Session Information
13 SES 07 B, Parallel Paper Session
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
Higher education development and academic freedom can be construed as either complimentary or conflicting ideas in educational research: complimentary in an economic sense because they offer each other mutual security in a systemics whereby greater economic growth and stability generated through higher education also ensure more rights, recognition and protection for academics; conflicting because development introduces a necessary qualitative distinction between developing and developed countries, one which thereby places limitations on the freedom of those who would aspire to overcome that distinction (which might be described as envelopment). From the point of view of educational theory, little has changed since the objections to the expansion of development of Jean-François Lyotard, who argued that it had acquired the status of a metaphysics, “a thinking pertaining to force much more than to the subject”. Lyotard maintained that development had an all-encompassing logic to it that made its benefits difficult to refute, but that that logic could always be adapted to sustain its force rather than to recognise its faults. This logic continues to be pursued by international financial organisations such as the World Bank, whose supplanting of capital with knowledge in the development agenda has given way to syllogisms such as: ‘Knowledge is critical for development, because everything we do depends on knowledge’ (World Bank, 1999).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Dhillon, P., and Standish, P. (eds) (2000) Lyotard: Just Education. London: Routledge. Lyotard, J. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J. (1988). The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J. (1991). The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bill Readings (1997). ‘Privatising Culture: Reflections on Jean-François Lyotard's “Oikos”.’ Angelaki 2(1), 23 – 29. World Bank. (1998). The World Bank Annual Report 1998. Washington, DC. World Bank. (2009). Accelerating Catch-Up: Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.
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