Remapping French higher education: towards a multi-tiered higher education system?

Tertiary Education and Management - The global trend of increasing participation rates, coupled with regional goals to increase participation in higher education, such as the...     

Student formation in higher education: teachers’ approaches matter

Teaching in higher education encompasses more than merely helping students develop knowledge and skills. It entails engaging students in their own formation as persons, professionals and citizens. From this perspective, this article investigates how approaches to teaching academic writing contribute to formation. By analysing a case from initial teacher education in Norway, we identify and examine one teacher educator’s beliefs about writing and his approaches to teaching writing. Theoretical framework rests on six discourses of writing developed by Roz Ivani? and on the formative possibilities and constraints embedded in these different literacy discourses. Thus, we provide students’ experien-ces with this teacher’s approaches and discuss what formation his approaches seem to have initiated. The findings point to the need for more critical reflection on the formative impact of teaching approaches in higher education more generally.     

Implementation of quality assurance standards in European higher education: does context matter?

The vast majority of studies concerning the implementation of quality assurance in higher education institutions have been conducted from a national perspective, with few cross-national studies. This study aimed to explore the implementation of quality assurance standards in Europe from a comparative perspective. A questionnaire based on Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area was developed to compare countries. The results indicate that higher education institutions mainly formulate their quality assurance systems according to national standards or based on their own needs. The main emphasis in quality assurance is on teaching and learning activities and curriculum development. The major contribution of the study lies in showing how different country settings affect the implementation of quality assurance standards through presenting the strengths and weaknesses for quality assurance implementation among several European countries.     

Self-concept of students in higher education: are there differences by faculty and gender?

Many studies examine student self-concept during compulsory schooling but few have explored the self-concept of students in higher educational settings. The current study examined self-concept by faculty and gender among higher education students in New Zealand. Participants were 929 undergraduate students from a large New Zealand university. The results showed some differences in verbal and maths self-concept by faculty. Generally, students in faculties teaching subjects more reliant on maths skills had higher maths self-concept than those in faculties where facility in verbal skills was important. The opposite results were found for verbal self-concept. No overall gender differences were found for general, academic, verbal and maths self-concept although a statistically significant difference was found for problem-solving self-concept. This finding suggests students’ choice of faculty may be based on perceptions of their skills and capabilities in the various fields, irrespective of gender.     

Authenticity work in higher education learning environments: a double-edged sword?

Higher Education - Educational authenticity occupies a strong position in higher education research and reform, building on the assumption that correspondence between higher education learning...     

‘Even with higher education you remain a woman’: a gender perspective on higher education and social change in the Toliara region of Madagascar

This article investigates some issues related to gender and education based on a qualitative, empirical study of women in higher education in the Toliara region of Madagascar. The focus is on how women’s participation in higher education has created changes in gender relations, and how these women have succeeded in achieving higher education. In spite of the interviewed women’s more influential social position and individual freedom, we found that the traditional gender expectations and economic expectations from the extended family are still present. Indeed, it appears that with rising social position and individual freedom, the pressure and demands from their extended families increase.     

Sexuality education in New Zealand: a policy for social justice?

In 2015, the New Zealand Ministry of Education released a new curriculum policy document for sexuality education in all schools – Sexuality Education: A Guide for Boards of Trustees, Principals and Teachers. This policy is a rare international example of a curriculum document that explicitly values diversity, promotes inclusive school environments, and approaches sexuality education as an area of study (rather than a health promotion intervention). Since its release, the document has, however, gained little attention either of a scholarly nature or in terms of dedicated implementation in schools. One exception is a recent article in this journal by Sarah Garland-Levett, which raises some interesting and important concerns about the possibilities of such policy documents. I follow her lead here and continue the discussion about the place and potential of progressive sexuality education policy, and offer some thoughts about the content and intentions of this text.     

Unwilling brides: ‘phallic attack’ as a barrier to gender balance in higher education in Nigeria

Gender balance in access to quality education is a crucial item on the agenda of the Millennium Development Goals. But this ideal appears beset by a number of barriers, especially at higher education level. This study investigated the problem of sexual harassment in the Nigerian university system as a barrier to the educational advancement of women. Specifically, the research focused on the practice of coercing female students to engage in sexual relations with male lecturers (‘phallic attack’) as a condition for scoring good grades. The research drew its sample from female students selected from 14 faculties in two Nigerian universities. The study finds that there is a relatively high prevalence of sexual harassment in these universities and this affects female students adversely. The ripple effect is that women are not given a learning atmosphere conducive to enjoying academic freedom and optimizing their potential in educational development. This contributes to widening the gaps between men and women in Nigeria. The study also finds that lack of adequate high‐quality sex education in Nigeria increases the vulnerability of younger female students to sexual harassment. It recommends the establishment of an advocacy programme as well as enlightenment campaigns to educate students, staff, authorities and parents about sexuality and sexual harassment; strengthening the penal system in the universities with powers and resources to fight the menace; and the formation of a network by women staff in various universities to work with potential and actual victims in order to expose the culprits, obtain justice and curb the trend.     

Parental entrepreneurship in public education: a social force or a policy problem?

Parental involvement in public education is an expression of joint responsibility between parents and the state in which parents are expected to comply with current educational policy. Moreover, parents are often perceived as reactive, whereas the educational administration is seen as proactive, mainly by reducing barriers and establishing mechanisms for parental involvement. Referring to proactive involvement in which parents practice noncompliance while fighting the system, this study conceptualizes ‘parental entrepreneurship.’ The practical aspects of parental entrepreneurship are analyzed based on three well-known manifestations: homeschooling, the integration of children with special needs, and parental cooperatives within early childhood education and care. Parental entrepreneurship further exemplifies the blurry boundaries between parents and administration as regards children’s education and demonstrates that the entrepreneurial role parents may play in reforming formal public education. Parental entrepreneurship also illuminates the ongoing renegotiation of the foundations of the social contract between parents and the government, primarily in relation to professionalism, legitimacy, and authority.     

Should contentment be a key aim in higher education?

Higher education institutions are major concentrations of political, social, economic, intellectual and communicative resources. They reach freely across populations and cultures and connect to government, professions, industry and the arts. The neoliberal logic of markets has entered the realm of (higher) education. This leads to discourse on the benefits of education being positioned almost exclusively in terms of their effect on income. The perspective taken in the paper is the development of a happiness motive that asks education to challenge what it is to be a member of society: What moral and ontological stance one will seek to take in developing one’s future? The satisfied student perpetuates the current lifeworld in which they find themselves, seeking to improve the quality of the services provided. It is proposed that an overly emphasised desire satisfaction culture inhibits the edifying mission of universities. This is not to argue against high-quality service provision but to differentiate it from the edifying role of personal challenge, determination and social responsibility, conceptualised here as profound happiness or contentment, and the university’s role in its development. It calls for a different and more refreshing approach to higher education.     

Change and innovation in higher education: a role for corporate strategy?

Conclusions In conclusion there are a number of points to be emphasised. Firstly, there are no definite answers to the problems of change and innovation in the management field. Admittedly there are plenty of ideas and models about strategic planning; but the trend over the last ten years or so has been away from the use of analytic techniques towards trying to manage the culture and values of the organisation directly. At the moment there is another reaction developing against this focus on culture (Barney, 1986; Thackray, 1986), but it is not yet clear what is being proposed in its place.So those in higher education should be suspicious of the management pundits who claim that they have the answer - especially if it simply involves copying management structures and systems that are believed to be commonplace in industry. Furthermore many of these systems are actually fraught with difficulty when used in industry. For example, many companies find they have to rethink their appraisal systems every four or five years, because the failure of the previous system usually becomes obvious to all about three years after its installation. In that area the current trend is towards self and peer assessment - which could conceivably be appropriate in higher education too.But there are still a number of ideas that may be gleaned from the management world, and these may eventually provide models of management and strategic change which are appropriate to higher education. Some of these ideas have been mentioned in this article. For example, there is a need to pay closer attention to the environment, especially the political one. Institutions need to think carefully about their distinctive strengths, and how they can fit best into their environments. The idea of universities as service organisations may have considerable power, and it may be as well to think of some of those services as having limited life.It is important to recognise the crucial role of those people at the lower levels of the organisation. Their contribution is not only in helping to determine the best direction to take; but their commitment to any direction is essential if it is to be implemented. Good strategies can't be rushed: it takes time for ideas to evolve. Hence the process of thinking through appropriate strategies probably needs to be fairly continuous; it certainly should not be merely an annual, or quinquennial, activity.Finally it is the values of staff and students that can be the greatest source of, and barrier to, change and innovation. Senior managers get easily excited at the possibilities of being able to manage the values of their organisations. But this is much more difficult than the popular text books would have us believe, and very dangerous. The danger is that if one simply attacks the existing values of an organisation - say those of scholarship, colleagueship and individual freedom - one runs the risk of destroying individuals' sense of purpose, and thus creating a highly demoralised organisation. If values are to be shifted, say towards a greater commercial orientation - then they must be done in a way which allows for retention of the original values in parallel. It is a kind of bridging idea that is needed. This will take time, and not a little creativity.     

Teaching circles: a way forward for part-time teachers in higher education?

Part-time teachers represent a growing challenge to universities' quality assurance and developmental processes. This paper describes an attempt to meet this challenge through the adoption of 'teaching circles' (TCs) in four contrasting case-study schools. Analysis of outcomes enables identification of the variables affecting the apparent success of TCs as a strategy, some of which are associated with the particularities of context. Underlying these particularities, however, the general question of how participants come to feel 'ownership' of change initiatives emerges as a central issue. Three inter-related processes are shown to be involved: leadership, attribution of causation and social integration. The paper concludes that this analysis has implications beyond the TC project and provides both key practical pointers and, potentially, a useful analytical tool for researchers studying programmes of organizational change.     

‘Should you turn this into a complete gender matter?’ Gender mainstreaming in medical education

The incorporation of a gender perspective in medical education aims toward better health, gender equity, and a better health care for both men and women. In this article, participants’ responses to a Dutch gender awareness‐raising project in medical education are discussed. Eighteen semi‐structured interviews were held with education directors and change agents. Resistance towards and obstacles for gender mainstreaming in medical education were implicit in four themes: (1) biomedical knowledge was perceived to be gender neutral, to which knowledge about women could be added to the body of knowledge either with or without framing them as gender issues; (2) the relevance of gender was unofficially denied by downplaying it, particularly in comparison with culture/ethnicity; (3) medical education’s social accountability was hardly mentioned and gender inequalities in health were framed as feminist political issues and not medical issues; and (4) we were urged to communicate carefully to increase acceptance and avoid overt resistance which situated gender inequalities outside the medical domain. Recommendations to change educational material were widely discussed; but specific features of gender were easily lost. This was especially true for power differences between men and women. Nevertheless, dominant systems of thought were challenged.     

Vocational education and the binary higher education system in the Netherlands: higher education symbiosis or vocational education dichotomy?

The Netherlands has a binary higher education system in which academic education and higher professional education at EQF levels 5–8 co-exist. There is also secondary vocational education at EQF levels 1 up to 4. In this paper, I analyse policy documents resulting from the Bologna Process and argue that under neo-liberal conditions, higher professional education brings opportunities for both students and employers, but also creates a socio-economic tension in terms of employability. The gap between higher professional education and secondary vocational education adds to the formation of a labour market in which higher professional education graduates are prepared to an international labour market but employability pressure is being put on lower skilled employees, creating unequal employability opportunities for vocational education graduates.     

Higher education in further education: delivering higher education in a further education context—a study of five South West colleges

This paper comprises a summary of research into the teaching of higher education (HE) courses in further education (FE) learning environments. A comprehensive study of college management and teaching staff attitudes together with teaching practices, pedagogy and research was carried out with six partner colleges of the University of Plymouth where a substantial amount of HE teaching was delivered. A questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed to all staff teaching HE in the colleges, with a similar but separate questionnaire being used for management. Five colleges responded. We present data relating to the differences in teaching practice and pedagogy between FE and HE teaching and the problems of realizing these in FE learning environments. We also look at the ways in which independent study and critical reflection among learners are developed. The questions of research and scholarly activity and their relevance to HE teaching are addressed. Considerable challenges are faced by staff teaching mainly FE courses, on standard FE teaching contracts, being expected to deliver HE courses effectively. We also consider the challenges of delivering ‘a real HE experience’ in FE environments and those involved with going on to university afterwards.     

A capital or capabilities education narrative in a world of staggering inequalities?

In a world of tremendous inequalities, this paper explores two contrasting normative models for education policy, and the relationship of each to policy, practices and outcomes that can improve lives by reducing injustice and building societies which value capabilities for all. The first model is that of human capital which currently dominates contemporary education policy globally, harnessing education policy to economic growth imperatives so that development through education is the means to the end of increased resources and income. The second model draws on the work of Amartya Sen to present a human capabilities model of education policy in which human lives are the end of development and the education focus is on promoting capabilities and functionings to choose a good life. An argument is advanced for capabilities as the superior approach. The paper closes by noting the problematic of social change and struggle demanded by a transformative view of education and how or if the capability approach is adequate to the task.     

Relational equality in education: what,how, and why?

Relational equality is broadly understood to be about relating to others as moral equals. I consider three questions of relational equality as applied to education: what, how, and why? Relational equality is important on a macro (societal) level, a meso (school) level structuring of relationships, and a micro (interpersonal relationships) level. I focus on micro level relational equality in schools, and connect theoretical perspectives from two neighbouring fields: education and humanistic counselling, suggesting that we might usefully draw on theory from humanistic counselling to inform our understanding of how egalitarian interpersonal relationships might manifest in education. I emphasise the importance of considering what we are trying to communicate through our behaviour and suggest that in order to treat someone as a moral equal, educators should work towards communicating empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. Such an understanding gives a clearer focus for increasing equality than broader understandings of relational equality, and greater scope for challenging inequality than distributive accounts.