Bullshit Towers

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Cover image: Pamela Ann Murray

Cover design: Peter Lang.

ISBN 978-1-78997-812-4 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78997-809-4 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-78997-810-0 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78997-811-7 (mobi)

© Peter Lang AG 2020

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom

oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Margaret Sims hs asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.

All rights reserved.

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This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Margaret Sims is Honorary Professor of Early Childhood at Macquarie University and has recently retired from her role of Professor of Early Childhood at the University of New England, Australia. She is a founding member of the Australian National Tertiary Education Union, and served as Branch President, State Vice President and National Councillor. Her research interests include the impact of neoliberalism on education, professionalisation and leadership in early childhood and integrated early childhood service delivery. She is active in supporting the development of the early childhood sector across a range of nations in the Global South. Margaret began her career in New Zealand and has worked in Australia for nearly 30 years. Her family are spread across Australia and New Zealand and she now has 4 great grandchildren in New Zealand.

About the book

This book is a brilliant unflinching exposé of the damage that inflicted by an unreflexive marketized ideology on universities, not only in Australia, varying degrees worldwide. It is a must read for anyone currently in a university, anyone who has been to one in the past, or doing so, and who with the nature and extent of silent barbarism that has been allowed to go unchallenged for far too long.

—John Smyth, Emeritus Research Professor, Federation University Australia & author of The Toxic University

This book explores the impact of neoliberal managerialism, framed by the language of bullshit, on higher education in Australia. The book explores the figured world of management, leadership and followership in seeking to understand the changes that have shaped a sector characterised by unacceptably high rates of bullying, disrespect, lack of trust, micromanagement and poor health and wellbeing. In a world context where post-truth rules, the role of the higher education sector in creating citizens unable (or unwilling) to deconstruct the post-truths to which they are exposed is foregrounded. Quality education, increasingly defined as that which transmits the values and ‘truths’ of the privileged, has become a tool designed to create a compliant neoliberal citizenship willing to accept their allocated status in life. Critical thinking is discouraged despite bullshit words that parody its importance. University staff are de-professionalised, disrespected and disregarded and managers increasingly define themselves as ‘the university.’ Democracy is dead. Do we join the chorus shouting “long live the autocracy” or do we fight?

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

List of Figures

Foreword

CHAPTER 1
Neoliberal managerial bullshit and its impact on education

CHAPTER 2
The research process

CHAPTER 3
The figured world of the organisation

CHAPTER 4
The invisibility of privilege

CHAPTER 5
The figured world of managers/leaders

CHAPTER 6
The figured world of followership

CHAPTER 7
Coping with, resisting and changing bullshit

Bibliography

Index

Figures

Figure 1. Conceptual framing

Figure 2. Fitting the features of the figured world into the conceptual framework

Figure 3. Fitting privilege into the conceptual framework

Figure 4. The enactment of privilege in the conceptual framework