Session Information
22 SES 04 C, Academic Work and Professional Development
Paper Session
Contribution
The last decade has seen cross-national developments such as institutional consortia, research collaborations and networks, but also initiation of dual diplomas, joint degrees and collaborative study plans gaining momentum. These types of collaborations across national boundaries are developing as a response to expectations to further Europeanisation and Internationalisation of Higher Education, which in turn are part of wider policy changes affecting the sector. Increasing convergence within Higher Education systems in Europe and also their competitiveness vis-a-vis other powerful Higher Education (macro)-players are forces underlying the movement of Europeanisation/Internationalisation.
This presentation draws on a comparative research project undertaken in 2006-2008 which focused on the creation of Joint Masters at European Universities and involved qualitative data collection in four countries, namely England, France, Norway and Spain during fieldwork visits of nine higher education institutions (HEIs). The aim of the research was twofold: first, to examine the range of rationales underpinning the initiation of “joint programmes” at Masters level between European Universities, and second to investigate, through this concrete example of institutional and academic practice, the ways in which policy intents for Europeanisation, Internationalisation and convergence play out at the university level for different constituents, be they academic, strategic, or administrative.
Focusing on Joint Masters (JM) provides a window into the study of these trends when one seeks to gain a better understanding of their interactions and their tensions at the meso-level of institutional realities and micro-level of individual perceptions and logics of action. It enables us to capture what’s going on in the intersections of various levels, how and to what extent policies carry through to other levels to possibly influence or shape logics of actions of institutions and individual academics.
We have elaborated two sets of questions: first, what are the motives that academics and institutions initiating these programmes give to account for their engagement in these? By engaging in collaborative, yet competitive and for ‘the selected few’ programmes, are they simply responding to external normative pressures, or are they asserting different priorities, values and allegiances within these policy and institutional contexts? Second, are new programmes such as Joint Masters an expression of general convergence trends in Higher Education? Do they become a vehicle for getting closer / becoming more similar over time, or in other words can they potentially contribute to the European convergence agenda?
In order to address the questions raised here we will draw on conceptual propositions which belong to two conceptual strands: the first one identifies external environmental factors that influence or control the availability and allocation of resources and can be usefully summarised by reference to resource-dependence theory. The second develops approaches espousing theoretical perspectives on academic professionalism and normativity of scientific communities.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Becher, T., (1989) Academic tribes and territories intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Stony Stratford/Bristol, PA: SRHE & Open University Press. Burris, V., (2004) The Academic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in PhD Exchange Networks. American Sociological Review, 69, 239-264. Clark, B.R., (1983) The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-national Perspective. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA. Clark, B.R., (1998) Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organizational Pathways of Transformation. Issues in Higher Education. Oxford: IAU Press and Pergamon. DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W., (1983) The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-160. Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., Trow , M., (1994) The New Production of Knowledge: the Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. Sage: London. Goedegeburre, L., Kaiser, F., Maassen, P., Meek, V. L., van Vught, F. & de Weert, E., (Eds) (1993) Higher education policy in international comparative perspective. Oxford: Pergamon. Henkel M., (2000) Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Knorr Cetina, K., (1999) Epistemic Cultures. How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kogan M., Hanney, S., (2000) Reforming Higher Education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Merton, R. K., (1968). The Matthew Effect in Science. Science, 159 (3810), 56-63. Pfeffer, J., Salancik, G., (1978) The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper & Row. Slaughter, S. Leslie, L., (1997) Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Sporn, B., (1999) Adaptive University Structures: An Analysis of Adaptation to Socioeconomic Environments of US and European Universities. London: Jessica Kingsley. Teichler, U., (2005) Research on Higher Education in Europe. European Journal of Education, 40 (4), 447-469.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.