Introduction
All over the world, the university is facing many challenges, a topic I have addressed in various moments (Santos 2017, 2018). Due to the increasing impact of certain global phenomena on universities worldwide, it seems that the diversity of the past can no longer guarantee the diversity of the future. Even though these challenges are common and widespread, the truth is that universities in various regions of the world are not all equally prepared to respond to them. Such asymmetry is due in part to the uneven and combined way in which the three main forms of modern domination (capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy) have been operating since the sixteenth century in different regions of the world. In this chapter, 1 focus on the impact of the articulations between capitalism and colonialism on the university system.' During the last 30 or 40 years, two apparently contradictory movements have taken place. The first, a bottom-up movement, has involved the social struggles for the right to a university education. As the struggles advanced, it became clear that the university’s elitism was a main symbol of class, race, and gender discrimination in the culture at large. Regarding the three major crises of the modern university (the institutional crisis in general, as well as the crisis of hegemony and the crisis of legitimacy), the aforementioned struggles mainly put in question the legitimacy of the university. To the extent that these struggles were successful, access to the university increased, and new social strata were allowed entrance, thus increasing social heterogeneity and the cultural diversity of the student body. There were, however, no corresponding changes affecting either the faculty or the curricula and syllabi. As a result, other features of racial, ethnocultural, religious, epistemic, and sexual discrimination became visible. Thus broader access, while responding somewhat to the legitimacy crisis, brought to light other critical dimensions. >READ FULL CHAPTER