Values in Conflict
The University, the Marketplace, and the Trials of Liberal Education
Description
Values in Conflict is a clarion call to policy-makers, business leaders, and the public at large to rethink the current direction of the contemporary university. Paul Axelrod demonstrates that liberal education, the core of higher learning, is threatened by the constricting pressures of the marketplace and shows how political and economic pressures are redefining higher learning. Axelrod demonstrates how, in the race for riches - symbolized by endless rhetoric about the need for Canada to become globally competitive, technologically advanced, and proficient at churning out "knowledge workers" - our schools and universities are being forced by government policy to narrow their educational vistas. The decision-making autonomy that universities must have to provide cultural, intellectual, community-service, and training functions is being eroded. Values in Conflict explains why this is happening - and why it matters.
Reviews
"Paul Axelrod provides an impassioned defence of the liberal arts while avoiding nostalgia about them. No Canadian scholar has placed such work within a brief but overarching framework - and certainly none with liberal education in Canada as its central concern. Axelrod's book fulfils this role admirably and may serve to facilitate a national debate on the problem he raises." A.B. McKillop, author of A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry and Canadian Thought in the Victorian Era ----- "A valuable and compendious effort, summarizing much of the current research in academic-corporate relations and making a persuasive argument for the necessity of liberal education in a world increasingly dominated by market forces and performativity minded governments. This is an important contribution to the educational debate. Axelrod is on the side of the angels." David Solway, author of Lying About the Wolf: Essays in Culture and Education