Teaching within a Consumer Model of Higher Education

Abstract

The political economy of higher education has transformed our ways of thinking about knowledge, teaching and learning, and labour relations. As students are increasingly seeking to attend a university that, they perceive, will offer them the best entry point into the global market place, the work of university teachers is transforming. This literature presents a critical discussion of sociological aspects of consumerism in higher education as it seeks to highlight notions that feed our current conceptualization of consumerism. Furthermore, it articulates a number of critical consequences of teaching to a consumerist ideology. These findings suggest that numerous pedagogical strategies have been implemented in response to the current political economic climate of higher education, and that curriculum has become increasingly responsive to stakeholders in higher education as well as the strategic positioning of programs within the institution and the global labour market. This discussion is framed by a discourse of labour relations.

Keywords

• marketization of HE
• scholarship of teaching and learning
• consumerism