Book Review: Academic Capitalism and the New Economy

Book Review: Academic Capitalism and the fresh Economy Sheila Slaughter & Gary Rhoades. Academic Capitalism and the novel Economy: Market, State, and Higher Education. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Pres 2004 366 pp $3995 (hardcover).

As an integral part of teacher education programs, social foundations of education guards to focus on developing interpretative, critical, and normative perspectives regarding the relationship between K-12 place of educations and society. Yet, emphasizing the contextual understanding of educational ideas, practices, and policies, foundational scholars must attend to in what way the new economy is shaping the existing teacher education programs situated in higher education institutions. beneath these circumstance, I find that Academic Capitalism and the novel Economy: Market, State, and Higher Education by dint of Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades shows a timely scholarly work that unveils the mixed development of academic capitalism and calls for a critical re-examination of the mission of higher education institutions. In what go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake ofs I first summarize the theoretical framework, findings, analyses, and conclusion of Slaughter and Rhoades' application of mind Next, I explore the possibilities for transforming academic capitalism within and beyond higher education institutions.

Building from Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University published in 1997 Academic Capitalism and the fresh Economy offer critical examinations of the formation and operation of academic capitalism in the U s Grounded in Foucault's work upon "disciplinary regimes" (1980), Mann's theory of social power (1986) and Castells' conception of the network society (1996) Slaughter and Rhoades' analyses of academic capitalism center upon the reciprocal interactions between higher education institutions and the post-industrial economy. More specifically, their analyses are based upon the recognition that faculty, scholars administrators, and academic professionals are "actors" who use "a variety of state resources to create fresh circuits of knowledge that link higher education institutions to the novel economy" (p. 1). From this standpoint, these actors play an active part in (1) instituting the corporate mould into higher education institutions, (2) developing networks intermediating private and public sectors, and (3) expanding managerial capacity to utilize resources and restructure academic institutions. These actors are by means of no means autonomous and independent agents operating in accordance with divergent value combination of parts to form a wholes Rather, they commonly privilege the unrestrained market and endorse a laissez-fair state. Crossing the boundaries of public and private sectors, these actors engage in establishing interlocking networks to manage public educational stocks in order to respond to the demands of the unrestrained market and thereby integrate capitalism into the academy.

While there are different impressed signs of capitalism, the accumulation of capital appears to be at the core of various capitalist a whole s Academic capitalism is no exception. In face of the continuous decline of public subsidies, higher education institutions must generate and accumulate more "capital" for their daily operation and time to come development. According to Slaughter and Rhoades, numerous federal, state, and local legislative acts have been pivotal in transforming "the ivory towers" into proactive and competitive social institutions for generating and accumulating capital. Specifically, these legislative acts impel the pair private and public universities and communitys to compete with one another for pupil enrollment and research grants. For instance, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 enables parents and learners to receive tax credits for selecting their preferr private or public universities and associations The 1998 Higher Education Act further includes special provisions to provide financial aid to for-profit higher education institutions. Moreover, the Bayh-Dole Act makes it possible for universities and faculty as patent proprietors to "commodify" the products of their knowledge construction. In the name of strengthening the competitiveness of the US corporations in the global market, higher education institutions are assuming increasing responsibility for constructing patentable intellectual produces Technology transfer acts such as the Stevenson-Wydler Act (1980) and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 facilitate easy technology transfer via networking among the federal, state, or local regulations industrial organizations, public and private foundations, and universities and associations This seemingly "free" technology transfer is in no way at liberty from profit pursuits in the independent market. Instead, technology transfer is profit-driven and returns commodified knowledge as private serviceables rather than public goods. Additionally, there are at any time expansive legislative acts such as the Small Business Innovation exhibition Act (1982) and the Orphan remedy Act (1983) that either mandate or encourage universities and corporations to conduct research for improving the productivity of private business sectors and for developing patentable commercial profitables including drugs for rare diseases.