Theorizing the university as a cultural system: Distinctions, identities, emergencies

Abstract

Universities currently face new environmental demands and significant internal complexities that appear to challenge their traditional modes of work and organization - and thus their very identities. In this essay,Mark Considine argues that the prospect of such changes requires us to reflect carefully upon the theoretical and normative underpinnings of universities and to delineate the structures and processes through which they might seek to negotiate their identities. Considine re-theorizes the university as a higher education system composed by distinctions and networks acting through an important class of boundary objects. He moves beyond an environmental analysis, asserting that systems..