HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE REPRODUCTION OF THE WORLD SYSTEM

Abstract

The paper discusses the role of higher education in the reproduction of society. In the context of the world system, an attempt is made to shift the focus of reproduction from individual social formations to the world system as a whole. While Marxist and functionalist theories, which are used as a theoretical framework in this paper, were primarily focused on the reproduction of class societies at the level of social formations, this paper considers reproduction at the level of the world system. Analogous to internal class selection, it is claimed that nation-states are drawn into the reproduction of the world system so that peripheral countries train a part of their personnel for free for the countries of the core. This reproduction, which is based on unequal relations in the wider world economy, explains the phenomenon of ‘brain drain.’ In accordance with that, the possibility of political interventions within the individual states of the (semi)periphery, which would significantly disrupt the current systemic processes of reproduction, is viewed as pessimistically inadequate.