Changing Modes: a Brief Overview of the Mode 2 Knowledge Debate and Its Impact on South African Policy Formulation

This book traces the influence of an important body of international literature on the development of post-apartheid policies in higher education and training (HET) and in science and technology (S&T). This literature, as well as the discussion it has triggered in South Africa, has come to be known as the 'Mode 2' debate. Two books in this body of knowledge stand out as seminal. The first, published in 1994 and authored by Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott and Trow, is entitled The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. The second book is a 1995 work authored by Scott (although shaped largely by the approach developed in Gibbons et al.) entitled The Meanings of Mass Higher Education. Gibbons and Scott have published several additional book and journal articles on the subject and clearly lead the Mode 2 debate. (See also Gibbons, 1998, and Scott, 1998.)