The ivory tower revisited

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2933754
AutoresAbigail Chantler (Dublin, Ireland, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume37
Fascículo2
Páginas215-229
Data de publicação2016-03-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596306.2014.963517
OpenAlexW2053460290
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas9

The corollary of the concept of the ‘ivory tower’, as reflected in the writings of Plato and Newman amongst others, was, paradoxically, the vital importance of the university for wider society. Nevertheless from the mid-twentieth century, the esteem in which a ‘liberal’ university education was held was diminished by rising expectations that higher education institutions would actively contribute to addressing broader socio-economic challenges through ‘knowledge-transfer’, education for employment, and community service. However while this linear conception of universities' ‘third mission’ eroded their ‘ivory tower’ status, the death knell of the ‘ivory tower’ rings in contemporary literature on higher education, which articulates a dialectical view of its historical development in which the university and wider society are synthesised in the ‘engaged university’. With its focus on reciprocal ‘knowledge-exchange’, the co-creation of knowledge through teaching and learning, and civic engagement, the ‘engaged university’ embraces the ‘other’ as intrinsic to its identity. Yet arguably the increasing instrumentalism and democratisation of higher education are irrevocably eroding the academic freedom and institutional autonomy upon which universities' immeasurable contribution to society ultimately depends

Academic freedom · Democracy · Democratization · Dialectic · Epistemology · Higher education · Instrumentalism · Ivory tower · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Law · Religious Education and Schools