The Making of a Subversive Teacher

Abstract

In a recent book entitled The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning, Stanley Aronowitz (2000) argues that with the increased concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a privileged elite, universities and other institutions of ‘higher learning’ have become the handmaidens of corporate interests. Cutbacks to public funding for education have driven universities into so-called ‘partnerships’ with corporations, which have funded capital projects and schools of business and populated boards of governors with business moguls. Of course, the danger of this is that universities become beholden to and reflect these corporate interests in the culture of university education (Eglin, 1996).