Change and equity in higher education

In this article, I explore the dynamic relationship between political and organizational change in higher education. Change is interrogated in relation to policies and discourses of New Right reform, mass expansion, new managerialism, equity and post-modernist theories of power, with questions raised about the interconnection of demographic changes, consumer entitlement and equality of opportunity. I consider the extent to which economic, intellectual and socio-cultural changes intersect. Equity is examined in relation to the democratic rhetoric of enhanced access and connections are made between equality and quality by questioning the changing nature of the product being accessed by new student populations.