Evolving Privatization in Eastern and Central European Higher Education

With the fall of communism in 1989, Eastern and Central Europe would quickly become part of an already strong global tide of privatization in higher education. Nowhere else did private higher education rise so suddenly or strongly from virtual nonexistence to a major regional presence. A fresh database allows us to analyze the extent and dimensions of that presence, including various national and subregional quantitative dimensions. Yet the private sector is strongly challenged on several fronts, including paradoxically by the public sector’s own partial privatization, sometimes closely linked to the private-sector growth. Nonetheless, private higher education has continued to grow thus far into the new century, with shifting national and subregional patterns. Higher education privatization remains a noteworthy reality in Eastern and Central Europe but it is an evolving reality.     

The rise of the transnational capitalist class and World Bank 'aid' for higher education

This article looks at globalisation as a process of replacement of the global political order of nation states with the global economic order of transnational corporations. It is argued that this process carries far-reaching consequences, in which a growing number of spheres, including education, are subjected to the interests of the global economic order. Under the disguise of global economic development activities the new world system strives towards maximising the short-term profits of the transnational capitalist class. Following Sklair's global systems theory, this article looks at the World Bank as a transnational organisation. Based on recent World Bank higher education reform loan projects in Eastern Europe, it is argued that the primary outcome of the World Bank loan projects is the redistribution of the resources of the so-called 'recipient countries' to the transnational capitalist class.     

Cultural capital as an explanation of variation in participation in higher education

Cultural capital is frequently referred to as a construct in the analysis of inequality in higher education. It has been suggested that variations in cultural capital contribute to social class differences in levels of participation, distribution of students between elite and other universities, and the likelihood of dropping out. However, recent analyses of quantitative data suggest that once students’ attainments are included in analysis of levels of participation the effects of social class disappear. One possibility is that cultural capital affects the likelihood of participation in higher education independently of the common measures of social class variation (parental occupation and education). In this analysis we include a measure of students’ cultural capital to investigate whether it exerts an effect on the likelihood of participation that is independent from students’ attainment. We also present and evaluate a practicable method of measuring students’ cultural capital.     

论文化资本及其对高等教育机会平等的影响

随着世界各国高等教育从精英走向大众,高等教育规模不断扩大,然而,规模的扩大并没有改变入学机会不公平的现象,特别是来自社会弱势群体家庭子女并没有从高等教育发展中受益。影响高等教育机会平等的因素很多,但人们拥有文化资本的多寡是影响高等教育机会最直接、最重要的因素。文化资本以作品、文凭、学衔为符号,以学历为制度化形态在高等教育机会和选择中发挥着重要的作用。     

Autonomy or oligarchy? The changing effects of university endowments in winner-take-all markets

This paper directs attention to important changes in the role and funding of elite private universities in the USA. At the center of these changes is the private endowment—an institution that has for much of its history been a pivotal element of innovation and autonomy, but which is recently tilting towards the production and reproduction of oligarchic institutional conditions. In the context of an explosion of wealth inequality in winner-take-all markets where elite higher education serves to provide coveted access to rare positional goods, the in perpetuity endowment—as currently configured—allows a small group of globally leading institutions to become rentiers who can support themselves nearly exclusively through the returns on their endowed capital. With that, a century-old dynamic of innovation and change of American higher education is at risk of collapsing. Where the elite private universities used to act as the head of Riesman’s snake-like procession, pulling the majority of American universities along in a process of isomorphic emulation, the emerging gulf between a handful of academic rentiers and the rest of the academic body (including many world-renowned, but not super-rich universities) threatens to cut that head off from the body, leaving the majority of the remaining institutions scrambling for survival at the mercy of the dictates of academic capitalism. We review policy options capable of taming the run-away endowment and place the issue in the larger context of the tension between Madisonian and Jeffersonian democratic imperatives.     

The concept of public goods,the state,and higher education finance: a view from the BRICs

Because higher education serves both public and private interests, the way it is conceived and financed is contested politically, appearing in different forms in different societies. What is public and private in education is a political–social construct, subject to various political forces, primarily interpreted through the prism of the state. Mediated through the state, this construct can change over time as the economic and social context of higher education changes. In this paper, we analyze through the state’s financing of higher education how it changes as a public/private good and the forces that impinge on states to influence such changes. To illustrate our arguments, we discuss trends in higher education financing in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We show that in addition to increased privatization of higher education financing, BRIC states are increasingly differentiating the financing of elite and non-elite institutions.     

Development of education policy in Lithuania during the years of transformations

Development of education policy in Central and Eastern Europe is a specific type of educational transformations. Though almost all the countries in the region began their reforms from a similar starting point—the Soviet-type education system—eventually they moved towards different educational models. As a result of the full EU membership of the eight post-communist Central and Eastern European countries, one may recently observe a certain convergence of reform patterns, determined by the development of the common EU education policy. Lithuania is a typical example of educational transformations in the region. The article highlights the development of education policy in Lithuania from a highly inspirational and spontaneous transformations in early 1990s to more pragmatic and economically grounded reforms in late 1990s and early 2000s. Further integration into the EU evoke new systemic changes in Lithuanian education.     

Why transitional public relations methodologies are needed for the reform of higher education in the countries of central and eastern Europe

This essay reflects upon the themes that emerged from the “Public Relations—An Instrument for the Transformation and Development of Higher Education in Central and Eastern Europe” seminar, for which the articles appearing in this issue of Higher Education in Europe were originally prepared. The transitional public relations approach, which was developed and introduced to the world public relations literature by the author, is used to analyze the impact of this type of public relations on the reform of higher education in the former communist countries of Europe. The main conclusion is that, in view of the common communist heritage of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the application of public relations strategies and instruments in higher education accelerates and facilitates reform of this key area of the economy and also causes it to become more effective. The above statement is particularly valid for private universities.     

Reflections on the Reform of Higher Education in Central and Eastern Europe

Attempting to generalize about the reform of higher education in Central and Eastern Europe since the end of communism is made complicated by the difficulty in identifying clear terms of reference and points of comparison. The area and the higher education systems concerned are far from being homogeneous, for the homogeneity imposed by communism and Soviet domination did not last. When comparing Central and Eastern European higher education systems with those of the West, one is confronted with Western higher education systems that are quite heterogeneous and themselves also going through change. The routes to transition in higher education in Central and Eastern Europe are as diverse as the given systems and countries. The two standard categorizations of Central and Eastern European higher education, exceptionalism and underdevelopment, are inaccurate. Rather, Central and Eastern European higher education should be viewed as fitting into a wider effort to reorient the whole of European higher education towards the knowledge society. In this venture, Central and Eastern European higher education may possess some advantages that are not as prevalent further West.     

Informational capital and the transition to university: First‐in‐family students' experiences in Austrian higher education

The agenda for widening participation in higher education has led to increasing numbers of students with a broader range of education and family backgrounds. However, transitioning to the university landscape remains a highly complex negotiation process, especially for first‐in‐family students, who cannot draw on previous experience from higher education in their families. Gaining access to informational capital—a combination of cultural and social capital—plays a crucial role in managing education transitions. We draw on rich empirical data obtained from 26 autobiographical narrative interviews with first‐in‐family university students in Austria to investigate how transitions to university are affected by informational capital. We also explore how access to informational capital was influenced by (1) institutional practices, such as initiatives to support students, especially first‐year students; and (2) cultural fit—the extent to which a student's cultural capital corresponded with the dominant cultural capital in the field of their chosen discipline or higher education establishment. Our findings show that gaining access to informational capital was strongly affected by the institutional practices at universities within the different disciplines, thus highlighting the importance of higher education institutions in supporting their students during transition processes. We conclude with policy implications for how higher education institutions can assist first‐in‐family students to succeed at university.     

Do parental attitudes toward and expectations for their children's education and future jobs matter for their children's school achievement?

The traditional discourse in the scholarship on cultural capital theory has focused on how exclusive participation in elite status culture by students from higher socioeconomic status families benefits their learning in schools, the effects of which are most evident in linguistic subject areas such as reading achievement. However, some scholars have argued that cultural capital is not restricted to elite status culture but could include parental familiarity with school evaluation standards and job market requirements, and that the effects could transcend languages to include performance domains with more objective evaluation that are susceptible to school influences (e.g. mathematics and science). The present study systematically examines this position using data involving 96,591 15‐year‐old students from 3602 schools in eight countries who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012. Results of three‐level hierarchical linear modelling showed positive relationships between seven cultural capital variables and student mathematics achievement. The cultural variables comprised: home educational resources; parental educational attainment and occupational status; parental expectations of their children's educational attainment, future career in mathematics and school; and parental valuing of mathematics. In particular, the three parental expectations variables had substantively larger effect sizes on student achievement than the other cultural capital variables. The results demonstrated that parental familiarity with school evaluation standards and future job requirements, especially as measured by parental expectations, may constitute cultural capital that privileges student mathematics achievement in schools.     

Understanding education in Europe-East: Frames of interpretation and comparison

This paper suggests possible frames of reference for understanding education and educational policy in the Eastern part of Europe. (a) According to the geographical frame, the concept of ‘Eastern Europe’ and its education reflects a struggle for political power and self-identity. (b) According to the political frame, the transition of 1989/1990 opened up a ‘third political way’ between capitalism and socialism for a few decisive years. (c) According to the cultural anthropological frame, the distance between Western and Eastern European education is not only a modernization gap, but also a cultural gap which needs comparative cultural analysis.     

如何看高等教育的不平等化——从家庭文化资本对在校大学生的影响分析

高等教育,一方面完成社会的向上流动,另一方面成为实现社会传递、继承、分化的工具。高等教育不平等将影响社会阶层流动和扩大社会阶层之间的鸿沟,激化社会矛盾,影响社会和谐发展。家庭文化资本占优势的的子女获得更多受教育机会。这种情况下的教育不利于高等教育良好发展和和谐社会的建设。政府应建立一个公平有效的教育机制,增加国民文化资本拥有量,让下一代在教育机会获得上受上一代文化资本拥有量影响差距相对较小,实现和谐、教育公平的社会构建。     

大众化高等教育的新质量观探讨

高等教育从精英教育过渡到大众化教育,对高等教育的质量问题提出了新的思考。文章认为大众化高等教育应树立多样化的质量观、适应性的质量观和全面发展的质量观,同时对提高大众化高等教育质量提出了若干措施。     

影响城乡家庭高等教育需求因素的差异分析

通过对3050位高中学生家长的调查研究表明,影响家庭高等教育需求的经济资本、社会资本、文化资本、子女因素、高校因素与社会因素等6个维度之间,由于城乡家庭资本的不同而呈现显著性差异。农村家庭认为家庭经济资本、社会资本与文化资本对高等教育需求的影响程度大于城市家庭,而城市家庭认为子女因素、高校因素和社会因素的影响程度大于农村家庭。要消除这种影响差异,需要实行城乡一体化,提高农民收入,缩小城乡差距,实现教育公平。     

Culture and identity in higher education research

The aim of this article is to develop a cultural approach in higher education studies. It will be argued that the cultural approach is rooted mainly in two different intellectual starting points to analyze academic communities as cultural entities: studies of disciplinary cultures and institutional cultures. Notions of disciplines as cultural entities have been developed in Europe in relation to the two cultures topic and to issues developed in the sociology of knowledge. The institutional studies tradition is, in turn, rooted in the American intellectual tradition, where cultural concerns emerge from institutional level phenomena whether they concern students, faculty or higher education institutions. The article discusses the pros and cons of these traditions in order to find new avenues for future research. It will be argued that academic identity provides a seminal perspective for cultural studies in higher education.     

Kinesiology in the Cultural Evolution of Academia

Three forces that are reshaping society in this country—the economy, the availability of information and technology, and changes in ethnic demography—are creating major changes in higher education. Federal funding, which has been the major provider of research and training projects, is undergoing reductions and changes in priorities. State funding has shrunk to very low percentages of the overall universities' budgets. A consequence is the “privatization” of universities: the development of university–business partnerships, the scramble for endowments and foundation support, and the sale of university names and icons for large donations. Two other forces changing higher education are the rise of multiculturalism and the aging of the faculty. In order to survive and actualize our visions in the 21st century, kinesiologists and physical educators must use an understanding of the roots and impact of societal change as a compass for charting the future.     

Social and Cultural Dimensions of the Transformation of Higher Education in Central and Eastern Europe

The thesis of this article is that the main factors contributing to the need to rethink higher education institutions today are linked to the advent of the global age. Although the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are not yet feeling the full force of the ensuing pressures, higher education here is likely to be affected very soon by globalization-related processes. Higher education all over the world, including Central and Eastern Europe, is no longer the unique part of the public sector that it used to be, either in explicit political declarations, in public perceptions, or in practical terms. Higher education is doubly affected by the local post-1989 transformations and by more profound and more long-lasting global transformations. To neglect either of the two levels of analysis is to misunderstand a decade of failed attempts to reform higher education systems in this part of the world.     

文化资本的更新与转化：知识分子与清末民初教育改革

中国现代教育体制的建立始于晚清,是以民族主义诉求为出发点并效仿西方模式而逐渐成型的。由于据有优势文化资本,本土的知识精英在这场教育变革中起到主导性作用,并带动整个知识阶层对自身固有文化资本进行积极转化。因此,倚重西方资源,具有明显＂西化＂色彩的现代教育虽然推动了中国社会的主导性象征资本从儒家传统向＂西学＂转移,但文化资本在社会阶层和地理区域等方面的分布格局并未发生根本性的改变。     

THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW EUROPEAN HOME

This article focusses on the types of assistance which the universities in the western European countries could render to their peers in Eastern Europe. It explores the ways in which this aid would contribute to the elaboration of the transnational culture of the New European Home. Stress is laid on the need to integrate the educational and research activities of European universities for the training of new intellectual élites. A considerable expansion of student exchanges is suggested, particularly the training of foreign language teachers in foreign universities. The universities should rediscover and lay stress on humanism and end their participation in military research. They should prepare bachelor's and master's degree holders capable of working as teachers in other types of higher education institutions and as researchers and theorists in various types of cultural establishments. The article concludes with an examination of the scope and the operation of the International Environmental and Cultural Centre of Norway which is operated by the Byelorussian State University and the Folk High School of Agder, Norway. This centre is cited as an example of the type of inter‐university centre which should be established all over Europe so as to further the integration of European universities.