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Session Information
22 SES 14 A, Higher Education, Political Conflict, and New Economies of Public Missions and Reform: Comparative international perspectives
Symposium
Contribution
Some commentators see the end of globalization emerging on the horizon and a return of the nation state as the main reference for policy making. This “re-nationalisation” is likely to have major implication for higher education that used to be an important pillar of globalization. I argue in this contribution that these commentators underestimate the extent to which international private standards have already transformed higher education and the state-university nexus in the last few decades. As a consequence, there can be no easy return to a national constellation. On the contrary, private modes of transnational coordination are likely to gain even more in importance in the light of the difficulties governments currently experience when they seek to establish international agreements. The paper uses a case study approach and focuses on internationally active quality assurance agencies and their networks with a view to studying this transnationalisation. Studies of external quality assurance (QA) have mushroomed in recent years, reflecting the increasing importance of this shift from government to governance in the regulation of universities. However, most of these studies focus on the technicalities of this new control structure (e.g. Bejan et al., 2015, Leiber et al., 2015). They tend to privilege what Roger Dale criticises as “Higher Educationism” (Dale, 2009) and draw on forms of methodological nationalisation. Consequently, they overlook how internationally active QA agencies contribute to what Saskia Sassen refers to as new, transnational types of bordering that are taking place largely outside of the interstate system (Sassen, 2017). This rescaling also has major implications for the public mission of higher education, as I will outline. My study of internationally active QA agencies builds on some of my previous research and applies to both EU and non EU countries (Hartmann 2017). The countries are selected in line with a view to identifying convergence in the transnationalisation of higher education.
References
Bejan, Stelian Andrei, Tero Janatuinen, and Jouni Jurvelin. "Quality assurance and its impact from higher education institutions' perspectives: Methodological approaches, experiences and expectations." Quality in Higher Education 21, no. 3 (2015): 343-71. Dale, Roger. "What’s ‘public’ about the NPM in HE? The changing discourses of ‘public’ in the Bologna Process." Paper presented at the L'Enseignement Supérieur entre Nouvelle Gestion Publique et Dépression Economique Analyse comparée et essai de prospective, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 11-12 décembre 2009, 2009. Hartmann, Eva. "Quality assurance and the shift towards private governance in higher education: Europeanisation through the back door?". Globalisation, Societies and Education 16, no. 4 (2017): 309–24. Leiber, Theodor, Bjørn Stensaker, and Lee Harvey. "Impact evaluation of quality assurance in higher education: Methodology and causal designs." Quality in Higher Education 21, no. 3 (2015): 288-311. Sassen, Saskia. "Embedded borderings: Making new geographies of centrality." Territory, Politics, Governance, no. March (2017): 1-11.
Programme by Network 2019
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
The programme is updated regularly (each day in the morning)
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