Description
Book SynopsisJon Nixon is Honorary Professor in the Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong. He also lectures at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and holds an honorary chair at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Trade ReviewBeautifully written, of wide scope and offering a much needed and humane vision of higher education as serving the public good - it is difficult to imagine a better book on the university than this. If only every university vice-chancellor and principal would pay it at least some attention. -- Ron Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education and Consultant, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
In this excellent book, Jon Nixon salvages higher education from the wreckage wrought by three decades of commercialisation, commodification, competition and classification. He articulates a powerful, cogent and realisable vision of higher education as a public good -- a site for the development of human capability, reason and purpose, existing within and contributing to the social interconnectivities of the res publica and cosmopolis. -- Bob Adamson, Head, Dept of International Education & Lifelong Learning, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
While the context within which Nixon is writing is the UK, his canvas is broad and his intention bold... The purposes of higher education are discussed in terms of human flourishing, personhood and inter- ependency; civic presence, participation and purpose; and cosmopolitan connectivity, reflexivity and futures. -- Malcolm Tight, Lancaster University * Teachers College Record *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements; 1. The Public in Retreat; 2. Social Imaginaries; 3. Civic Imaginaries; 4. Cosmopolitan Imaginaries; Interlude: From imaginaries to actualities; 5. Human Capability; 6. Human Reasoning; 7. Human Purpose; 8. The Return of the Public; Coda: A sense of possibility; References; Index.
