Inequality, Higher Education and Knowledge Democracy

Abstract

In this article, published in the Spring 2020 newsletter of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Budd L. Hall looks at inequality and what it asks of higher education. It begins with the scale of poverty and homelessness in places as different as Victoria and India, and with research by Wilkinson and Pickett showing that both rich and poor fare better in more equal societies. The article then asks what a knowledge democracy movement might look like, drawing on John Gaventa’s idea of a knowledge strategy and on the work of Nyerere and Freire. Such a movement is kept apart from the knowledge economy, community engagement and open access to information, which are treated as supports rather than the movement itself. It closes by asking how community-university partnerships can strengthen knowledge democracy.