MEASURING UP IN HIGHER EDUCATION: HOW UNIVERSITY RANKINGS and LEAGUE TABLES ARE RE-SHAPING KNOWLEDGE IN THE GLOBAL ERA

Group Submission Type: Book Launch

Description of Session

The book, that results from a multi-year, cross-national collaboration between major comparative scholars from several higher education systems, initially reviews the changes facing educational researchers due to pressures to create “world class” universities. It then proceeds comparatively to a series of case studies based using an agreed common research design, that involved analysis of research outputs from two social science departments at one public university from South Africa, Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States (US) during the three-time slot years of 1993, 2003, and 2013. The comparative analysis of change over time found that, except for the US, most faculty members in other systems were pushed not only to change their publications into English, but also the focus of their research topics, in order to attract the interest of an international readership. Where English was not the dominant language, these trends weakened scholarship in the main local language(s). The book concludes that the costs of using comparable measures of quality to compare “world class” universities are not borne equally across, or within, higher education systems, with gender, language, and age, for example, being significant differentiators. The book raises key questions about the costs of striving for ‘world-class’ status, and reveals ways in which the research process is distorted over time.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Book Launch

Chairs

• Anthony Welch, University of Sydney

• Jun Li, Western University

Book Launch Presenters

• Gus Gregorutti, Andrews University

• Gerard Postiglione, Gerard A Postiglione