HIGHER EDUCATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: USING ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP TO EXPAND OPPORTUNITY FOR LOW SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS STUDENTS IN DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING NATIONS

This grew out of a lecture series in China that focused on using action research to promote educational reforms that reduce inequalities in educational opportunities within nations engaged in the globalization.

Globalization has been through two distinct phases and is entering a third:
• Democratization: Led by restructuring in the Soviet nations in the 1980s, early globalization as a process of democratization.
While former Soviet national in Europe engaged in this movement, China gradually changed its standpoint to promoting the modernization of the state and society, including the transformation of education, but resisted the democracy movement. Most developed democracies began the movement to universal college preparation during this period.
• Corporatization: After the end of the Cold War, global corporatization progressed relatively unabated by older Cold War constraints. China, along with other countries in the old soviet world, rapidly engaged in privatization. In addition, this century international exchange has transformed higher education across nations and research universities have engaged in building new research partnerships with global corporations. Elite higher education became intertwined in the economic transformation.
• Social Justice: As nations engaged in economic globalization, wealth and educational inequalities increased within nations as their engaged in global corporatization. In China, as in Western democracies, there is new educational inequality: the beneficiaries of globalization have gained a more favorable educational advantage because of wealth disparities and unfair educational resource distribution. Lower classes find it more difficult because of the widening gap in educational access.

Case studies of intervention programs examine how engaged scholars collaborate with activists and policymakers in the United States (College For Every Student and Twenty-First Century Scholars), Ireland (Trinity Access Programmes), England (Oxford University), Brazil (affirmative action initiatives), and China (action projects at Beijing Normal University). Analysis and discussion focus on building evidence-based strategies for expanding educational opportunity in low-SES (socioeconomic status) communities through action-research partnerships.