Examining Higher Education and Citizenship in a Global Context of Neoliberal Restructuring

ABSTRACT/RESUME My paper begins by articulating a neo-Gramscian framework to conceptualize issues of citizenship and the recent changes to Canadian higher education. This framework is adopted from the writing of Jacob Torfing who provides a critical integration of the work of Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek. Within this framework, political economies are conceptualized as discursive formations, within which higher education is constituted in specific ways to achieve expansion of practices consistent with, and supportive of, strategies of capital accumulation. Using this framework, I develop a sketch of the ways Canadian higher education evolved within the Keynesian welfare state during the postwar era and was influenced by the development of the U.S. higher education system, which was conscientiously sculpted as an extension of the capitalist nation state. Then I outline how Canadian higher education is being reshaped during the period of economic restructuring, which involves replacing Keynesian-like economics with neoliberal str ategies within a global economic context. Finally, I discuss the implications of neoliberal restructuring of higher education in terms of issues of identity formation, citizenship, and the role of higher education with respect to equity, social justice, and the democratic imperative. Mon article commence par articuler un cadre neo-gramscien pour conceptualiser les problemes sur la citoyennete et les changements recents l'education superieure canadienne. Ce cadre est adopte des ecritures de Jacob Torfing qui fournit une integration critique du travail de Laclau, Mouffe et Zizek. A l'interieur de ce cadre, les economies politiques se conceptualisent comme des formations discursives, a l'interieur desquelles l'education superieure se constitue de facons specifiques pour atteindre l'expansion de pratiques compatibles avec des strategies de l'accumulation du capital qui les soutiennent. En utilisant ce cadre, je developpe un apercu des manieres dont l'education superieure canadienne s'est developpee l'interieur de l'etat providence keynesien pendant l'epoqued'apres-querre et qui a ete influee par le developpement du systeme d'education supericure des Etats-Unis, qui a consciencieusement sculptee comme une extension de la nation en tant qu' etat capitaliste. Ensuite, j'expose dans ses lignes ge nerales comment on est en train de reorganiser l'education superieure canadienne pendant la periode de la restructuration economique, qui a entraine le remplacement des economies politiques neo-keynesian par des strategies neoliberales dans un contexte economique global. Enfin, je discute des impliciations de la restructuration neoliberale de l'education superieure en termes de problemes de la formation d'une identite, de la citoyennete et du role de l'education superieure par rapport a l'equite, a la justice sociale et a l'imperatif democratique. A Neo-Gramscian Perspective on Citizenship A great deal of the recent literature on citizenship and education focuses on questions of identity and difference. One large body of work exemplifying this emphasis is that of radical democracy, which evolved to a large extent from the writings of Laclau and Mouffe. (1) The major project of radical democracy, according to Torfing, is to extend egalitarian participation and emancipatory struggle to all social spheres in such a way as to recognize plurality of identity, not as essential or transcendent, but as socially constructed. That is, social identity is conceptualised as constituted in and through discourse which, in turn, is theorized as a system of signifying practices. Without delving too deeply into discourse theory, the implication of this perspective for understanding citizenship is that notions of citizenship are realised ontologically and epistemologically in terms of discursive practises through which social identity is constructed. This conceptualization is used here because it does not fix cit izenship to preexisting, or essentialist categories such as nation state; rather, it permits social identity to be viewed as constitutive rather than transcendent. …

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