambition has produced the discourse of the so-called Wannabe University, a term coined in educational discussions by Michael Arnone (2003: A18)
In the first unit, which concerns the role of marketing and branding, Tuchman sets the scene by briefly outlining the plan of the book, along with an analysis of its ethnographic methodology (“participant observation technique,” p. 16), in an effort to capture the specificities and ambiguities of the broader theme of the university’s “transformation.” Shortly afterwards, the subsequent chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 situate Wannabe U geographically, historically, and ideologically in the broader landscape of American higher education
Summary
The excellent ethnographic study of Wannabe University, the Ameri can archetype of the ambitious—but yet not fully established— university, by Gaye Tuchman has already become an instant classic in the study of the sociology of American higher education. This association of education with economic prosperity through ranking ambition has produced the discourse of the so-called Wannabe University, a term coined in educational discussions by Michael Arnone (2003: A18). Tuchman’s book comprises two conceptual units and ten chapters, both of which pertaining to the issues of competition and commodification of higher education.
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