CC BY
8SOCIAL SCIENCES
ACADEMIC AND INFORMATIONAL CAPITALISM AS PRODUCTS OF THE GLOBALIZED
MARKET
Stryhul M.,
Ph.D. (in Sociology), Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Political Science,National Aviation
University Khomeriki O.
Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Sociology and Political Science,
National Aviation University
Abstract
The article provides a theoretical and methodological analysis of the impact of globalization on the educational system through the prism of sociological analysis and, at the same time, identifies the main causes and components of the globalization of education in the context of educational practices and discourses. Turning to the analysis of American sociologists, it is indicated that the international space of higher education is uneven, hierarchical and constantly competing. Academic capitalism, globalization, international competition and the stratification of higher education have become more relevant, which in turn leads to competition for social and academic prestige. Global communications and mobility have created the conditions for the emergence of a global market for higher education. It is proved that in the globalization process, higher education is brought into line with the requirements and practice of different markets both at the national and international levels.
Keywords: sociology of education, economism, capitalism, market, globalization.
The most controversial change in American educational systems is 'academic capitalism'. In 1997, S. Slaughter and L. Leslie in their paper 'Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University' suggested to use this term for denoting transformations of the traditional order of professional university activity caused at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century by globalization phenomena in the spheres of economy and politics. Under the conditions of globalization, operation of universities is increasingly obtaining features of one of the market structures. For the sake of appropriate financial provision of their existence, universities are forced to apply different methods of raising money; apart from traditional sources - budget financing and donations from natural persons and charity funds - money is obtained for conducting commissioned scientific-technical research, under commercial contracts or for retraining personnel in the interests of business structures (firms, companies, corporations etc.) or from independent conduction of commercial, intermediary or produc-tional activity. Market relations are increasingly playing an important role in the operation of academic institutions. It leads to such phenomena like introduction of temporary employment, full or partial privatization, redistribution of expenses, and, at the same time, it also causes negative consequences - contraction of academic freedoms, violation of the ensured right for labor, damage to local culture and traditions.
Globalizational challenges caused the emergence of new forms, structures, ideas and initiatives; introduction of changes into the scheme of paying a reward for a form of academic activity actualize the ones and obviate other kinds of university activity. Examining current changes happening at higher educational institutions in the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada, S. Slaughter and L. Leslie conclude that 'regardless of the principal differences of political cultures in the four
countries, there are being fulfilled similar policies in the fields where higher education is intervened with globalization of postindustrial political economy. Education in these countries is characterized by the transition to scientific-technical policies which is strengthening academic capitalism and harming fundamental research'.
The above mentioned researchers in the paper 'Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University' claim that academic capitalism is a policy aimed at transformating universities from the centers of liberal arts to the entrepreneurial peripheries where research and scientific developments are conducted with commercial purposes [4].
Emergence of academic capitalism resulted from a whole range of reasons. Firstly, because of frequent economic problems universities generally undergoes programmed of state financing shortage, and thus they need additional sources of obtaining money for their operation. Secondly, competitiveness of business structures on global markets is impossible without the introduction of innovations technologies and usage of advanced scientific achievements for the sake of fast renovation of the range of goods and extension of the sphere of services. Such scientific developments and innovations, technologies can be produced by either own scientific laboratories or institutes, creation of which costs a stupendous amount of money, or by universities. The mutual interest of companies and universities in cooperation has lead to the so called 'second academic revolution', and under the influence of the above mentioned factors, there appeared a certain balance in relations between state bodies, universities and business structures. According to S. Slaughter and L. Leslie, through engaging external financing sources in individual or collective scientific research, academic capitalism correlates harmoniously with all other kinds of activity practicing the same engagement. Being a subject of market relations, universities are directly in-
terested in getting income from fulfilling contracts, obtained licenses and patents, or, competing with other universities, they contend for the right to receive budget financing (or external financing from business structures) without getting any income. In both cases, universities enter market relations and market competition
The specific feature of modern universities is economic heterogeneity of their organization: divisions, laboratories and other departments are not equally financed; preference is given to the development of commercially successful activity directions; this inequality leads to stratification of faculty members through distinguishing prominent and popular lecturers with the corresponding high salary, and little attention is paid to the others with the correspondent considerably lower salary. Regardless of the numerous arguments in favor of the above described organizational scheme of penetration of market relations into university life, one might state that this process also has crucial disadvantages. Expectations that business structures would invest money in education and science without imposing counter duties on universities haven't been realized. As practice shows, financing of higher education institutions by business structures generally presupposes certain benefits in the form of financial income, obtaining full or adjacent rights of intellectual property or as an access to the administrative bodies of these establishments. A typical example might be a 25 million $ donation to the University of California in Berkeley (USA) from the American branch of Novartis International AG pharmaceutical company in exchange for inclusion of two company representatives to the research committee of the university consisting of five members. Hence, the company got the opportunity to affect topics of research giving preference to those that could be beneficial for the company.
Developing ideas of 'academic capitalism', J. En-gell and A. Dangerfield from Harvard University suggested the usage of another term - 'a market-model university'. The researchers used this term for denoting those educational establishments which priority activity is oriented at obtaining money (income or investments) and which non-profitable, solely academic and scientific aspect of activity is considered secondary.
Orientation of universities at the market and strengthening of the commercial component in their activity creates a 'new culture' of research that is gradually replacing the settled academic values and transforming the scientific community which was called by R. Merton an 'ethnos of science'.
The major features of the mentioned 'new culture' first of all include the following:
- Priority on teamwork over individual creative work;
- sharp competition at all levels;
- priority of social, political and commercial interests over the disinterested approach to scientific work;
- multidisciplinarity displacing commonality;
- replacement of universalism with the practice of solving tasks within local context frameworks.
Within research on academic capitalism, there are several different approaches to the issue of correlation of the new postacademic culture and settled academic values and traditions. Indeed, according to J. Ziman, the 'new culture' has come to replace traditional methods of university research. The mentioned researcher
claims that financial transdisciplinary research oriented at solving specific problems has come to replace fundamental disciplinary scientific-research developments inherent in the old academic school. Therefore, relations of academic capitalism cause a radical difference between the new and the traditional models of obtaining scientific knowledge. Moving farther, P. Scott thinks that tendencies inherent in academic capitalism would not only radically change the priorities of fundamental research, but, finally, also cause the similar changes in applied research that would ultimately lead to the establishment of new key values of universities. Resulting from these transformations of value, morale and customs of academic capitalism would replace disciplinary differences and diversity of university culture, and importance of universities as centers for 'pure knowledge' production would be gradually negated. The corresponding changes would also occur within the university sociocultural medium which would become narrow, homogenous.
Diversity of different positions of researchers and their descriptions of educational services allows to introduce the following brief definition: educational services constitute a kind of services provided by an educational institution being its producer and seller simultaneously. Educational services include the complex of material and non-material resources necessary for providing these services, creating appropriate conditions for obtainment of the necessary volume of knowledge and skills by service consumers (students, pupils) marginally sufficient for every specific specialization, organizing training process that provides ob-tainment of the mentioned knowledge during the studying, and submitting the correspondent documents certifying the qualification and specialization obtained by service consumers (students, pupils). Considering the fact that existence of the market of material values and the market of services is a major component of market relations, one might unambigiously claim that, by its features, the market of educational services cannot be recognized as belonging in the market of material values, i.e. the market of services produced and transformed into the subject of trading relations. A whole range of researchers suggests the possibility of peaceful co-existence of both innovations and traditional values within the academic cultural medium, i.e. P. Scott, B. Clark, S. Slaughter, L. Leslie, J. Delanti and others. In general, their position is that universities must be flexible in responding to changes in the economy, politics, culture, etc., must define their place in a new reality, ensuring their own 'convertibility' but preventing complete replacement of the settled and traditional university culture by postacademic culture, whereas the intellectual 'spirit' and classical values of universities are still basic in higher education [1].
Some experts believe that market business practice caused by the phenomena of globalization of social-political and economic life and being adopted by universities, leads to significant negative consequences. Indeed, proceeding in their development towards the most fashionable ideology of globalization and the all-emracing ideology of market relations, universities lose their traditional role as public critics whose authority and independence haven't caused any doubts so far. Under the conditions of strict 'attachment' of university activity in the market, there
emerges a threat of transformation of researchers and lecturers of higher educational institutions into a group of mere entrepreneurs. Moreover, giving preference to market values would gradually lead to the disappearance of an extraordinary important social function of universities - i.e. production and translation of humanistic values. Considering this, as opposite to the 'entrepreneurial' way in university development, there is a suggested scheme of development of a close partnership between higher education and local companionship [2].
S. Slaughter and L. Leslie introduce more moderate and liberal positions considering the issue of correlation of postacademic and traditional academic values of university culture. According to them, adaptation of universities to the phenomenon of 'academic capitalism' is significantly influenced by disciplinary differences. Indeed, separate and frequently naturalist and technical, scientific disciplines occur closer to the needs of the market, whereas they produce scientific knowledge that can be more quickly applied in practical activity for getting benefits; thus, this knowledge can be more quickly sold to business structures. Considering this, commercialization of education produces direct influence on redistribution of material-technical and intellectual resources in preference of the above mentioned disciplines. Apart from naturalist and technical disciplines, humanitarian directions of science find themselves in an unfavorable position on the market, whereas market demand for scientific products of humanitarian disciplines is much lower. It leads to shortenings of the volume of their delivery, and because of insufficient financing correspondent scientific programmes are suspended, that not only constricts this sector of scientific activity but might also cause its decline [4].
Pessimistic predictions concerning humanitarian sciences have been refuted by the results of the latest studies showing that scientific products of humanitarian disciplines are also applied in the marketing sphere. For example, mastering major management skills, including objective evaluation of information, ability to take decisions, critical thinking, ability to work in a team etc. is possible only after completing the course of human sciences at universities. Therefore, the needs of modern business in a new organizational culture shape the demand for humanitarian training of personnel that gives an impetus for further development of science and education in the humanitarian sphere. Under these conditions, much topicality is given to continuous university education and additional consultant services which at the first stage can supplement, and later gradually replace specialized studies as a form of education being too narrow to comply with the needs of society and business in the near future.
Hence, 'academic capitalism' should not be considered as a mechanical process of automatic invasion in all fields of higher education. The necessity of adaptation of higher education to political and economic market determinism within globalization leads to developing different ways of this adaptation in different
academic media ensuring sufficient multidirectional and variant nature of university studies. At the same time, similar capitalist tendencies in education on other territories, e.g. in Europe, might face certain rejection of the academic community because of the lack of such experience.
As it follows from the works of the Nobel laureate in economics A. Sen (1998), human potential is a complicated integrative index directly evaluating prospects of the future, enabling to execute its forecast and not be restricted by the mere description of phantasmagoria. Moreover, this coefficient absorbs both economic and social components of social progress correlating them as interdependent ones. This approach has brought the scientist to a conclusion that development, primarily social-economic one, is impossible without extension of the freedom of human potential realization. He interprets freedom from two points of view: value and efficiency. The latter characteristics are of a special interest since it covers the objective and the task of freedom, ways of social reality organization, and also an estimation of conformity of an economic system to the existing technical and technological opportunities.
This question formulation legitimizes the following problem: to what extent do modern technological solutions (primarily global information networks) contribute to extension of the human potential? At first thought, the answer is evident: networks provide cheap and, what is important, available way of maximal freedom realization. Already today social services, startups, blogs, comments, forums and numerous other virtual platforms have tied users to personal computers, mobile phones, Internet tablets providing with omnidirectional tools of creativity, communication, employment, education. And this dependence is not accidental, does not possess (as psychologists are trying to prove) the form of narcotic or other kind of dependence, but opens before a personality inaccessible before horizons of what J. -P. Sartre called 'roads of freedom'. At any moment everybody is able to get into the whirl of news and events and be their actual participant.
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