The value of higher education for individuals and society in the Asia-Pacific region.

Central to this study is an exploration of the degree to which higher education is perceived as an individual and/or a collective value. Seminal literature supports the notion that colleges and universities are Western institutions. Throughout the Asia Pacific, higher education is expanding in a hybrid form in collectivist societies. This qualitative phenomenological study was guided by two questions: How is economic value shaped by cultural values and Western and Asian constructs? How is the value of higher education constructed as an individual and/or collective good by colleges and universities in the Asia-Pacific region? Using notion of disjunctures, scapes, and flows as a framework of analysis, we interviewed 25 participants in higher education across the Asia-Pacific region. The findings yielded themes of Western dominance, Asian distinctions, and the complicated perceptions of higher education as an individual or collective benefit. The theoretical framework of scapes and flows provided a lens to examine new layers of hybridization and complexity in a rapidly evolving region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]