The Societal Consequences of Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Schofer ◽  
Francisco O. Ramirez ◽  
John W. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Sociopolitical Change ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
Global Movements ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Cross National

The advent of mass schooling played a pivotal role in European societies of the later nineteenth century, transforming rural peasants into national citizens. The late-twentieth-century global expansion of higher education ushered in new transformations, propelling societal rationalization and organizing, and knitting the world into a more integrated society and economy. We address four key dynamics: (1) Higher education sustains the modern professions and contributes to the rationalization of society and state. (2) The supranational and universalistic orientation of higher education provides elites with shared global cultural frames and identities, facilitating globalization. (3) Consequently, tertiary education provides a foundation for major global movements and sociopolitical change around diverse issues, such as human rights and environmental protection as well as potentially contentious religious and cultural solidarities. (4) Higher education contributes to the reorganization of the economy, creating new monetarized activities and facilitating the reconceptualization of activities distant from material production as economic. In short, many features of the contemporary world arise from the growing legions of people steeped in common forms of higher education. Panel regression models of contemporary cross-national longitudinal data examine these relationships. We find higher-education enrollments are associated with key dimensions of rationalization, globalization, societal mobilization, and expansion of the service economy. Central features of modern society, often seen as natural, in fact hinge on the distinctive form of higher education that has become institutionalized worldwide.

A failure of imagination: Competing narratives of 9/11 truth

Diogenes ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Mark Fenster
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Center ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Popular Politics ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
Cover Up ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This essay describes the emergence of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon as an object of conspiratorial intrigue and imagination, offering a snapshot of the “9/11 truth movement” and its various theories as they began to reach full bloom. Theories about the attacks have come to constitute the dominant conspiratorial present – a present that looks remarkably like the mid- and late-twentieth-century past, despite significant changes in information technology and the continuing institutionalization and ironization of conspiracy theory as an influential form of popular politics. In addition to the 9/11 conspiracy community, the essay considers the battle over the 9/11 Commission’s review of the government’s failure to anticipate the terrorist attacks. The Commission engaged in knowing and savvy efforts to respond to conspiracy theories and to preempt popular belief in them, offering an authoritative narrative (or, more precisely, set of narratives) to explain what occurred. Meanwhile, the 9/11 truth movement made equally knowing and savvy efforts to critique the official account, responding with its own efforts to reinterpret and re-narrate the attacks, their causes, and what they signify about the contemporary world. While the 9/11 Commission may have criticized the federal government and its intelligence services for their failures of imagination prior to the attacks, the truth movement criticized the Commission either for a failure of imagination – an explanation for the attacks that could see through the “official” account – or for a quite imaginative cover-up of the hidden truths of 9/11. By considering the clash between official authorities and an active conspiracy community, this essay considers how the movement attempted to form a collective political and scholarly community, producing a blizzard of texts offering narratives that compete with the ones told by the Commission that seek the impossible grail of conspiracy theory: the truth. The essay also considers the effects, if any, of the state’s attempt to preempt and respond to conspiracy theories.

Beckett's Present Moments

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-25
Author(s):  
Rodney Sharkey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
European Society ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Liberal Capitalism ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

As a comfortable middle-class Protestant in Southern Ireland, Beckett was well placed to live the life of what Badiou ironically refers to as ‘the deserving body’ (59). However, Beckett moved beyond such home comforts to witness at close hand some of the most disruptive moments of twentieth century European history. This essay proposes that his work is both a manifestation of that history and a complex response to it in its content, and, particularly, in its form. In Aesthetic Theory, Theodore Adorno proposes that ‘the unsolved antagonisms of reality return in artworks as immanent problems of form’ (7). Exemplifying Adorno's proposition that ‘aesthetic form is sedimented context’ (9) Beckett's work remains disruptive of Western late capital commodification through the restatement of historical antagonisms that involve characters having to choose between privilege and impoverishment, quietism and protest, and being and its obliteration. The result is a body of work that continues to present, for its readers’ consideration, the parameters of a politics of choice which are repeatedly instantiated by the traces of the tumultuous history the work carries within itself. As the decisions facing Beckett's characters reflected those faced by late twentieth century European society, so too his work now resonates in the present moment as the contemporary world struggles in the shadow of neo-liberal capitalism and COVID-19.

scholarly journals Archival Artistry: Exploring Disability Aesthetics in Late Twentieth Century Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 75-95
Author(s):  
Lauren Beard
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
State Institution ◽  
Section 504 ◽  
Disability History ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Disability Rhetoric

Jay Dolmage’s (2014) Disability Rhetoric encourages scholars to search beyond normative Aristolean bounds of rhetoric and embrace a critical lens of rhetorical activity as embodied, and disability as an inalienable aspect of said embodiment (p. 289). To that end, this project posits an innovative structure for rhetorically (re)analyzing disability history in higher education through a framework of disability aesthetics. In Academic Ableism, Jay Dolmage (2017) argues that an institution’s aesthetic ideologies and architecture denote a rhetorical agenda of ableism. In Disability Aesthetics, Tobin Siebers (2010) asserts disability is a vital aspect of aesthetic interpretation. Both works determine that disability has always held a crucial, critical role in the production and consumption of aestheticism, as it invites able-bodied individuals to consider the dynamic, nonnormative instantiations of the human body as a social, civic issue (p. 2). Disability, therefore, has the power to reinvigorate the sociorhetorical impact of both aesthetic representation and the human experience writ large. With this framework in mind, this project arranges an archival historiography of disability history in higher education in the late twentieth century at a mid-sized U.S. state institution. During this time, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was finally signed into law, and universities confronted a legal demand to allow all students access. Ultimately, this project seeks to demonstrate how disability scholars and historiographers can widen the view of both disability history and disability rhetoric in higher education through a focus on student aesthetic performance and intervention.

scholarly journals ON QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevo Jacimovski ◽  
Jovan Setrajcic ◽  
Jelena Lamovec
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Cryptography ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
It Industry ◽  
Quantum Distribution ◽  
System A ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Communication Lines ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

In the late twentieth century, human race entered the era ofinformation technology (IT). The IT industry, which deals with the production,processing, storage and transmission of information, has become an integralpart of the global economic system, a completely independent and significantsector of the economy. The dependence of the modern society on informationtechnologies is so great that omissions in information systems may lead tosignificant incidents. Telecommunications are the key information technologyindustry. However, information is very susceptible to various types of abuseduring transmission. The units for data storage and processing can bephysically protected from anyone wishing harm, but this does not hold truefor the communication lines that span hundreds or thousands of kilometersand are virtually impossible to protect. Therefore, the problem of informationprotection in the field of telecommunications is highly significant. Cryptology,particularly cryptography, deals with this issue. Quantum cryptography is arelatively new field ensuring safe communication between the sender and therecipient using the laws of quantum physics. This paper seeks to address theprinciples of the quantum distribution of a key for information encryption andthe fundamental problems arising from the execution.

scholarly journals MODERN HIGHER LIBRARY AND INFORMATION EDUCATION: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
О. Чурашева ◽  
O. Churasheva ◽  
А. Третьяков ◽  
A. Tretyakov
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Education System ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Bologna Process ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Integrated System ◽  
State Institute ◽  
Petersburg State Institute ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Library And Information Education

<p>This article analyzes the problems and prospects for the development of higher library and information education in the context of integrating the national higher education system into the Bologna process and the transition to the tertiary education system. World trends in this area are indicated. The status and role of the library and information profession in modern society is considered. Particular attention is paid to the preparation of bachelors of library and information activities at the library and information department of the St. Petersburg State Institute of Culture. The article highlights the problem points in the matter. It features a wide range of profiles for the preparation of library and information specialists by the scientific and pedagogical schools of the St. Petersburg State Institute of Culture. The problems that need to be solved now in the conditions of modernization and clustering of the modern Russian educational space are revealed. The paper describes the competence possessed by a graduate of the bachelor's program in the Library-Information Activity direction of preparation. Attention is focused on an integrated system-activity approach to the implementation of the higher education program in the training of library and information personnel. A socio-pedagogical dominant is pointed out, which is necessary for more rapid entry into the library and information community by trainees and a faster search for employers. A need for a comprehensive study of the problems of higher library and information education at the modern stage of the development of the educational sphere of the Russian Federation was noted.</p>

What's Really New about the Neoliberal University? The Business of American Education Has Always Been Business

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 62-86
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Young People ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
American Education ◽  
Student Debt ◽  
Business Support ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Many ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Complete Overhaul

Abstract Journalists, academics, and ordinary Americans wrongly bemoan the student debt and college financing crises as two separate unhappy endings to a mythical story of unprecedented postwar federal and state support for higher education. Rarely have they considered that either catastrophe has anything to do with the labor question. Yet the thousands of Americans in debt and the many colleges facing bankruptcy (even before the pandemic) are intertwined disasters, which reveal that Americans never had genuine economic security or basic social welfare, a basic truth that has historically hurt and still overwhelmingly harms residents of color, particularly women, who disproportionately hold the most debt. Colleges and universities have always had to rely on tuition and business support because they never received adequate sustained funding from lawmakers, who had far more interest in offering young people and their families ways to creatively finance tuition in order to get the credentials needed to just compete for well-paying work. Business needs and demands did a lot to shape postsecondary schools before the emergency of the neoliberal university, supposedly a late twentieth-century phenomenon. As such, seemingly radical solutions, like forgiving debts and unionizing adjuncts, are not enough to transform universities into the progressive strongholds that they never really were. Lawmakers, taxpayers, and faculty would have to embrace a complete overhaul of how higher education is funded as well as how students are assisted in studying.

The Physical University: Contours of space and place in higher education

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-74
Author(s):  
Michael Haggans
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Future ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an extended book review of “The Physical University”. Design/methodology/approach – This article takes the form of a literature review focusing on one title. Findings – This is an uneven collection of fragments of conventional late twentieth-century thinking about the physical campus. The future of the physical university, the campus is in doubt. Yet, only two of the dozen authors engage in this existential question. Originality/value – The collection of articles ranges from purely philosophical to moderately practical. It is a poor summary of current thought and offers little guidance for dealing with the evolving future of the physical university.

Private Benefit, Public Finance?

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
William Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
British Society ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Student Finance ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter explores the way in which developments in the apparently rather narrow field of undergraduate finance tell us something about perceptions of the university in the late twentieth century and, more importantly, about how debates over higher education illuminate wider attitudes to the relationship between the individual, the state, and civil society. It also uses these debates—and the legislation they inspired—to discuss the difficulties the state and other actors faced in dealing with higher education in an era characterized by anxieties about Britain’s perceived decline, and about inequities in British society. The tangled and tortured development of student finance in the last four decades of the twentieth century illustrates the value of Jose Harris’s approach, whilst also enabling historians to trace the longer-lasting legacy of idealist thought.

Misery Loves Company: Poverty, Mobility, and Higher Education in the Post-welfare State

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-294
Author(s):  
Susan E. Mannon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Safety Nets ◽  
College Attainment ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Contemporary United States ◽  
Social Safety Nets ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

In this paper, I examine the relationship between poverty, mobility, and higher education in the contemporary United States. In contrast to quantitative analyses, which have found robust and positive outcomes associated with college attainment, I use ethnographic methods to tell a more complicated story about what college offers the poor. This story centers on a low-income woman of color named Angelica. Angelica’s story of drug-addict-turned college graduate suggests that college might be just as much a regulatory institution as a poverty solution. To this extent, it critically assesses my role as Angelica’s former professor, professional mentor, and life narrator. The article situates the expansion of higher education and Angelica’s pathway into college in late twentieth-century efforts to reform the welfare system and reduce state-sponsored social safety nets. It concludes by suggesting that college is no lifeline but a mechanism by which Angelica and others are brought into the fold of a “respectable” but often miserable middle-class life.

Career Reflections of a 1970s Feminist

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Gianetta Rands
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
National Health Service ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Mental Capacity Act 2005 ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Mental Capacity Act ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter describes, via personal reflection and experience, some changes for women in psychiatry in the late twentieth century. Examples include progress in higher education, changes in National Health Service structures, and changes in professional recruitment, training, and exams. Evidence is used to illustrate gender inequality, then and now, and the context of some new laws is outlined, particularly Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006), the Mental Capacity Act (2005), and the Equality Act (2010). The General Medical Council’s Duties of a Doctor are cited and their use covered. There are examples of how formal inquiries can influence the development of services and standards. Throughout, the emphasis is on women’s roles and experiences. Examples of sexual harassment, in public and at work, are described as are examples and evidence of inequality in pay, job opportunities, and career progression. Some anonymized clinical cases are used to illustrate situations and medical dilemmas.

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