0000000000061162
AUTHOR
John Brennan
Diversity of Higher Education Institutions in Networked Knowledge Societies: A Comparative Examination
Within and across many expanded and diversified higher education systems, the recognition and understanding of differences between institutions becomes especially challenging. Forms of both ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ differentiation frequently exist alongside each other, though with increasing attention given to the former. Institutional boundaries become more porous within intra-sector and cross-sector collaborations, as networks become increasingly important in both. Do the ways in which different kinds of higher education institutions interact within networks, as well as the nature of those networks, differ? To what extent do network configurations become platforms for distinct knowledg…
Main Findings and Discussion
This chapter ‘connects the dots’ between the outcomes of the CINHEKS study and relates these to contemporary higher education research practice and policy. This conclusion summarizes our main theoretical and conceptual findings, central empirical results and methodological advances in a way that illuminates the key issues and questions brought into view by the CINHEKS study, as a whole. Our findings are critically contextualized in terms of general challenges in higher education studies, which borrow far more than we generate, especially in terms of theory, conceptual problematization, methodology and methods. Theoretically, the analytical synthesis of network knowledge society is highlight…