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Title: The McDonaldization of Higher Education: by Dennis Hayes, Robin Wynyard ISBN: 0-89789-856-7 Publisher: Bergin & Garvey Pub. Date: 30 August, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $77.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: An Important Anthology
Comment: Not since C. Wright Mills wrote the Power Elite has a sociological theory captured the popular imagination as has George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis. While I find Ritzer's approach more salty and less nourishing than a Big Mac, clearly I am in a minority. The 14 contributors to this thought provoking anthology have gone a long way toward enriching the theory of McDonaldization and providing empirical grounding for the analysis of developments in higher education. As the editors noted in their introduction, Ritzer's entire theoretical antecedent consists of Max Weber's nineteenth century concept of rationalization. Like Weber, Ritzer sees the spread of rational organization into all areas of social life as inevitable and basically beneficial. But also like Weber he is concerned that the application of rationality to social organizations increasingly disenchants the world and leads to an "iron cage" of bureaucracy and standardization. As the authors in this anthology attest, nowhere is this worry more salient than in the halls of academe.
"McDonaldization" was summarized conceptually by Ritzer (1996) as "efficiency," "calculability," "predictability," and "control." The fast-food industry serves as the modern model including: a decentralized franchised structure of ownership; global markets; rational scientific processes of production and management; emphasis on "means of consumption" of standardized products that allows one to "have it your way"; low-wage jobs with no degrees of freedom to depart from a taylorized script; the shift of some productive labor to the consumer (picking up your order, bussing your table); and consumption offered as spectacle and recreation. That is a lot of baggage hanging on a single term; and, as the readings in this anthology reveal, McDonaldization in the university functions less as an analytical concept than as a "free floating signifier" revealing deep seated uncertainties in the professorate. Like Ritzer, half of the contributors to this volume are sociologists (full disclosure: I am also one.) With a couple of exceptions, all the authors are currently professors or administrators in academia, most teach in Britain and draw their examples from British universities. This does not, however, lessen the importance of the book for American readers who may be surprised that processes of McDonaldization have penetrated further in the United Kingdom than in the U.S.

Rating: 5
Summary: Towards the therapeutic university
Comment: The McDonaldization of Higher Education is a timely reminder of what is being lost in HE today. The book contains contributions from British, American and Australian academics, who engage with, and in some instances go beyond, the themes of the McDonaldization thesis in relation to the university. In particular, Dennis Hayes, Frank Füredi, Claire Fox and Robin Wynyard offer new insights into the shift towards the 'therapeutic' university (Hayes), how the bureaucratisation of HE in Britain has gone far beyond the flexibility and efficiency associated with McDonaldization (Füredi), why students do not benefit from mass access to HE (Fox), and how what is on offer to students is not knowledge, but a simulated fantasy world (Wynyard). I thoroughly recommend this very challenging, original, readable book, that alerts us to the dangers which lie ahead for HE. It is unfortunate that at present it is only available in an expensive hardback edition. Many academics, students and media people want the book but cannot pay such a price. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. I am sure that a paperback version would make a significant impact on the contemporary debate about the future of HE.