Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal of Policy Aims to Reconcile Equality of Opportunity and Marketisation

Dear Colleagues,

We are seeking submissions to this exciting Special Issue of the journal Social Sciences. This initial call is for interested scholars and researchers to submit short abstracts (of 250 words, by 1st February 2019) from which authors will be selected to submit full papers (5–8000 words) by late summer 2019, with an expected publication date of Autumn 2019, approximately two months after submission of final manuscripts.

Since the 1970s, higher education has been influenced and re-shaped by neoliberalism, which advocates the application of market principles to areas which were formerly regarded as being in the public domain. While there are differences in view over the extent to which higher education operates as a ‘pure’ market or a ‘quasi-market’ or whether it simply displays ‘market-like’ features, the reality of marketisation is beyond dispute, and its impact on higher education institutions (HEIs), their staff and students—and the relationships between them—has been profound. This call is specifically aimed at identifying instances of neoliberal marketisation that have impacted on equalities (or inequalities) of access. It acknowledges that such effects have played out differently in different national and regional territories (Bowl, McCaig and Hughes 2018), dependent on the specifics of historical, political and cultural contexts. Therefore, while we welcome theoretical analyses of neoliberal marketisation as a social and economic phenomenon, we are particularly interested in examining the relationship between national context and policy pressures to marketise HE systems.

Prof. Colin McCaig
Dr. Marion Bowl
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.