The Culture of Academe

Abstract

As Peter Maassen notes, in recent years higher education studies have largely concentrated on governmental "steering" of the academic enterprise. In his view, they have hardly touched upon the impact of policies on the curriculum, the research agendas and the knowledge rules or epistemologies which govern the creation and transmission of knowledge. Maassen' s book is an attempt to analyse in a particular way the effects of governmental steering on academic culture, that is, the values and beliefs of the academic staff of universities. Governmental steering a metaphor which takes a great deal for granted is interpreted as the framework through which a government tries to influence, adapt and control social institutions. In order to examine its impact on academic culture, he offers a theoretical framework based on cultural theory which he then uses in an empirical study of universities in the Netherlands and in the German Land, NordrheinWestfalen. This exercise opens up all manner of interesting perspectives, although the research approach adopted may not be wholly convincing, and the book is marred by a somewhat dismissive attitude to work going on elsewhere. Such assertions as "the effects of steering on the 'human factor' are generally neglected", that neither in the Netherlands nor anywhere else in Europe have the effects on the academic culture of introducing a new steering strategy been assessed, and that there are no data on changes in the academic culture, will be irritating to several groups from the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden and Norway who have presented papers at conferences in Maassen's presence which demonstrate the contrary. Perhaps these statements can be explained by Maassen's complaint that "few have an interest in theory testing and paradigm building", which will presumably make for valid empirical research. I will consider later how well Maassen himself achieves that goal.