Gerardo Blanco Ramírez

Trading Quality across Borders: Colonial Discourse and International Quality Assurance Policies in Higher Education.

Accountability and quality assurance have become central discourses in higher education policy throughout the world. However, accountability and quality assurance involve power and control. Practices and ideas about quality developed in the Global North are spreading rapidly across the Global South, leading to increased uniformity in the approaches to quality assurance. Given the significant asymmetries that divide the Global North and Global South, this article maps interdiscursive relations among key texts that influence policy development on international quality in higher education, and explores the applicability of colonial discourse as a perspective for understanding this increasing international convergence.Accountability and quality assurance have become central discourses in higher education policy throughout the world. However, accountability and quality assurance involve power and control. Practices and ideas about quality developed in the Global North are spreading rapidly across the Global South, leading to increased uniformity in the approaches to quality assurance. Given the significant asymmetries that divide the Global North and Global South, this article maps interdiscursive relations among key texts that influence policy development on international quality in higher education, and explores the applicability of colonial discourse as a perspective for understanding this increasing international convergence.

A world of brands: higher education and the emergence of multinational quality franchises

This article explores the concepts of brand and franchise in the development of international quality assurance. The impact of corporate language and culture on higher education is evident and has been extensively analysed. Recent attention given to branding of universities reflects the ever-growing influence of corporate language and ideas. This article presents a conceptual exploration, grounded in a case study that documented the accreditation process of a Mexican university by a United States (US) regional agency. Discourses of exclusivity and legitimacy were widespread in the case; US accreditation was construed as a symbol of international quality given that US higher education hosts world-renowned universities with reputations that, like brands, can be franchised internationally. It is argued here that such new developments warrant further study and critique.This article explores the concepts of brand and franchise in the development of international quality assurance. The impact of corporate language and culture on higher education is evident and has been extensively analysed. Recent attention given to branding of universities reflects the ever-growing influence of corporate language and ideas. This article presents a conceptual exploration, grounded in a case study that documented the accreditation process of a Mexican university by a United States (US) regional agency. Discourses of exclusivity and legitimacy were widespread in the case; US accreditation was construed as a symbol of international quality given that US higher education hosts world-renowned universities with reputations that, like brands, can be franchised internationally. It is argued here that such new developments warrant further study and critique.

Against ‘teaching excellence’: ideology, commodification, and enabling the neoliberalization of postsecondary education

ABSTRACT In this article, the notion of excellence in relation to teaching is removed from its privileged place in order to render it, and its implications, for analysis. We argue that teaching excellence needs to be understood in the larger context of the neoliberal university in which competition is taken for granted, and therefore, metrics for comparison are evermore necessary. Following this argument, we explore excellence as an instrument of neoliberal ideology in higher education. We explore different manifestations of teaching excellence enacted in policies that that are illustrative of five different countries. Implications for further analysis, and for resistance to the expansion of neoliberal ideology through teaching excellence, are presented.

Attempting to Imagine the Unimaginable: A Decolonial Reading of Global University Rankings

This article presents a collaboration among critical scholars of color grappling with the challenges of reimagining global university rankings (GURs) in an effort to rethink the field of comparative education from a decolonial perspective. We start with an empathetic review of scholarship on rankings. This effort evidenced that rankings are embedded and sustained within a broader dominant imaginary of higher education, circumscribed by what is deemed possible and desirable within modern institutions. Seeking inspiration to explore beyond the current limits of our modern imagination, we turned to the teachings of the Dagara as a mirror that cast a different light on our investments in the very onto-epistemic structures that sustain the GURs. Being taught by Dagara’s teachings led us to realize that rankings are symptomatic of a much broader crisis shaking the ontological securities of modern institutions and that it is only through the loss of our satisfaction with these securities that we can start to imagine otherwise.

Many choices, one destination: multimodal university brand construction in an urban public transportation system

Amidst global competition in higher education, colleges and universities adopt strategies that mimic and adapt business practices. Branding is now a widespread practice in higher education; multimodal advertisement is a manifestation of emerging branding strategies for universities. While the visibility of brands in higher education has grown substantially in recent years, its empirical study has lagged. This article reports on the findings from a study that employed social semiotic and multimodal analysis to explore text and visual rhetoric as brand construction strategies in publicly displayed university advertisements. After analyzing photographs representing advertising campaigns from 16 different universities displayed in an urban public transportation system, I suggest that universities construct their brand identity through messages that emphasize multiple choices and convenience, but construct success primarily according to corporate standards and values.Amidst global competition in higher education, colleges and universities adopt strategies that mimic and adapt business practices. Branding is now a widespread practice in higher education; multimodal advertisement is a manifestation of emerging branding strategies for universities. While the visibility of brands in higher education has grown substantially in recent years, its empirical study has lagged. This article reports on the findings from a study that employed social semiotic and multimodal analysis to explore text and visual rhetoric as brand construction strategies in publicly displayed university advertisements. After analyzing photographs representing advertising campaigns from 16 different universities displayed in an urban public transportation system, I suggest that universities construct their brand identity through messages that emphasize multiple choices and convenience, but construct success primarily according to corporate standards and values.

A qualitative exploration of motivations and challenges for implementing US accreditation in three Canadian universities

ABSTRACT The adoption of US accreditation by non-US universities is one of the most salient manifestations of the internationalization of quality assurance in higher education. This process has been conceptualized as an exercise of global position taking by which institutions with limited financial and symbolic resources become associated with more prestigious institutions across national borders by sharing a common accreditation. However, the adoption of US accreditation has yet to be studied among institutions in well-positioned higher education systems. This study explored perceptions and experiences associated with the adoption of US institutional accreditation in three Canadian universities. The study reveals that several features of US higher education reflected in the accreditation standards, for example, general education, pose challenges for Canadian universities seeking US recognition. In addition, increased workload, resulting from the accreditation demands, became a source of disagreement between academics and administrators. This study provides grounded insights about the implementation of US accreditation beyond its geographic boundaries.

International accreditation as global position taking: an empirical exploration of U.S. accreditation in Mexico

Institutional accreditation in higher education holds universities accountable through external evaluation; at the same time, accreditation constitutes an opportunity for higher education leaders to demonstrate the quality of their institutions. In an increasingly global field of higher education, in which quality practices become diffused across national boundaries, U.S. institutional accreditation has been adopted in many countries as a form of external quality assurance. This study follows an ethnographic case study approach to explore in-depth how a Mexican institution of higher education, located only a few miles away from the U.S.–Mexico border, engaged in the process of institutional accreditation with a U.S. regional accrediting agency. Four themes constitute the finding of this study: (a) Reputational value is the central motivation to pursue U.S. accreditation given that, through accreditation, the institution in Mexico became connected to internationally recognized universities; (b) despite several benefits, the accreditation process established a complex division of labor in which members of the academic staff are necessary yet distanced from decision making; (c) compliance with highly challenging—yet construed as fair—standards legitimizes both the accreditation process and the U.S. accreditor; and (d) language and translation are valuable concepts to understand the accreditation process. Together, these findings suggest that U.S. accreditation may be approached as an exercise of global position taking.

Translating quality in higher education: US approaches to accreditation of institutions from around the world

This article reports on findings from a sociolinguistic qualitative study exploring inter-discursive relations manifested in the approaches and strategies that regional accrediting agencies in the United States utilise when recognising foreign universities. Even as most countries have developed national quality assurance systems and whilst international rankings comparing institutions globally are available, a growing number of universities around the world seek recognition from American regional agencies. By comparing policy statements, manuals, guidelines and other documents, and after interviewing top-level officers at US accrediting agencies, this study makes explicit the assumptions and central discourses associated with US accreditation of non-US institutions of higher education, from the accreditors’ perspective. Following constant comparison and cultural critical discourse analysis, the study reveals concerns about the equivalency of quality, emphasis on capacity building and reluctance toward ada...This article reports on findings from a sociolinguistic qualitative study exploring inter-discursive relations manifested in the approaches and strategies that regional accrediting agencies in the United States utilise when recognising foreign universities. Even as most countries have developed national quality assurance systems and whilst international rankings comparing institutions globally are available, a growing number of universities around the world seek recognition from American regional agencies. By comparing policy statements, manuals, guidelines and other documents, and after interviewing top-level officers at US accrediting agencies, this study makes explicit the assumptions and central discourses associated with US accreditation of non-US institutions of higher education, from the accreditors’ perspective. Following constant comparison and cultural critical discourse analysis, the study reveals concerns about the equivalency of quality, emphasis on capacity building and reluctance toward adapting US standards. An interest in building international partnerships, in order to respond to globalisation, is also identified.

Resisting the Neoliberalization of Higher Education A Challenge to Commonsensical Understandings of Commodities and Consumption

In this article, we explore commodities and consumption, two concepts that are central to critiques of the neoliberal university. By engaging with these concepts, we explore the limits of neoliberal logic. We ground this conceptual entanglement in Marxist and post-Marxist traditions given our understanding of neoliberalism both as an extension of and as a meaningfully different form of capitalism. As colleges and universities enact neoliberal economic assumptions by focusing on revenue generation, understanding students as customers, and construing their faculty as temporary service providers, the terms commodity and consumption have become commonplace in critical higher education literature. When critiques concerning the commodification and consumption of higher education are connected with these theoretical and conceptual foundations, they not only become more effective but also provide a more meaningful guide upon which current and future scholars can build.

Exploring Advertising in Higher Education: An Empirical Analysis in North America, Europe, and Japan.

This empirical study explores higher education advertising campaigns displayed in five world cities: Boston, New York, Oslo, Tokyo, and Toronto. The study follows a mixed-methods research design relying on content analysis and multimodal semiotic analysis and employs a conceptual framework based on the knowledge triangle of education, research, and innovation. The study reveals that education is overwhelmingly the strongest element emphasized across the five cities and that students constitute the most salient and central element in the majority of the advertisements.