Overview of researching global higher education: challenge, change or crisis?

Abstract

Higher education is in crisis as it has been changing in response to major challenges, economically, politically and socially, on an international scale. How we now understand and research global higher education is challenging given the expansions in relation to the knowledge economy, economic, social and political developments around equality, diversity and social justice in global labour markets. The social sciences have become critical to these understandings, and the development of new knowledge, pedagogies, policies and practices. In this overview, the scene is set for the papers presented in this special issue which all focus on innovative approaches to imagining the university of the future. A major focus of contemporary research on higher education has been on equality of opportunity and the relationships between educational expansion, employment opportunities and social mobility. Whilst the policies and practices of governments and higher education institutions are contested, a major theme of social scientific research has been whether educational expansion has reduced or reinforced educational, economic and social inequalities. Most of this international research evidence points to how educational and economic inequalities in global and local labour markets are reinforced, internationally and nationally, although gender inequalities are either occluded or ignored. This overview of contemporary sociological research sets the scene for imagining a new socio-cultural future of pedagogies and practices in universities in the 21st century.