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Contemporary education reform worldwide appears to be locked in a competition fetish. This article explores the varieties of competition, including traditional academic forms, contests sponsored by governments and international organisations, market competition and status wars intensified by rankings. Resisting interpretations of competition as naturally occurring, it presents various macro and micro actors, referred to as 'shamans', that breathe life into the phenomenon and that are responsible for its generation, constitution and reproduction. These include structural drivers associated with political and regulatory regimes; and symbolic drivers constituted by normative and affective pressures. The article focuses on the extent to which the varieties of competition reinforce, displace, mediate or counteract one another and reveals how powerful policy and symbolic drivers interact to power competition, and how competition forecloses alternative means of educational reform. The unintended consequences of competition on social equity, on academic work and on global well-being are highlighted, and suggestions are offered on ways to escape the competition trap.

This paper analyses higher education reform in relation to the 'knowledge' society and recent political frameworks developed by governments in response to sociopolitical and economic change. It argues that a wide range of countries have responded to forces associated with globalisation by adopting a 'third way' political approach, which lies mid-way between state collectivism and an unregulated market economy. On the one hand, this political approach promotes policies to support marketisation as the basis for a successful economy. On the other hand, the most corrosive effects of market forces are contained through state regulation and state support for disadvantaged groups. This 'dual' approach is reflected in government reform in higher education, particularly around issues of quality and participation. Presenting the reform of higher education in Britain as a case study, the paper outlines the important financial and other support measures devised by the New Labour government to distribute opportunities for study more evenly across society. The quality assurance measures, which have restructured the higher education terrain within a quasi-marketised framework, at the same time compel universities to compete against other universities for funding and status. This paper illustrates how the institutionalisation of the quality assurance mechanisms inhibits the workings of measures aimed at widening participation in the system as a whole. It concludes that the implementation of the 'third way' approach to higher education reform, which implements policy mechanisms to temper some of the consequences of the marketisation of higher education within a quasimarket framework, serves to penalise the very institutions which recruit students with the greatest social and educational need. Interaction of the measures for widening participation and quality assurance is therefore likely to lead to a higher education system that is heavily stratified along the lines of prior educational and social disadvantage.

Throughout the 1990s, transnational higher education, ie., everything involving international student & teacher mobility, curricular exchanges & inter-institutional educational cooperation, has grown considerably & constitutes one of the most notable forces transforming higher education systems. This article documents the growth & diversification of transnational higher education & analyzes the strategies of various countries & higher education institutions, which can be spurred on by motives as diverse as mutual comprehension, improve quality & competitiveness of their higher education offer, attracting talents, the construction of a service export industry. It argues that the various forms of transnational higher education should continue to grow in the coming decades, whether there is international convergence or diversity of national strategies. Adapted from the source document.

In English higher education, the Teaching Excellence Framework represents a very significant recent policy lever in the continued operation of a measured market in the sector. Conceived as a policy to enhance and make further transparent the quality of teaching, it utilises a variety of key measurements to establish sets of related outcomes upon which effective teaching can be assessed. Drawing upon Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence and adopting policy framing as an analytical approach, we illustrate how the Teaching Excellence Framework and its related discursive techniques are significant in (re)producing the institutional conditions which enable market policy to operate effectively. The article focuses specifically on three core pillars of the marketisation project of English higher education that are strongly affirmed: the further enactment of students as consumers and universities as producers, the related pre-occupation with graduates' employability and future returns; and the uncritical application of metrics to signify institutions' performance value. We show how misrecognition operates by a market policy cloaking itself under the guise of student empowerment and quality, and call for academic and political practices that forge acts of resistance.

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy.

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy.

This comprehensive book provides a reearch review of the critical papers that have been published in the fast-growing field of the globalization of higher education. They include work by a variety of noted scholars, such as Altbach, Clark and Marginson, which cover key areas of theoretical and substantive interest