Phillip G. Altbach and Hans de Wit offered the perspective that there is too much research and too many publications in higher education in their recent University World News opinion. While the profusion of publications, lengthy approval processes, and predatory journals may be real concerns, the Altbach and de Wit argument misses an essential point - competition and hegemony in the international higher education environment.
Altbach and de Wit attribute the cause of too many publications to growing massification and competition for global rankings, dynamics that they assert result in isomorphism, defined as the desire of most academic institutions "to resemble the universities at the top of the academic pecking order - and thus seek to become research-intensive." Their broad use of the term isomorphism is confusing in itself because increasing conformity comes from pressure originating from multiple sources - learning, imitation, competition, normative, and coercion (credit to Dr. Darbi L. Roberts' dissertation at Columbia University for this distinction and analysis of how policies and practices are borrowed/imitated across organizations).
What Altbach and de Wit are describing is actually competitive or normative isomorphism and this fact is at the core of my opposition to their proposition. If the number of publications are limited through some means then one has to ask who has the privilege to research and publish and what does that mean to the advancement of knowledge?
It is well documented and recognized that Western higher education dominates academic discourse. This is partially the result of history. This history isn't only about the privileged place Western countries occupy as a result of the emergence of robust higher education in Europe and then in the United States. Western dominance has been profoundly influenced by colonialism that discounted other cultural voices and imposed a specific way of thinking about everything from the human condition to political and economic systems.
If Altbach and de Wit's opinion were embraced, it's fairly easy to determine which journals, publishers, and intellectuals would prevail. The competitive isomorphism they decry would take hold of academic discourse to an even greater degree than it now does. While they cite Ernest Boyer's 1990 idea that differentiated institutional missions and faculty roles should value teaching and service along with research, the reality is that elite institutions that are at the top of the hierarchy of research and publications are more recognized and rewarded - both organizationally and the individual scholars who serve on their faculty.
Altbach and de Wit raise an important question about the profusion of academic publications. However, their recommendations should be tempered with recognition that there are many voices throughout the world that would continue to be silenced, and likely to a greater degree, if consideration of hegemony and privileged positions within the academic community are not addressed as well.
Other academics have critiqued the position taken by Altbach and de Wit. Jenny J. Lee and Alma Maldonado Maldonado published their views in University World News. Their argument was similar to the position I took above.
Altbach and de Wit attribute the cause of too many publications to growing massification and competition for global rankings, dynamics that they assert result in isomorphism, defined as the desire of most academic institutions "to resemble the universities at the top of the academic pecking order - and thus seek to become research-intensive." Their broad use of the term isomorphism is confusing in itself because increasing conformity comes from pressure originating from multiple sources - learning, imitation, competition, normative, and coercion (credit to Dr. Darbi L. Roberts' dissertation at Columbia University for this distinction and analysis of how policies and practices are borrowed/imitated across organizations).
What Altbach and de Wit are describing is actually competitive or normative isomorphism and this fact is at the core of my opposition to their proposition. If the number of publications are limited through some means then one has to ask who has the privilege to research and publish and what does that mean to the advancement of knowledge?
It is well documented and recognized that Western higher education dominates academic discourse. This is partially the result of history. This history isn't only about the privileged place Western countries occupy as a result of the emergence of robust higher education in Europe and then in the United States. Western dominance has been profoundly influenced by colonialism that discounted other cultural voices and imposed a specific way of thinking about everything from the human condition to political and economic systems.
If Altbach and de Wit's opinion were embraced, it's fairly easy to determine which journals, publishers, and intellectuals would prevail. The competitive isomorphism they decry would take hold of academic discourse to an even greater degree than it now does. While they cite Ernest Boyer's 1990 idea that differentiated institutional missions and faculty roles should value teaching and service along with research, the reality is that elite institutions that are at the top of the hierarchy of research and publications are more recognized and rewarded - both organizationally and the individual scholars who serve on their faculty.
Altbach and de Wit raise an important question about the profusion of academic publications. However, their recommendations should be tempered with recognition that there are many voices throughout the world that would continue to be silenced, and likely to a greater degree, if consideration of hegemony and privileged positions within the academic community are not addressed as well.
Other academics have critiqued the position taken by Altbach and de Wit. Jenny J. Lee and Alma Maldonado Maldonado published their views in University World News. Their argument was similar to the position I took above.
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