Higher Education, Technology and the Social Imaginary of Science: Problematics and Futures

Higher education is being changed in two ways. First, it is becoming more utilitarian and specifically vocational as a consequence of the dominance of economic values in contemporary society and policy which subordinates higher education and its institutions as instruments of micro-economic policy. Second, the rhetoric of “the knowledge society” seems to undermine the distinctiveness of “higher” education and its institutions. Both processes contribute to undermining the academic disciplines and their location within institutions of higher education (Wheelahan (2014) Thinking about higher education, p. 125).