Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Neoliberal social inclusion? The agenda of the Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 53; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17508487.2012.703138

1750-8495

David Peacock,

Community Development and Social Impact

Abstract University–community engagement (UCE) represents a hybrid discourse and a set of practices within contemporary higher education. As a modality of research and teaching, 'engagement' denotes the process of universities forming partnerships with external communities for the promised generation of mutually beneficial and socially responsive knowledge, leading to enhanced economic, social and cultural developments. A critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2003 Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. Analysing Discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge) of the Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance's (AUCEA) 'Position Paper'(2008 Universities and community engagement (Position paper 2008–2010)), as reported in this article, suggests that its uneasy synthesis of neoliberal, social inclusion and civic engagement discourses into a hybrid UCE discourse semantically privileges neoliberal forms of engagement. Perhaps, as a result, the AUCEA seems to have missed an opportunity to influence the Australian 'widening participation' debate on securing access and opportunity for marginalised students at universities and building social and cultural capital within their communities of origin. Keywords: community engagementdiscourse analysis/semioticseducational policyhigher educationinequality/social exclusion in educationneoconservatism/neoliberalism Notes 1. Fairclough (2003 Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argues that social structures (e.g. economic system, educational system and language) define a set of possibilities for individual agents, although actual social events are not determined completely by these social structures, but are mediated by social practices, a more intermediate series of actions such as financial market trading, teaching and 'orders of discourse' (p. 24). Social structures, social practices and social events are semiotically realised in languages, orders of discourse and texts, respectively (p. 24). 2. At the time of writing, AUCEA's membership included 25 Australian universities. 3. The neoliberal policy frame can be seen to be developed in the Dawkins reviews of higher education and subsequently strengthened by the Liberal Party policy in the 1990s and early 2000s (Sidhu, 2006 Sidhu, R. 2006. Universities and globalisation: To market, to market, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 4. As other have noted, the term 'community' itself is a contested term and is deployed with political significance by corporations, governments, universities and civic society groups (Winter, Wiseman, & Muirhead, 2006 Winter, A., Wiseman, J. and Muirhead, B. 2006. University-community engagement in Australia. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 1(3): 211–230. doi:10.1177/1746197906064675[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 223–224). Under the conditions of neoliberal globalisation, the 'community' discourse can be seen to represent the move from the struggle for social and collective rights to more individualistic, entrepreneurial forms of civic initiative and even more exclusionary forms of social life (Everingham, 2001 Everingham, C. 2001. Reconstituting community: Social justice, social order and the politics of community. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 36(2): 105–122. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kenny, 2004 Kenny, S. 2004. "Non-government organisations and contesting active citizenship". In The vocal citizen, Edited by: Patmore, G. 70–85. Fitzroy, Melbourne: Arena in association with the Australian Fabian Society. [Google Scholar]; Rose, 1999 Rose, N. 1999. Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 5. While AUCEA's 'community partners' are named as 'business, industry, schools, governments, non-governmental organisations, associations, indigenous and ethnic communities, and the general public' (lines 17–20), the HEPPP's grant guidelines names a social sector focused group of partners such as 'schools, State/Territory Governments, VET providers and community groups' (1.70.1; http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2010L01076, accessed 22 March 2012)