Knowledge and its Enemies: Towards a New Case for Higher Learning ...

on academic freedom and control (Duckett 2004; Norton 2005, 106). The creation of a mass participation system of higher education in Australian came with the costs of a growing sense of ‘mediocrity’, along with declining hopes of improved equity (Meek 2002, 244). In the United States, diminishing federal support and higher fees also reduced access equity to the point where only 3 percent of the lowest-income groups are represented in the top 150 colleges (Bowen, Kurzweil, and Tobin 2006, 163). This compares to the Continent, where access equity issues have been less apparent due to the acceptance of principles of equality of educational opportunity. This may change as reform processes deepen. However, the experience to date supports the proposition that the most destructive impacts of market liberalism may be effectively tempered by mutuality and negotiation facilitated within corporate systems.

Although the United States has moved towards greater market intensity, Australia and Britain have encountered greater discontinuity because tighter market integration has been imposed by a combination of regulatory controls and funding cuts. On the Continent, the extent of change varies but on the whole is less dramatic, particularly in some instances, such as France. Others appear to be steering a midway course between more negotiated outcomes and a hard regulatory push towards the market. This appears to be the case in the Netherlands, which, significantly, has taken the unusual step of cutting dramatically the number of regulatory controls (from 2,000 down to 300) at a time when other countries, swept up in reform, were increasing them (Goedegebuure et al. 1994b, 196). The question is whether Continental systems can maintain a balanced approach and what difference this might make.

Another important trend emerging from research, certain to have increasing impact, is the finding that exposure to market pressure tends to increase hierarchical stratification within the higher education system. The pattern is that former hierarchies built on academic reputation and prestige are being systematically extended and overlaid by new hierarchies based on institutional ability to compete in local and global marketplaces. Some of the mechanisms behind this transition are well known. As institutions become more deeply engaged with external stakeholders,