The Development of PSE Systems in Canada: A Comparison Between British Columbia, Ontario and Québec (1980–2011)

Abstract

The work on academic capitalism, marketization and accountability leads into a discussion of the re‐ structuring of the state and the relation between globalization theory and state theory. A major line of debate is whether globalization leads to convergence or divergence when it comes to the formulation of internal policies. As a way of contributing to this debate, this chapter compares three case studies of the evolution of higher education policy in three Canadian provinces between 1980 and 2008: British Columbia, Ontario and Québec. The work is housed in the developing tradition of policy sociology and draws on both documentary analysis and interviews. This investigation comes at a time when governments across the political and ideological spectrums have subscribed to the belief that investment in higher education will translate into economic security and economic development at the individual, provincial and economic levels. We argue in this chapter that as higher education has become more central to the legitimization and accumulation functions served by the state, so higher education policy has been more closely tied to economic and social development. We conclude that higher education policy at the federal and provincial levels has been driven by a changing political and economic imperative.KeywordsInternational StudentAccumulation FunctionPolitical IdeologyHigh Education PolicyLiberal GovernmentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.