Numerous countries have implemented excellence initiatives designed to establish world-class universities, boost research productivity, build up staff capacity, and thereby reform doctoral education systems as part of this agenda. To date, the relationship between excellence-driven initiatives and leading universities' doctoral education…

This study aims to critically and systematically investigate the contemporary discourse within scholarship on world-class universities in different higher education context. It applies critical discourse analysis to review articles from some top higher education academic journals and books published between 2000 and 2019. Exploring the notion of…

Why have regimes and societies that would otherwise argue for their distinctiveness and sovereign decision-making caught 'ranking fever' in HE? Why are they willing to give up their sovereignty in the field of HE, and why do they accept the requirement of homogeneity to succeed in global university rankings? This paradox is explored in the case of…

The higher education sector has been undergoing a far-reaching institutional re-orientation during the past two decades. Many adjustments appear to have strengthened the role of competition in the governance of higher education, but the character of the sector's emerging new political economy has frequently remained unclear. Serving as the…

Although well-renowned universities attempt to differentiate themselves from other universities, little research has been undertaken on the principal themes involved in the concept of the world-class university (WCU) as presented in speeches by members of WCUs. These discourses are a key tool in universities' attempt to shape the competitive…

The popularity of international league tables has intensified the competition in the global higher education market. Countries across the world have been actively participating in the global ranking exercises, aiming to enhance the competitiveness and reputation of their higher education systems globally. Like its Western counterparts, China has…

This paper draws on interview data gathered from a broader study concerned with examining issues of social justice, cultural diversity and schooling. The focus is on five students in Years 5 and 6 who attend a primary school located on the edge of a class-privileged area in outer London. The children are all high achievers who are very invested in…

This paper describes how a locally developed school ranking system affected student enrolment patterns in British Columbia over time. In developing an annual school "report card" that was published in newspapers and online, the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute created a marketplace for school choice by devising an accountability scheme…