The Changing Face of Higher Education

Book excerpt: Over the last decade, a heated debate has raged in the US and the UK over whether the humanities are in crisis, and, if there is one, what form this crisis takes and what the response should be. Questioning how there can be such disagreement over a fundamental point, The Changing Face of Higher Education explores this debate, asking whether the humanities are in crisis after all by objectively evaluating the evidence at hand, and opening the debate up to a global scale by applying the questions to twelve countries from different continents. Each carefully chosen contributor considers the debate from the perspective of a different country. The chapters present data on funding, student enrolment in the humanities, whether the share of total enrolment in this area is falling, and answer the following questions: What does each country mean by the ‘humanities’? Is there a ‘crisis’ in the humanities in this country? What are the causes for the crisis? What are the implications for the humanities disciplines? Uniquely offering an objective evaluation of whether this crisis exists, the book will appeal to international humanities and higher education communities and policy-makers, including postgraduate students and academics.