Sparking interdisciplinarity: let’s take framing students as customers in higher education seriously

Abstract

This paper aims to inspire an interdisciplinary dialogue on framing students as customers in higher education, by reviewing some under-explored conceptual issues and implications in the existing literature especially concerning presently underrepresented disciplines. It sets out a different case for studying a student-consumer metaphor to that which has dominated the debate so far, and thus a new research agenda calling for interdisciplinary research. It cautions future research on the necessity to reflect on the particular context and nature of higher education before conceptualizing students as customers, with particular attention to be paid to wider implications and consequences of changing higher education context to our society and future.