Emerging Trends in Higher Education

9

Movement and Stasis in the Neoliberal Re-orientation of Schooling and the University

Cameron McCarthy^*

Introduction

Invoking the opposition between movement and stasis in modern life, Dennis Carlson, in his insightful book, titled Leaving Safe Harbors, admonishes educators to move out of the ‘safe harbors’ of settled educational practices and philosophies in order to better address the challenges posed to schooling by the dynamics associated with globalization and multiplicity. In this important book, Carlson offers a proper riposte to the atrophy of critical theoretical and empirical work in the fields of Education and Social Sciences generally, and bellwether-ringing in the popular press of the following kind: ‘The era of big theory is over, ...