Change of higher education in response to European pressures: conceptualization and operationalization of Europeanizatio
- PDF / 194,229 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 75 Downloads / 153 Views
Change of higher education in response to European pressures: conceptualization and operationalization of Europeanization of higher education Martina Vukasovic
Published online: 17 January 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract This article focuses on change in higher education in response to environmental pressures, more specifically pressures coming from European integration initiatives with respect to higher education, e.g. the Bologna Process. Significant research attention has so far been focused on the supposed impact of European initiatives on higher education systems and organizations. However, while many of such studies would claim that what they focus on is ‘‘Europeanization of higher education’’, few of them provide a clear definition of the concept of Europeanization and an explicit and elaborate theoretical approach. Therefore, the aims of this paper are: (1) to provide a clarification of the concept of ‘‘Europeanization of higher education’’, and (2) to provide a systematized and robust analytical framework able to account for identified patterns of change. The article builds on the conceptualization and operationalization of the process of Europeanization developed in international relations and comparative studies literature, using two strands of neoinstitutionalism: Europeanization through an external incentives perspective based on rationalist institutionalism and Europeanization through a social learning perspective based on sociological institutionalism. Exploration of the explanatory potential of the two Europeanization perspectives focuses on changes in approaches to quality assurance in European countries. An assessment of said explanatory potential, as well as a discussion about the analytical challenges related to using these two Europeanization perspectives is provided in the conclusion. Keywords Europeanization Adaptation Quality assurance Rationalist institutionalism Sociological institutionalism External incentives Social learning
M. Vukasovic (&) Department of Educational Research, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1092, 0317 Blindern, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
123
312
High Educ (2013) 66:311–324
Introduction Since 2000, various initiatives aimed at stimulating European integration in higher education have attracted researchers’ attention to the changes of policy capacity at the European level (Corbett 2005; Neave and Maassen 2007), as well as the changes these European initiatives bring about at the national (macro), institutional (meso) or individual (micro) level (Dobbins and Knill 2009; Gornitzka 2006; Huisman 2009; Maassen and Musselin 2009; Va¨limaa et al. 2006; Witte 2006). To avoid the trap of concept stretching and overestimating the importance of European initiatives, the first aim of this article is to clarify what ‘‘Europeanization of higher education’’ actually entails. Referring to the comparative politics and international relations literature (Bo¨rzel and Risse 2003; Radaelli 2003; Sedelm
Data Loading...
