ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that changes in higher education can be explained as an attempt to reconstruct university education through a normalising discourse, posited on a ‘post-Fordist’ model of education. It explores a number of cultural, epistemic and policy implications of that change for the law school. The concepts of Fordism and post-Fordism derive originally from the sociological study of business organisation and have been used to offer a grand narrative explaining the changes in industrial organisation under late capitalism. Post-Fordism in learning emphasises the extent to which notions of education and training are to be harnessed to the demands of the post-industrial economy. Institutional and cultural transformations have generated new uncertainties about the nature of the academic discipline and the role of the university. A liberal education treats learning as an end in itself which requires no greater justification than the cultivation of intellectual excellence.
