Page - 103 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

7 ProsumerisminHigherEducation… 109 inHE, and the narrowway inwhich pedagogy has been conceived. They point to theway inwhich our understanding of the teaching and learning process has been dominatedby the explicitly psychological visions of the learner and teacher. Thus, the researchandpractitioner literatureon teachingand learning inhighereducation is highly individualistic in focus and preoccupiedwith the learning bit of the self. Themodel of the learnermost strongly represented in the literature is a bundle of behaviours,attitudesanddispositions—oftenwrappedupintheconceptofpreferred ‘learning style’ or ‘learner identity’. Failures in learning are readily attributed to deficits in learners, lackofappropriateabilities, skillsdispositionsofstrategies;and occasionallydeficits in individual teachers. In turn, several analytic studies of higher education have observed the interior- isation into institutional values andpurposes of external social and cultural forces. It is suggested that instrumentality, usefulness, adaptability and ‘fit’ for the exist- ing systemhavebecome thedominant values indiscourse about the aimsofhigher education(Brockbank&McGill,1998).Whilstsomecommentatorswelcomedsuch responsiveness of the system to the changing society as enabling individuals and organisations to keep pacewith cultural change and to advance themselves in the changingculturalcontext,acounterviewhasheldthattheuniversity,asakeyinstitu- tioninthesociety,offersmorevaluetothesocietyifitcanstandapartfromitinsome measure, adhering to cultural traditionsofmodern enlightenment rather thanbeing capturedbytheutilitarianagenda(Barnett,1994).Usher (2001)andBagnell (2001) point to the lessening of the power of academics to definewhat constitutesworth- while knowledge and serious learning in the face of the increasing trend towards the individuationofknowledgeand thedecentringof learning.Meanwhile, theshift towardsparticipationinconsumermarkets, ithasbeenargued,hascreatedacultural context in higher education inwhich social agendas are definedby the interests of individuals through their choices as consumers andproducers,which results in the dominance of economic considerations in the cultural realm.Consumerist culture, and the commodificationof knowledgehas come to shape institutional and learner behaviour in the formal education system. The relationship between teacher and learner is reconstitutedasamarket relationshipbetweenproducer andconsumer. Those responsible for the management of higher education have been more exposed to external environmental forces than academic staff at the front line of teachingandlearning.Theproximalforceshavinggreatestimpactonuniversitiesare mediatedthroughpolitical/channels—policydirectives,accountabilityrequirements andmechanisms.Suchinstrumentsconveythevaluesofthenewlearningpatrimony, fuelled by new economic andmanagerialist concerns. Successivewaves of policy initiativesareexpressionsofgovernmental performativityagendasand thegrowing demand for greater accountability from the education system. This preoccupation withgreater accountability, it hasbeenargued, has led to the increasingdominance within higher education of three keydiscourses: ‘assessment’, ‘employability’ and ‘managed learningenvironments’. Students are expected to acquire the capabilities andcompetences formanagingknowledgeaspartofa lifelonglearningor ‘learning tolearn’agenda,ratherthanbeingexpectedtoassimilateknowledge.Therehasbeen ashift tooperationalcriteria—whatstudentsareable todo,andtheirability toapply