Gender and the Restructured University: Changing Management and Culture in Higher Education (review)

American scholars of higher education who customarily dismiss international developments would do well to heed the premise of this book: that the processes of globalization and privatization are making the world's universities (at least those in Anglophone countries) increasingly similar rather than more disparate. Ann Brooks of New Zealand and Alison Mackinnon of Australia, under the auspices of the International Society for Research into Higher Education, examine the effects of widespread processes of privatization, including the restructuring of institutions and the production of knowledge. Their focus within these vast changes is gender, particularly the effects of restructuring on women as scholars and managers. Ultimately, although they identify some pockets of promise for women's advancement, their book seems worried and even disheartened about women's future in the academy.

This is a carefully organized volume, overcoming some of the inevitable vagaries of collections by thoughtfully outlining an argument and by sequencing articles in a helpful order. Mackinnon and Brooks contribute the introduction, setting out their understanding of globalization and its impact "on the university as a strategic site of global processes" (p. 1). They offer strong references, along with a thoughtful discussion of situations across the English-speaking world. Their own South Pacific setting perhaps inevitably attracts greater coverage, but they also compare developments in the United Kingdom and United States (although, surprisingly, rarely in Canada), as markets increasingly replace the state as the driving force for educational change.

How is globalization affecting the postsecondary setting? Primarily, they answer, through "restructuring bodies of knowledge": what knowledge is valued, how it is measured, and how it is used outside the university. Part 1 examines this shift to a technocratic university, in which the greatest value accrues to knowledge that is transferable, marketable, and instrumental. Simultaneously, university goals begin to resemble those of corporations, as they conjoin to support the interests of capitalist economies. Within such settings, older humanistic traditions can be easily pushed aside as unprofitable; the problem for women scholars, the authors note, is their over-representation in the humanities, social sciences, education, and women's studies, all quite diminished when profitability is the measure.

One place where women might find advantages in the restructured university rests in newly organized management opportunities. After all, if institutions wish to overturn the older way of doing business, women can constitute a fresh managerial force with little attachment to past practice. Several chapters examine the possibilities as women and men with different backgrounds move into managerial ranks. However, most of the authors are wary of rather than encouraged by the results.

One problem with the new "performative university" that values entrepreneurship over scholarship is the threat to the "collectivity" so important to many women. Over the last few decades, feminist women and men have strengthened university opportunities through collective action, work which is increasingly difficult to sustain when quantitative measures dominate. At the same time, scholars' sense of balance between the personal and the professional is challenged. Academics who can turn their time into profit are increasingly valued over those seeking more time with family or with students. Such a calculus invariably devalues teaching. Ultimately, "the shift [is] toward 'expert' rather than 'social trustee' professionalism" (p. 64), in which scholars whose work translates into a global economy trump those who value the academy as a site for social change or transformative thinking.

Parts 2 and 3 examine reactions and practices of women and men as they adjust to these new realities. A particularly strong chapter by Jeff Hearn uses a historical lens to show the university's development as a gendered setting; another by Margaret Allen and Tanya Castleman challenges the "pipeline fallacy" that purports to explain women's slow advancement. Other chapters outline the situation in...