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The basic structure of Korea's formal education system is 6-3-3-4. This school system, which was established soon after its independence from Japan after World War II, has not been changed very much until recently. Primary education covers grades 1–6. Kindergarten has not been a part of the official school system until now, although making it a part of the pubic school system has been under discussion for some years. In the secondary education sector, there are two levels of schools: middle schools covering grades 7–9, and high schools covering grades 10–12. After 12 years of formal education, students advance to higher education. Typically, undergraduate degree (B.A. or B.S.) takes four years.

For the longest period of its history, the university was the guardian and transmitter – not the producer – of knowledge. This relatively recent change of transmitting canonical knowledge and generating new knowledge is normally associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt. Other highly influential university models were provided by France and Great Britain. The association of certain types of universities with particular countries is a strong indicator of the intricate link between nation-state and education. Hence, the history of tertiary education and its elite institutions, the research universities, must be considered in relation with a sea change in educational history – the gradual emergence of national education systems. Only under the conditions of the by now standard form of organizing modern societies as nation-states did education become a central institution (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997) collapsing individual perfectibility and national progress. The nationally redefined university was integrated into the education system as its keystone while also being considered the motor of societal development. From a social history perspective, the latter aspect in particular indicates the pragmatic (training professionals, imparting military and technical knowledge, etc.) and symbolic expectations, “myths” of the nation-state that have been so aptly described and analyzed in numerous macro-sociological neo-institutionalist studies (Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992; Meyer et al., 1997; Ramirez & Boli, 1987). In a macro-phenomenological perspective, the term “myth” is used to denote a fundamental change in the self-description of European society which since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries no longer views itself as consisting of separate collectivities divided from each other by social origin – as was the case under feudal conditions – with each collectivity providing itself the necessary education for its members or being provided for by others in the case of neediness. Instead, as a result of a number of material and immaterial changes, society now defines the individual as its key unit, with the nation being consequently the aggregate of individuals and not of collectivities and the state redefined as the guardian of the nation. This conception might be taken as a kind of overlapping area which includes different approaches, such as Michel Foucault's concept of the disciplinary society (Foucault, 1977), Balibar and Wallerstein's (1991) deliberations on the relation between race, class, and nation, and Benedict Anderson's (1991) description of nations as imagined communities. All these studies could be taken as sharing the notion of “constructedness” (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1972) of modern society with the neo-institutionalist perspective. The concept of a “world polity” which encompasses the “myths” society is based on, the overall notion of a cognitive culture, which takes Max Weber's concept of rationality as a point of departure, is identified as the basis of isomorphic change in the organizational structure of modern education systems (cf. Baker & Wiseman, 2006). However, the strong emphasis on international, world system embeddedness of nation-states and their education systems is not to be taken as a unidirectional dependence on external forces. While modern nation-states originate from and remain tied to international dynamics and developments, they are conceived as unique entities. For most of their history, modern nation-states have been preoccupied with making themselves distinct from each other. Thus, while international competition has always been present, looking abroad traditionally meant reworking, adapting, and reshaping what was imported, or borrowed (Halpin & Troyna, 1995; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). This is true for education as well as for other areas of society.

This chapter provides an alternative conception of universities and the higher education systems in which they operate in an attempt to comprehend the ways in which such institutions and systems adapt and maintain themselves over time. Conceptually, it builds on complex systems theory, most notably critical insights from the study of complexity. We base our empirical analysis on developments across the European continent in the light of recent efforts to modernize university systems in the context of rising competition and pressures toward vertical and horizontal differentiation. We contrast two models of the university – strategic versus resilient – and critically reflect on the implications their differences have for the development of systems and universities and future research work in the area.

Universities face incredibly difficult, complex decisions concerning the degree to which they participate in the process of commercializing research. The U.S. government has made an explicit policy decision to allow funded entities to obtain patents and thereby has encouraged participation in the commercialization of federally funded research. The Bayh-Dole Act enables universities to participate in the commercialization process, but it does not obligate or constrain them to pursue any particular strategy with respect to federally funded research. Universities remain in the driver's seat and must decide carefully the extent to which they wish to participate in the commercialization process.The conventional view of the role of patents in the university research context is that patent-enabled exclusivity improves the supply-side functioning of markets for university research results as well as those markets further downstream for derivative commercial end-products. Both the reward and commercialization theories of patent law take patent-enabled exclusivity as the relevant means for fixing a supply-side problem – essentially, the undersupply of private investment in the production of patentable subject matter or in the development and commercialization of patentable subject matter that would occur in the absence of patent-enabled exclusivity.While the supply-side view of the role of patents in the university research context is important, a view from the demand side is needed to fully appreciate the role of patents in the university research context and to fully inform university decisions about the extent to which they wish to participate in the commercialization process. Introducing patents into the university research system, along with a host of other initiatives aimed at tightening the relationship between universities and industry, is also (if not primarily) about increasing connectivity between university science and technology research systems and the demands of industry for both university research outputs (research results and human capital) and upstream infrastructural capital necessary to produce such outputs.In this chapter, I explore how university science and technology research systems perform economically as infrastructural capital and explain how these systems generate social value. I explain how the availability of patents, coupled with decreased government funding, may lead to a slow and subtle shift in the allocation of infrastructure resources.

History in Argentina shows that, from 1945, rotation between democratic and de facto governments was accompanied with changes in policies of free or restricted university access, respectively. In this way after more than 20 years of democracy, 60 percent of the university matriculation of the public system stays under the modality of free access. Nevertheless, the socioeconomic composition of the students of public universities shows overrepresentation of the higher income quintiles. This means that the policies of free access to the public universities have been better taken advantage of by the population with major resources. However, the ideology of free access remains in the social imaginary as the representative of progress policies. In this chapter, we set out, first of all, to describe the admission system to the universities in Argentina. Second, we analyze the relationship between unrestricted access and equity. Finally, we will raise the necessity to design policies of affirmative action, for the case of Argentina and more likely in other countries of Latin America, that consider the asymmetries in the distribution of the wealth on the questions of race and gender.

Since at least the 1970s, the American research university system has experienced episodic periods of austerity, frequently accompanied by expressions of concern about the threats that these conditions pose to U.S. scientific and technological leadership. In general, austerity has been tied to fluctuations in Federal Government funding of academic research and macroeconomic fluctuations that have shrunk state government budget revenues. Even amidst these episodes, the system has continued to expand and decentralize. The issue at present is whether this historic resiliency, of being a marvelous invalid, will overcome adverse contemporary trends in Federal and state government funding, as well as political trends that eat away at the societal bonds between universities and their broader publics. The paper juxtaposes examinations of the organizational and political influences that have given rise to the American research university system, trends in research revenues and research costs, and contemporary efforts by universities to balance the two. It singles out the secular decline in state government’s support of public universities as the principal reason why this period of contraction is different from those of the past. Rather though then these trends portending a market shakeout, as some at times have predicted, the projection here is that the academic research system will continue to be characterized by excess capacity and recurrent downward pressures on research costs. Because the adverse impacts are concentrated in the public university sector, they may also spill over into political threats to the current system of awarding academic research grants primarily via competitive, merit review arrangements.

Taiwan serves as a case study to investigate the association between the expansion and reform of higher education and the growth of science production. More specifically, what driving forces facilitated the growth of science production in different types of Taiwanese universities and other sectors, from 1980 to 2011.

The contribution charts differential contributions to overall production. Taiwanese data from Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) is analyzed to show the expansion of the higher education system and its relationship to the production of science. The author uses sociological organization theories to facilitate our understanding of how and why the landscape of science production changed.

Results show that the growth of science production is associated with processes of isomorphism and competition within the higher education system. Findings also suggest that universities quickly seized upon external opportunities and turned themselves into what is known as the “knowledge conglomerate.” Unique organizational features bolster universities’ position as the driving force behind advancing national innovation.

This study extends previous research by examining multiple sectors of higher education, using longitudinal and recent data, and highlighting themes that have been ignored or overlooked, such as competition and collaboration among universities and industry partners.

In this chapter, the authors interrogate the structures, natures, processes, and variables that shape globalized collegiate desegregation. The authors pay attention to the history of segregation in South African culture, then proceed to current efforts to dismantle and rebuild the country’s educational enterprise. Drawing parallels with segregation policy in the United States, the authors argue that both nations may draw from global lessons about systemic global anti-Black oppression and its structural forms (e.g., apartheid, inequities in higher education). More specifically, the authors ground arguments in an analysis of the linguistic hegemony that continues to inculcate the college-aspiring students of South Africa. Understanding fundamental desegregation characteristics of racial hegemonic nations (e.g., United States) vis-à-vis racial and linguistic hegemonic nations (e.g., South Africa) is imperative to increase understanding of democratization of educational systems throughout the world.

This chapter discusses the political economy of social stratification in higher education in Japan with a focus on the problem of centralization and decentralization in the allocation of institutions in its higher education system. Specifically, the chapter highlights the role of a nation state government in the process of social stratification formation and the impact of recent equity and institutional higher education policies on the Japanese system of higher education.