2025/10/02 by Emma Abell‐Selby · 2 voices
Social Sciences · #University Challenges and Reforms #Higher Education Governance and Development #Social and Cultural Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1080/08884552.2025.2581785
openalex publication_date 2025/10/02 · openalex created_date 2025/11/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
Higher education has increasingly become commodified, which has changed the dynamic of learning and teaching. Due to the commodification of the university, faculty become pressured to foster student-centered learning that emphasizes ‘job-relevant training’ . Faculty also simultaneously have fewer options to secure permanent employment, which makes their academic labor increasingly more precarious. For the past few years, several U.S. states have implemented laws restricting or banning the teaching of topics related to issues of diversity, making U.S. education increasingly politicized. In this essay, I argue that the corporatization of the university in tandem with the rise of anti-diversity legislation further contributes to a culture of precarity for instructors working within U.S. institutions of higher education. I conclude this essay by calling for instructors to work toward liberatory praxis to disrupt precarity in the academy.