The world-system of academic capitalism: Process of consolidation of the entrepeneurial university

Abstract

The goal of this article is to analyze two institutional contexts in which academic communities develop their educational activities: the enterprising university and academic capitalism. The methodology of analysis of Higher Education institutions in the world system uses the model developed by the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. This analysis focuses on three dimensions: the "consolidation of the world-economy of the academic capitalism" (the transformation of higher education as a commodity), the "de-capitalization of the public university" (the new policies of quasi-market and of financing associated with the "entrepreneurial university") and "geoculture of the system-world of the academic capitalism," linked to the society of the knowledge, managerial ideologies, and intellectual entrepreneurship, but also to counter-hegemonic ideologies that supports the autonomy of the university as a pre-condition for social development.