ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters in this book. Chapters which take a broader policy stance, therefore, appear to draw on a wider range of theoretical tools derived from cognate areas adjacent to higher education studies. The changes that are being analysed and the attempts to research them involve understanding relationships that are the unique field of higher education. Some chapters focus their analysis on these external social forces which are seen to be shaping higher education in what are seen to be negative ways. The final chapter, attempts to bring the chapters into relation with one another by considering a number of issues. The first of these takes on Maton's problematic directly and concerns the issue of the inside and outside of higher education and their relations. The second theme is criticality, since one of the peculiarities of research into higher education is that people are, to a large extent, researching ourselves.
