This book goes beyond now-familiar analyses of 'neoliberal governmentality' which tend to characterise academics as passive subjects or as 'strategic actors', drawing on and cynically exploiting metrics as a form of capital exchangeable across different fields. Instead, Universities in Crisis draws on newer paradigms by drawing on processual, post-critical and phenomenological approaches that leave room for new spaces of negotiation - discursive and practical - for understanding and advancing academic professionalism in this rapidly changing context. Contributors reflect various manifestations of the changing political and public climate, as well as the unease that surrounds contemporary debates which position the academy in troubling ways. Unifying concepts such as academic work, jurisdiction and transdisciplinarity are deployed to transcend functional divisions within and between academics, administrators, managers and students. Drawing on these theoretical and conceptual resources, contributors engage in critical consideration of whether the potential for 'push back' lies both in re-emphasising the specialness of academic professionalism and in defining the commonalities with other professional groups of knowledge workers. The book offers an unflinching analysis on the conditions which frame the darker side of professionalism and which are associated with increased precarity and reduced autonomy. The contributors explore the dilemmas, challenges and possibilities of professionalism for both early career academics and senior academic leaders.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351017558, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Few institutions in modern society are as significant as universities, yet our historical and sociological understanding of the role of higher education has not been substantially updated for decades. By revisiting the emergence and transformation of higher education since 1800 using a novel processual approach, this book recognizes these developments as having been as central to constituting the modern world as the industrial and democratic revolutions. This new interpretation of the role of universities in contemporary society promises to re-orient our understanding of the importance of higher education in the past and future development of modern societies. It will therefore appeal to scholars of social science and history with interests in social history and social change, education, the professions and inequalities.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351017558, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Few institutions in modern society are as significant as universities, yet our historical and sociological understanding of the role of higher education has not been substantially updated for decades. By revisiting the emergence and transformation of higher education since 1800 using a novel processual approach, this book recognizes these developments as having been as central to constituting the modern world as the industrial and democratic revolutions. This new interpretation of the role of universities in contemporary society promises to re-orient our understanding of the importance of higher education in the past and future development of modern societies. It will therefore appeal to scholars of social science and history with interests in social history and social change, education, the professions and inequalities.

This is the first book to apply the sociology of Norbert Elias to the field of sociology of education, offering fruitful lines of research developed from the application of Elias's theoretical framework. Beginning by introducing Elias' theory to those who are unfamiliar with it, Lybeck goes on to explore ways his work can be applied to areas of education research including widening participation, education and the state and the development of knowledge. Topics discussed in detail include: the relationship between social control and self-control; the difference between involvement and detachment in research; and the concept of game-models to explain unintended consequences in education policy. Lybeck also situates Elias's thought alongside other key thinkers including Bourdieu, Foucault and Abbott, whose theories have been widely applied in education research. An Eliasian or 'figurational' sociology of education points to more historical, processual and post-critical approaches to education studies. As the first book to open up Elias' work to researchers and students in education, a range of familiar topics including identity, decolonization and globalization can be seen in a new light.

This is the first book to apply the sociology of Norbert Elias to the field of sociology of education, offering fruitful lines of research developed from the application of Elias's theoretical framework. Beginning by introducing Elias' theory to those who are unfamiliar with it, Lybeck goes on to explore ways his work can be applied to areas of education research including widening participation, education and the state and the development of knowledge. Topics discussed in detail include: the relationship between social control and self-control; the difference between involvement and detachment in research; and the concept of game-models to explain unintended consequences in education policy. Lybeck also situates Elias's thought alongside other key thinkers including Bourdieu, Foucault and Abbott, whose theories have been widely applied in education research. An Eliasian or 'figurational' sociology of education points to more historical, processual and post-critical approaches to education studies. As the first book to open up Elias' work to researchers and students in education, a range of familiar topics including identity, decolonization and globalization can be seen in a new light.