Challenging the sociological canon: An analysis of theoretical practices in Norwegian sociology

Norway has experienced a substantial influx of students in the 21st century. The number of students with foreign citizenship has increased from just over 5,000 in 2000 to more than 23,000 in 2018, as seen in Figure 1 (DBH, 2020). This growth may seem like a paradox, given that Norway has few well-known higher education institutions, high living expenses, a language not widely understood, and a geographical location at the northern fringes of Europe.
 Figure 1: Number of Bachelor and Master Students in Norway with Foreign Citizenship 2000–2018
 So why do students choose Norway? A deliberate policy for internationalization of higher education developed is an important factor. From the 1980s, internationalization has increasingly become an integral part of national higher education policies as well as included as strategies of higher education institutions (Wiers-Jenssen & Sandersen, 2017). The main rationale for encouraging student mobility is educational; mobility is seen a tool for quality enhancement in higher education. However, economic, cultural,and political rationales are also present. The fact that the vast majority of higher education institutions are public partly explains why internationalization policies quite efficiently has trickled down from the national to the institutional level. 
 Most Norwegian higher education institutions do not charge tuition fees. This has gradually become a comparative advantage, as an increasing number of neighboring countries have introduced fees for students from outside Europe. Hence, there may be economic rationales for choosing Norway as a study destination, despite high costs of living. Students from developing countries may qualify for funding from the Norwegian government, while students from other countries have to cover all expenses themselves.
 Higher education institutions have economic incentives other than tuition fees for attracting international students. A reform in Norwegian higher education implemented in 2003 introduced a performance-based funding system (Frölich, 2006). Higher education institutions are rewarded for the number of credit points awarded, implying a stronger focus on attracting students in general. A significant increase in the number of courses and programs in English has facilitated recruitment of international students (Wiers-Jenssen, 2019). 
 International students cited courses in English and absence of tuition fees as the most frequently reported motives for studying in Norway (Diku, 2019a; Wiers-Jenssen, 2019). The latter is particularly important for students undertaking a full degree in Norway. Features of Norway, such as peaceful, safe, and technologically advanced society and unspoiled countryside are also accentuated. As these characteristics were present also before the number of international students started to grow, such motives must be understood in relation to conditions that have changed, such as availability of courses in English. Beautiful scenery and safety would have limited attractional value if courses in English were not offered.
 Quality is a less highlighted reason for choosing Norway as a study destination. But even if perceived quality is not a main attraction, international students in general give positive assessments of the quality of their education (Diku, 2019a). They cope quite well with academic demands, and their main challenges seem to be dealing with the high living expenses and limited interaction with Norwegians. The latter represents a challenge also for higher education institutions, as a major rationale for recruiting international students is to enhance “internationalization at home” (exposing Norwegian students and faculty to perspectives from abroad). If interaction is scarce, so is the exchange of ideas and perspectives.
 Foreign students in Norway consist of three groups (see Figure 2): (a) students who come to undertake a full postgraduate degree (international graduate students), corresponding to the definition of international students used in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2020) statistics; (b) students who come for a shorter study of 3 months or more (international exchange students); and (c)students who come for study sojourn of less than three months or who have come to Norway for other reasons, including (labor) migrants, refugees and more. In total, these three groups constituted 8.7% of total enrollments in Norwegian higher education institutions in 2018 (own calculation based on DBH).
 Figure 2: Bachelor and Master students in Norway with Foreign Citizenship, 2018: Number and Type of Students
 PhD students are not included in the figures mentioned above, and an exact numberof current doctoral students cannot be estimated. However, the number of foreign citizens completing a PhD was 657 in 2018, 42 per cent of all PhD graduates (Research Council of Norway, 2019). Hence, the proportion of foreign citizens is far higher at the doctorate level than at the bachelor and master level. This is in line with the situation in most European and North American countries (OECD, 2019).
 The largest universities (University of Oslo and Norwegian University of Science and Technology) attract the highest number of international students. These are also among the few Norwegian higher education institution found on international ranking lists. However, some small specialized higher education institutions such as the Academy of Fine Art, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and the Norwegian Academy of Music have higher proportions of international students.
 The majority of international students originate from Europe and Asia (Diku, 2019b). China, Nepal, Sweden and Germany are currently the major sending countries of full degree students. Exchange students are mainly Europeans, and many of these come through the European Union student exchange program ERASMUS. European exchange students are often attracted by the “exoticness” of studying in the northern fringes of Europe. The majority of full degree students are enrolled in master programs, while exchange students are in bachelor programs. Science and technology is the most popular field of study, and clearly more popular among international students than Norwegian students (Diku, 2019b).
 More than half of the international students report being interested in living and working in Norway upon graduation (Diku, 2019a). However, updated statistics on the number that actually settle in Norway are currently not available. While obtaining a residence permit in Norway is quite straightforward for those who are originate from countries in the European Economic Area, students from other countries generally face more barriers. Some countries see recruitment of international students as an instrument for so-called skilled migration, but Norway does not have an explicit policy on this. On the contrary, government policies have encouraged students to leave upon graduation, in order to avoid poaching highly skilled individuals from countries that already experience high emigration. As a part of foreign aid policy, students from developing countries have received grants for studying in Norway, on condition that they return to their home country.
 The last couple of years, the number of international students in Norway has ceased to grow (cf. Figure 1). The reasons for this are not clear. It may be that a (temporary) point of saturation is reached. Still, the overall picture shows a remarkable growth in the last two decades. This illustrates that a small country with weak traditions for inward mobility may be able to attract international students if higher education institutions and national policies match well. Further, it shows that institutional policies can attract international students as much as economic policies.

Agreements between national public authorities and higher education institutions serve as a governance instrument in many European countries. In Norway, these agreements are currently undergoing change, as the state now invites the institutions to propose their own goals and parameters in the agreements. This study seeks to understand the negotiation process for new agreements and assess how higher education institutions expect the new agreements may affect their institutional autonomy in practice. The methodology includes analysing negotiation documents and interviews with key institutional officials to understand their expectations of the new agreements. The findings indicate that Norwegian higher education institutions have enjoyed both substantive and procedural autonomy during the negotiation process. However, it is anticipated that the new agreements will have a limited impact on institutional autonomy in practice, except for their role in legitimising internal strategic priorities. As a result, this study raises concerns and contributes to a deeper understanding of how agreements between public authorities and higher education institutions serve as instruments for governing higher education.

The paper investigates the social role of education and the relevance of university programs to the real needs of society, which has gained especial political importance in recent years. Attention to this topic, in turn, has fueled interest in the concept of the «knowledge triangle», which implies a synergistic effect from the interplay of education, research, and innovation. Existing studies on the interaction of higher education institutions (HEIs) with society and policy in this field are primarily focused on the links between science and innovation and on the contributions of HEIs to economic development and growth. Many researchers focus on the interaction between universities and the industrial sector but ignore HEIs’ involvement in creating innovations in the public services sector. This is rather peculiar, considering that innovation in the public sector has received increased policy attention over the recent period, and is seen as essential for improving the efficiency and quality of public services and for addressing some of the major societal challenges, linked, for example, to an ageing population and maintaining the welfare state. This paper looks at the healthcare sector, where HEIs interact with private industry as well as public healthcare services. It builds upon a study from Norway carried out in 2015 in the framework of an OECD project, which mapped and analyzed knowledge triangle policies and practices at the national and institutional level. This study showed that interplay between education, research, and innovation is a key concern in the national policy for the development of the health sector, and that knowledge triangle interactions with both the private and public sector is a central aspect of the current practices at the medical departments at Norwegian HEIs. The linkages between the medical faculties and public healthcare services are especially interesting, as they provide patterns of interaction beyond those identified in the existing literature and because education plays a central role.

In recent decades higher education institutions have been encouraged but also pressured to adapt to new demands in the environment. The need for higher education to become more innovative and dynamic has not least been communicated through politics and various reform initiatives. By analysing how six Norwegian higher education institutions have adapted to political pressure to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the period between 1990 and 2000, this article studies the relationship between governmental policy, the organisational ideals that stem from the policy initiatives, and how these are manifested inside higher education institutions. The analysis shows that institutional adaptation often resulted in hybrid organisational practices and more complex organisational identities. However, some institutions managed to reinterpret and translate external organisational ideals to fit institutional characteristics and traditions, integrating new activities and existing ones.

In January 2017, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research launched the white paper ‘Culture for Quality in Higher Education’, in which they underlined the need for a cultural shift to promote quality in higher education. The white paper outlined five main strategies and a series of actions to enhance institutional ‘quality work’, and identified the use of digital technology as a key driver to stimulate the provision of innovative teaching and learning processes. Leaders and teachers within Norwegian universities and university colleges are expected to enhance their use of digital technology as part of their quality work. This could include innovative teaching and learning methods and student-centered learning perspectives and practices. However, it appears to be a mismatch between national ambitions and the take-up of digital technology within institutional practices in higher educational institutions. In this chapter, we illuminate this inconsistency through the lenses of translational theory and concepts of ‘conflicting logics’ and ‘translational costs’ within higher education institutions. Based on findings from the Quality of Norwegian Higher Education: Pathways, Practices and Performances (QNHE) research project, we analyse how Norwegian higher education institutions have responded to governmental policies on digital technology usage in their quality work.

Traditionally, European doctoral education has principally taken place within the binary relationship of professors and their doctoral students according to the apprenticeship model. However, in the last one to two decades, this model has been questioned. Governments and higher education institutions (HEIs) reform doctoral education by establishing and running structured doctoral programmes or Doctoral Schools. Inspired by American Graduate Schools, various forms of Doctoral Schools have been increasingly emerging in many European HEIs. This article identifies, characterises and critically assesses the principal changes in doctoral education practices introduced through Doctoral Schools on the basis of eight case studies carried out in Swiss and Norwegian HEIs. The empirical analysis results in the identification of six types of changes which concern doctoral students’ recruitment, curricular component, supervision, scientific exchange, tracking and their career. These changes lead to four kind of trends – which vary according to the case study – consisting of a structuring, standardisation and opening of doctoral education, whereas its academic character is maintained. If greater competitiveness, better scientific quality and higher graduating rates may be achieved, problems in terms of ‘brain drain’, workload, supervision, innovation and careers may even be reinforced or at least not completely solved.

Female representation among students and graduates in higher education is growing internationally. This is a promising trend for achieving gender balance in top positions in academia. But there is still a long way to go, as women accounted for 26 per cent in top positions at European higher education institutions in 2018. In this article, we examine the influence of international recruitment of researchers on the gender balance—or the lack of gender balance—in Norwegian academia. We draw on data from the Norwegian Register of Research personnel, linked with population statistics from Statistics Norway. These data show that 38 per cent of the researchers at Norwegian higher education institutions in 2018 were born abroad. The share of foreign full professors has increased from 16 per cent in 2001 to 27 per cent in 2018, while for postdocs there has been an increase from 31 to 69 per cent. In terms of overall gender composition, a higher percentage of the foreign-born researchers are male compared with the native Norwegians. The incidence of international recruitment differs significantly across academic fields and is particularly prevalent in engineering. This is also the field where the gender balance is most skewed generally. Taking these variables into account, we conclude that international migration is not among the factors contributing to the gender imbalance in Norwegian academia. In fact, international recruitment has contributed positively to the gender balance in Norway in the majority of the fields analysed.

Despite striking similarities, the adoption and implementation of policy shifts regarding higher education governance vary considerably across the globe, suggesting a mixed picture of diversification and isomorphism both within and across national higher education systems. By unpacking one particular structural reform process, this paper focuses on mergers as both a governance tool and a governance result in higher education. The paper analyzes the strategic decisions taken by Norwegian higher education institutions during 2014 in the light of a proposed national reform to merge institutions in order to enhance quality in higher education. The empirical basis of the paper consists of analyses of the commissioned self-evaluations of the higher education institutions, and the strategic choices and dilemmas they expressed. The process can be seen as organizational engineering in the sense that it emerges from the self-evaluation process, but is also subject to governancing on the part of the ministry.

This article addresses study programme leadership, a still-emerging phenomenon in European higher education (HE). Given its novelty, descriptions and insights into study programme leadership remain sparse. Therefore, this study aims to describe and critically explore health profession study programme leaders’ work tasks and responsibilities as they appear in institutional mandates. A qualitative hermeneutical interpretative text analysis is conducted using data derived from 14 Norwegian HE institutions. This research focuses on expectations of study programme leadership actions as expressed through the verbs used in the sentences of the mandates. Accordingly, we reveal that the verbs reflect diverse directions: controlling, facilitating, coordinating, and advising. To obtain our findings, we draw on a reflexive leadership approach. We demonstrate that diverse study programme leadership actions require different modes of organising. Thus, this study reveals the tensions among the various leadership actions constructed in HE mandates.

The global spread of the novel coronavirus, Covid-19, reached Norway at the end of February 2020. MatRIC, Centre for Research, Innovation and Coordination of Mathematics Teaching conducted a national survey in Norwegian higher education institutions (HEIs) during June-July 2020 to explore lecturers’ and students’ experiences of online mathematics teaching and learning and to enable sharing of solutions to the challenges encountered. One hundred and twenty-seven students and eighteen lecturers participated in this survey. In this presentation, we will share some of the findings of the survey in relation to the following two themes: challenges of learning and teaching mathematics online, and the psychological impact of lockdown on student learning and lecturer teaching. The study findings show that many students missed the social contact, being physically present at the university, and face to face interaction with their lecturers. Additionally, several students experienced a degree of anxiety through the lockdown period to the extent that they perceived their learning was negatively affected. Lecturers took a number of steps to ensure lines of communication remained open. Our findings show that simple actions by the lecturer to open channels of communication can be very effective.

The Norwegian government has played an active role in promoting digital transformation of higher education institutions (HEI), through national strategies, steering and funding as well as various types of support and coordination. Yet, delays have been observed between national ambitions and the take-up of digital technology in teaching and learning practices. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a shock and a potential trigger for this transformation. In this chapter, we study the nature of the digital transformation of teaching and learning during the first phase of COVID-19 pandemic (spring 2020). The analysis is based on data from a large-scale survey among students and academic staff in Norwegian HEIs. Findings suggest a steep learning curve among faculty staff, guided by trial and error and a strong element of peer learning. We also observe multiple approaches towards online teaching, in line with the so-called emergency remote online teaching concept. As for the future “post-COVID” development, both students and staff seem to prefer campus-based teaching, yet they are positive towards adding more elements of digital resources to teaching. The implications of the findings are further discussed in relation to the ongoing policy debates on the future direction of digital higher education in Norway.

Variations in portfolio assessment in higher education: Discussion of quality issues based on a Norwegian survey across institutions and disciplines

ABSTRACTHigher education institutions (HEIs) in Norway have been subjected to several reforms in recent decades. There are transformed relationships between institutions and their environment, and higher educations’ third mission is emphasized. To improve our understanding of HEIs’ third mission, this paper employs boundary object theory, enabling us to see how shifting projects are shaped and negotiated within these institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of five main projects that are evident in third-mission presentations: the entrepreneurial project, the local and regional involvement project, the mode 2 project, the popular-science project, and the reputation project.

In most Western countries there has been an increasing demand for new and different types of audit, evaluation and reporting systems that reveal the output of public sector organizations (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000). Quality assessments have had a profound impact on the funding of university research, most visibly in the UK. However, the relationship between qualitative and quantitative indicators of research performance has been an ongoing source of debate (Bence and Oppenheim 2004). By exploring four different types of accountability relations, this paper investigates different stakeholders' perceptions of whether or not performance funding increases accountability and transparency, and poses the following questions: Does performance funding result in high accountability and high transparency? Does high accountability imply high transparency? Does high transparency lead to low accountability? Three main empirical sources have been utilized: a comprehensive survey of faculty at Norwegian higher education institutions, a stakeholder survey, and data from case studies of four universities.

This paper explores how multilingualism is conceptualised in teacher education policy texts and discuss the ideological and implementational spaces for multilingual pedagogy in teacher education. The main focus is Norwegian early childhood teacher education curricula, and the qualitative oriented content analysis of teacher education curricula documents follows three steps. The first step provides an overview of how the content in Norwegian early childhood teacher education is regulated compared to Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. The second step takes a historical perspective, examining how the conceptualisations of multilingualism in Norwegian ECTE have changed from 1971–2018. The third step involves a close reading of local course plans from 12 different Norwegian higher education institutions. Findings show how curriculum content in Norwegian early childhood teacher education related to multilingualism is far more regulated than in the other Nordic countries. The historical analysis reveals how the ideological and implementational spaces have changed over the years by defining multilingualism differently, and how the current national guidelines open the ideological and implementation spaces for multilingualism. Furthermore, the analysis of the 12 local teacher education programs illustrates how these open spaces are implemented in different ways, either in narrowing further the spaces or broadening the spaces. The discussion revolves around how these spaces require different kinds of competencies for both practitioners and teacher educators.