Race and the Neoliberal University

John Holmwood’s chapter on ‘Race and the Neoliberal University: Lessons from the Public University’ (2018) calls to question the impact of ‘privatisation’ of higher education following the 2008 global financial crisis, which sadly led to the removal of all public funding for HE courses for arts, humanities and social sciences courses (and the impact being seen through the increase in tuition fees). The value placed on a HE degree by the government is therefore reduced to the measurable economic return in the labour market. With the sudden increase in tuition fees (from roughly £3,000 to £9,000 in 2012) and the financial burden that students are now faced with (psychologically, may I add, for those taking out a SFE Student Loan… as technically speaking the likelihood of all students paying off their loans within 30 years of starting their career [plan 2 loan] is next to impossible, so ironically it still falls back to the taxpayers, see Holmwood 2018, p.46), the expectation students (and their parents) place on the economic return of a degree is greater than before, turning student to consumer and university as a hub of education and engine to social change to business.

To what extent are individuals personally responsible for their success?

The idea of higher education as a personal responsibility would seem to reinforce existing socioeconomic inequalities.

Holmwood, J. (2018 p.38)

To think that individuals are personally responsible for their own success is a very neoliberal view which would have been championed by Margaret Thatcher (and Ronald Reagan) in the 1980s. This individualistic view does not take into consideration an individuals socio-economic background, implicit biases and structural racism, gender biases, or the intersectionality of these barriers which would impact the ease at which ‘success’ is achieved. Nor does it consider the differing levels of privileges individuals inherit, such as economic, social or cultural capital. What even is the definition of success? Is it to make a difference in the world, or to make £150k per annum? This very much depends on where value is placed, so is very subjective.

Within the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), a blind eye is turned to the levels of free labour individuals feel is a necessity to undertake in order to succeed. In this instance, I frame ‘success’ as breaking into the industry. Unpaid (or low paid) internships (or ‘volunteering’ which have replaced some internships as a loophole to avoid the now illegal unpaid internships) are at the heart of the meritocratic discourse, paintings those who are able to undertake these internships as passionate and ‘doing it for the love of it’, and those who cannot (for many reasons such as not having the time, money or contacts) as not wanting it enough. To suggest that an individual is personally responsible for their own success is shortsighted.

Even within higher education, the BAME attainment gap (or what Dr Gurnam Singh likes to rephrase as the awarding differential) is evidence that there is something which creates a difference in experience for success (in this instance, success is framed as attainment – achieving a high grade (1st or 2:1, A-B grades, merit or distinction)). Be that the sense of belonging, the curriculum which they may not identify with or how assessment is carried out does not align with the wider student population, this highlights the different needs an individual requires to achieve success. See AEM’s ‘supporting attainment with unit design‘.

As Holmwood says, ‘Personal responsibility is the ideology that maintains the status quo, not the means of challenging it.’ (2018, p.47)

What is the justification for some people earning more than others?

The paradox of neoliberal ‘credentialism’ is that it makes participation in higher education necessary for any job beyond those paying the minimum wage, while, at the same time, the increased stratification of higher education makes place of study as important as a degree as such.

Holmwood, J. (2018 p.45)

You would expect that the justification would be the level of responsibility, job difficulty or amount of work they have to do compared to others would increase earnings. However, in a neoliberal climate where individualism has excelled, it appears that the amount of value that is placed on a role and how it is reflected in pay is very much dependent on whether it sits within the public or private sector (e.g. NHS staff, teacher vs banker, recruiter).

According to a public survey, the top three key factors which dictate the amount of earnings are: the amount of responsibility; how well the person does the job; and finally the job difficulty. The level of education or qualifications required is also valued – so does obtaining a degree give you more justification to be able to do a job? According to UAL’s PRA system, obtaining a relevant qualification does enable the recommendation of an increase in pay progression (an additional spine point), but who decides how relevant the degree is to the role?

What does ‘social solidarity’ mean to you?

In sort, social rights, in their development, were partial, but might have been universalised and extended to others previously excluded. To do so would have been to address the racialised exclusions that they contained. in the case of higher education, this would have been to ‘decolonise’ the university in terms both of access and curriculum (the latter would be likely both to follow greater access as well as facilitating it, as was the case with gender and the impact of feminism, for example).

Holmwood, J. (2018 p.44)

Social solidarity in an educational context means to empower an individual to have a sense of belonging to the wider society and to have the same shared values of society. As French sociologist Emile Durkeheim (1972) said, ‘society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the mind of the child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that social life demands.‘ His perspective on education was that education plays an essential role in shaping modern societies through embedding shared social values.

The call to decolonise the university is a call to extend and enact social justice in education. The alternative to public higher education is a market-based system operating on neoliberal principles. This purports to be race-blind, but insofar as racialised difference and inequality is a product of social structures of disadvantage, those structures will be reproduced in any arrangements that make change a matter of personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is the ideology that maintains the status quo, not the means of challenging it.

Holmwood, J. (2018, p.47)

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References

Holmwood, J. (2018) Chapter 3. Race and the Neoliberal University: Lessons From the Public University. Decolonising the University. [Online]. pp.37–52. Available from: http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25936 (Accessed 06 February 2021).

Morrison, A. (2016) How do people justify earning more than others? [Online]. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33613246 (Accessed 06 February 2021).

Thompson, K. (2017) Durkheim’s Perspective on Education. [Online]. Available from: https://revisesociology.com/2017/08/22/functionalist-durkheim-role-education/ (Accessed 06 February 2021).