Equality and Differentiation in Marketised Higher Education - A New Level Playing Field?

This edited collection demonstrates how discourses and practices associated with marketisation, differentiation and equality are manifested in UK higher education today. Uniting leading scholars in higher education and equality in England, the contributors and editors expose the contradictions arising from the tension between aims for increased equality and an increasingly marketised higher education. As the authors seek to reveal both the intended and unintended consequences of the intensified marketisation of the sector, they critically examine the implications of these changes. In doing so, they reveal the ways in which institutional policy and discourse are involved in masking the contradictions between an educational marketplace and education as a vehicle for advancing equality and social justice. This pioneering volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of higher education in England, education policy and the marketisation of higher education, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

Marion Bowl is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK.

Colin McCaig is Reader in Higher Education Policy at the Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Jonathan Hughes was Lecturer in the Centre of Inclusion and Collaborative Partnerships at the Open University, UK, and a Senior Fellow in the Higher Education Academy, UK.