Comparative Higher Education

Comparative Higher Education

Higher education is increasingly international. The issues that affect universities in one country are important globally. There are a myriad of links among academic systems worldwide. Comparative Higher Education is the first book to systematically explore many of the most important implications of the globalization of higher education. It explores the links among universities, including foreign students and scholars, the impact of the Western higher education idea on universities throughout the world, and especially the current importance of American academic ideas worldwide, and the patterns of inequality among academic systems. Teachers and students are at the heart of the academic systems. Comparative Higher Education focuses on professors and students-especially the political involvement of both professors and students-and seeks to understand their roles in a comparative framework. The book concludes with a discussion of higher education development in the newly industrializing countries. These Pacific Rim nations are examples of how higher education has been used in the process of development. Comparative Higher Education reflects more than three decades of research in the field, and places key elements in the globalization of higher education in a useful framework. Worldwide examples are used to illustrate analyses of such key topics as international exchange, future trends in university development, the complex relationships among academic systems in the industrialized and developing countries, and related issues.

Comparative Higher Education

Perspectives on Comparative Higher Education

Three essays by the Director of the Comparative Education Center at the State University of New York (Buffalo) have the following titles: "Comparative Perspectives on the Academic Profession,""Student Political Activism," and "University Reform". The first essay discusses the role of the academic profession in the university, stressing the professoriate is the most important single element in the university. Topics considered are autonomy, accountability and the professoriate; the professoriate under stress; historical perspectives; the sociology of the professoriate; promotion and remuneration; national case studies; and the professoriate as an international community. The second essay offers some general perspectives on student politics including the historical context, the impossibility of a "permanent revolution" in the university, responses to activism, who the activists are, the impact of activism, and differences in student activism in the industrial nations and the Third World. The final essay looks at the sources and nature of reform in the university in a discussion of difficulties of reform, the need for reform, the impetus for reform, the process of reform, trends in the 1960s, the 1970s and beyond, and future directions. References follow each paper. (DB)