Field Of Study In Higher Education Research Articles

Critiquing the sacred and the profane in higher education

This paper sets the stage for an examination of ‘critiquing the sacred and profane in higher education,’ outlining the motivation for exploring collective contribution to the field of higher education studies. Specifically, this paper states that the taken-for-granted concepts that frame academic praxis serve as conceptual lenses to critically evaluate how the academy’s principles and practices are formed and reconstructed over time and across contexts. Paying attention to what is considered sacred (and by whom) and, conversely, what is considered profane reveals a story of what and who is valued and the histories, discourse, and power relations that inform these differential notions of ‘sacredness’. The articles within this special issue collectively illuminate the inherent ambiguity of academic concepts, showcasing their diverse interpretations and the significant implications these hold for higher education practices across different contexts, inviting readers to engage with the complexities and nuances that shape the field.

The process of building European university alliances: a rhizomatic analysis of the European Universities Initiative

Drawingupon French philosophy, this study offers a novel empirical and conceptual understanding of the newly launched European Universities Initiative. In 2019, higher education institutions across the European Union created 17 new alliances as part of the first pilot phase of the initiative. This is an experiment in European and global higher education. This paper offers a conceptual contribution to the field of higher education studies, making use of a rhizomatic analysis to explore how university alliances build what the European Commission refers to as the ‘European universities of the future.’ Based on the conceptual reflection and findings from a small-scale empirical study, this paper concludes that the alliances within the European Universities Initiative rely on pre-existing higher education and research partnerships while at the same time experimenting to foster a diversity of institutional forms to achieve the ambitious goal of creating ‘European Universities.’

Foucault’un Kavramlarını Yükseköğretim Araştırmalarında Kullanmak

Geçtiğimiz yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren Fransız düşünür Michel Foucault gerek yöntemi gerekse kavramları kullanımı bakımından önemli bir yerde durmaktadır. Foucault'un çalışmaları çok çeşitli disiplinlerden araştırmacılar tarafından referans olarak kabul edilmektedir. Yükseköğretim araştırmaları alanı da İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrası itibariyle politika (policy) temelli bir anlayışla şekillenmiştir. Bu çalışmanın amacı Michel Foucault’un tarihsel yöntemi ile dispositif, bilgi- iktidar ilişkileri, yönetimsellik, söylem vd. kavramlarının yükseköğretim araştırmaları alanında nasıl kullanılabileceğini araştırmaktır. Bu bağlamda yükseköğretimin bir dispositif olarak ele alınabileceği iddia edilmekte, Foucauldyan bir kavram olarak “yönetsel düzenek” ortaya atılmaktadır. Çalışmada yöntem olarak literatür taraması kullanılmaktadır. Çalışma iki ayrı disiplini bir araya getirmesi ve yeni araştırmalara alan açması sebebiyle önem arz etmektedir. Çalışmada Öncelikle yükseköğretim araştırmaları alanı literatürü geçmişten günümüze incelenmektedir. İkinci olarak Foucault’un yöntemi ve kavramları üzerinde durulmaktadır. Son olarak Foucault’un yöntem ve kavramlarının yükseköğretim çalışmaları kapsamında literatürde nasıl kullanıldığı ve kullanılabileceği üzerinden bir tartışma yürütülmektedir.

International development higher education: Looking from the past, looking to the future

ABSTRACT International development higher education is a distinct space in a vibrant and growing field of higher education studies. This paper examines international development higher education scholarship to highlight its thematic, disciplinary, methodological, and analytical eclecticism. At the heart of international development higher education is the assumption that the world can be made better by the human effort invested in higher education. This paper offers a novel conceptualisation of the ways in which higher education’s contributions to development can be understood. The bulk of the existing literature essentialises higher education’s role in the advancement of human capital and the modernisation of societies. In contrast, anti-essentialist understandings can include various conceptualisations of how higher education can contribute to the realisation of human rights and capabilities to pursue the freedoms people value. A holistic understanding of university contributions to development would encompass all of the essentialist and anti-essentialist, as well as post-foundationalist ways of looking at this important but empirically elusive link. The paper suggests to delink development from ‘international’ and reframe development as ‘glonacal’, thus allowing scholars and practitioners to be less bound by nation-state borders, and more conscious of the local nuance and the global connectedness.

What do we know about academic culture? A review of the concept in the field of higher education studies

Resumen La idea de cultura académica tiene una amplia tradición en los estudios en educación superior. Sin embargo, existen pocos estudios actuales sobre este concepto. Este artículo tiene por objetivo revisar el uso del concepto de cultura académica en la literatura especializada en educación superior a partir de una revisión bibliográfica, fundamentada por técnicas bibliométricas, de los estudios sobre este tema en los últimos veinte años, prestando especial atención al estado del arte en el contexto latinoamericano. Los resultados muestran que si bien existe una utilización creciente del concepto, esta no ha ido vinculada a una definición clara ni a la consolidación de un campo de estudios específico. En particular, existen cuatro líneas de investigación sobre cultura académica: el impacto de los cambios en la economía política en los valores tradicionales de las instituciones de educación superior, los desafíos del intercambio internacional de estudiantes y académicos, el reconocimiento de los prejuicios implícitos a la cultura académica dominante, y la relación entre normas tácitas y procesos de reforma organizacional. Además se discute cómo el carácter fundamentalmente ateórico de los estudios en cultura académica refleja el estado de la investigación en educación superior, especialmente en el contexto latinoamericano.

A black woman’s perspective on understanding transformation and diversity in South African higher education

Background: Today, transformation and diversity are concepts that form an integral part of the functioning of higher education institutions globally. These two concepts have drawn vast amounts of interest from scholars who work in the field of higher education studies. Aim: The current article considers the perspectives of black women academics in an exploration of the concepts of transformation and diversity. This standpoint approach brings to the fore the voices of black women in the changing higher education landscape, in an attempt to provide an understanding of prevailing gender inequalities. Setting: The study was conducted at one higher education institution, involving women academics from different faculties and different social backgrounds. Methods: The adoption of a gender approach sheds light on a social justice perspective that higher education institutions in South Africa aspire to attain. The article reports on 12 black women’s configuration of transformation and diversity from a gender perspective in a country where gender in higher education has always been an issue of contention. Results: The inclusion of four white women academics in the study served the goal of contrasting their views with those of the black women, to illuminate the intersectionality of race and gender in human experiences. A thematic analysis of data highlights the complexities of understanding the role of institutional management, self-responsibility and self-awareness in transformation and diversification processes. The role of different standpoints in understanding transformation also came out strongly in the findings. Conclusion: It can, therefore, be concluded that standpoints play a crucial role in meaning making and experiences of transformation for women academics in institutions of higher learning.

Twenty Years of General Education in China: Progress, Problems, and Solutions

General education is a subject with rich contents and that is highly contested in the field of higher education studies. It has been highly praised for its core concepts such as broad educational targets, liberating educational objectives, and balanced educational content. Looking back at the course of general education in China over the past 20 years we can find “top-down” cultural quality education (文化素质教育) and “bottom-up” general education (通识教育) have formed two stages with clear “characteristics,” with the first decade being mainly cultural quality education, and the most recent decade having had general education gradually enter the mainstream and reveal native qualityistics. This change has led the practice of general education to turn from being government led to university autonomy, and also reflects the increasing depth of Chinese exploration into general education. China’s practice of general education still faces problems with integrating major-based professional education and general education, and must adopt suitable solutions.

Diversifying the Higher-Education Curriculum: Queering the Design and Pedagogy

Diversifying the Higher-Education CurriculumQueering the Design and Pedagogy Sarasvathie Reddy (bio) Keyword diversifying pedagogy, diversity, curriculum transformation, higher-education curriculum The contributions to this special section have provided a rich and fascinating insight into how academics working in the field of religion and theology engage the quest of "queering the curriculum"—both how they conceptualize this quest and how they put this quest into concrete teaching and pedagogy practices in their respective institutional and national contexts. As an academic not working in the subject area of religious studies myself but in the field of higher-education studies, in this concluding contribution I share more general thoughts about diversifying and indeed queering curriculum design and pedagogy. I do so writing from my own context, in postapartheid South Africa. The Transforming South African Higher-Education System Historically, the South African higher-education sector primarily targeted and served a minority ethnic group. The years from 1948 to 1993 were characterized by apartheid, which legalized separate development along racial lines. During this time, South African higher education was marked by highly fragmented, incoherent, and uncoordinated policy and planning. The dawn of democracy in 1994 gave rise to the popularization of diversity as a value for all state organs to uphold. The South African 1996 Constitution guaranteed all South Africans rights of citizenship and equality before the law. The new government introduced educational reforms, and previously white institutions [End Page 161] had to open their doors to the students they previously discriminated against.1 Massification of the higher-education system began in earnest, addressing issues of equity, redress, and development. New student constituencies reflected a wide spectrum of cultural backgrounds, personal histories, and religious affiliations and representing a diversity in race, ethnicity, culture, class, gender, age, language, and sexual orientation. In response to the changing student body, institutions needed to reflect this diversity in their teaching staff, institutional cultures, and curricula. Since then, various institutional reform and transformation programs have been put in place to accommodate the diverse learning needs of students in higher education. The Council for Higher Education (CHE) formed the Higher Education Quality Committee, which oversees evaluation of curricula for various academic programs offered in institutions of higher learning.2 Subsequently, the CHE initiated the Quality Enhancement Project (QEP), which included institutional audits of higher-education institutions (HEIs). Phase 1 of the QEP (2011–15) focused on enhancing academics as teachers, promoting student support and development, improving the learning environment, and augmenting course and program enrollment management. As indicated in the CHE Process Document of November 2013, Phase 2 (2017) focused on the following four areas of the curriculum: • Curriculum renewal and transformation • Diversity and inclusivity • Curriculum development capacity and quality • Participation in curriculum design and development According to the CHE QEP 2 Process Document: "Curriculum lies at the heart of students' academic experience. It provides for students to obtain a qualification, formal recognition by an educational institution and society of a specific set of achievements. The design of the curriculum in particular ways embodies assumptions, often tacit, about what the institution considers the purpose of the curriculum (and the qualification of which it is a part) to be, a purpose which may or may not be shared by the students."3 It is to the discussion on the curriculum as a site for transformation that we now turn. [End Page 162] Discerning Operations of Power in the Curriculum Curriculum refers to the means by and materials with which students interact to achieve identified educational outcomes. It is the total of experiences that we create or deliver to our students through a systematic plan for teaching and learning. Different types of curricula exist in the higher-education context. Intended curriculum refers to planned interaction with students using a structure or framework. Hidden curriculum refers to a side effect of education, lessons that are learned but not openly intended, such as the transmission of norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in the classroom and the social environment of the campus. Any learning experience may teach unintended lessons; for example, certain values may be transmitted while we teach the official curriculum (for example, appropriate social practices, religious beliefs/nonbeliefs, and so on). Null...

Buildig knowledge and knowers in writing retreats: Towards developing the field of higher education teaching and learning

Writing for publication is essential for disseminating research findings, sharing initiatives and innovations with others, and developing the knowledge base of intellectual fields. This study explores the role of writing retreats in building knowledge and knowers in the field of Higher Education Studies, specifically within the area of higher education pedagogy. We conceptually frame our research with Legitimation Code Theory (Maton 2014) in order to analyse the different ways in which participants in writing retreats orientate themselves to the social practice of writing for publication and the knowledge base of higher education pedagogy. The data comprise participants’ feedback on writing retreats, collected from surveys and focus group interviews at two universities (a teaching-intensive university and a research-intensive university), and supplementary institutional data on retreat participants and their writing achievements. By examining the organising principles of the writing retreats in terms of how they build knowledge and knowers, we make explicit the knowledge-building practices that underpin successful writing retreats and the orientations towards these practices that are productive for potential authors.

Nomadic political ontology and transnational academic mobility

ABSTRACTTransnational academic mobility is often characterized in relation to terms such as ‘brain drain’, ‘brain gain’, or ‘brain circulation’ – terms that isolate researchers’ minds from their bodies, while saying nothing about their political identities as foreign nationals. In this paper, I explore the possibilities of a more ‘nomadic political ontology’, where the body is ‘multifunctional and complex, a transformer of flows and energies, affects, desires and imaginings’ (p. 25). In this sense, academic mobility is not only the outcome of national innovation and economic competitiveness strategies, but also sets the conditions for epistemic and ontological change at the level of the individual. In this paper, I explore a personal account of the nomadic political ontology of academic mobility to exemplify the interrelationships between nationalism, academic belonging and transnationalism. My experiences as a transnational subject affect the stability and scope of my work as a policy-oriented researcher who studies the academic profession and the internationalization of higher education. My positionality in relation to my research focus is likely not unique to the field of higher education studies or educational research more broadly, which permits a wider applicability of this exploration beyond personal narrative and a particular national context. This personal reflection, guided by nomadic theory and post-structural possibilities, offers a viewpoint of the academic profession beyond the standard mobility discourse.

Policy path dependence of a research agenda: the case of Chile in the aftermath of the student revolt of 2011

The rapidly shifting higher education policy agenda in the aftermath of the students' movement of 2011 in Chile and its mismatch with Chile's research capacities in the field of higher education studies are analyzed to illustrate how research is path dependent on policy. I argue that a stable policy environment, where change is only marginal or incremental, begets research problems and questions squarely situated within the boundaries of the established rules of the game. Conversely, whenever policy swerves considerably off its expected path, knowledge may not be available to illuminate policy-making. The motif of disassociation between the policy field in the making with the availability of knowledge to support it is probed via the analysis of two policy proposals currently in Chile's new government agenda: introducing tuition-free higher education and assuming greater state oversight of teacher education programs.

The emergence of a field: research and training in higher education

Higher education as a field of study emerged as universities became complex institutions requiring data and interpretation for effective management and governance. The field expanded in the mid-20th century, and now includes many research and other journals, books, and other reports and publications. Academic departments and centers have been established to produce research and analysis, as well as to train professionals for university management. Government agencies also produce data on higher education, and many universities have established departments for institutional research to help them in management and planning. The field of higher education studies has grown along with the massification of postsecondary education worldwide.

Towards a professionalisation of student affairs in Africa

The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) has been established as a platform for critically engaging with these developments by means of encouraging, supporting and disseminating high quality research and professional reflection from a diversity of national and institutional contexts. The JSAA is an independent, international, peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary academic journal, established to serve the broad range of associations and professionals, institutions, centres and individual academics and researchers in the field. The JSAA publishes scholarly research and reflective-practitioner discussions about the theory and practice of student affairs in African higher education. It ultimately strives to become the foremost scholarly and professional journal dealing with the theory and practice of the student affairs domain in higher education on the African continent. As such it will be an indispensible resource for the executive leadership of universities and colleges dealing with student affairs, deans of students and other senior student affairs professionals, as well as institutional researchers, academics and students focused on the field of higher education studies and student affairs.

Where Are We Going and Who Will We Teach?: Conjectures about Comparative Literature and the Humanities

This paper offers a dark and light macro and micro vision of graduate education in the Humanities in the United States with some anecdotal evidence specific to Literature. I'll intersperse my comments with some data and conclude with a few comments about the future of Literature. As Haun Saussy has so eloquently argued, Comparative Literature has won its battles. It has never been better received in the American (3). But where is the American university going? As an amateur in the field of higher education studies, let me propose a few answers. First, Literature in the U.S. seems to be thriving. The membership of the ACLA has doubled from approximately 600 to 1200 in the past two years. There are about 175 Literature programs and departments in the U.S. according to the September 2006 PMLA. Not all of these, however, are in the Carnegie Foundation's 96 Very High Research Universities, nor in the 103 High Research Universities and 84 Basic Doctoral Research Universities (see Carnegiefoundation. org or The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2006-07). Indeed, the National Research Council survey that is currently underway has just announced that there are forty-seven Literature programs in their doctoral survey. This compares reasonably to other doctoral programs in the Humanities: for instance, forty-three in French and Francophone, thirty-three in Germanic languages, sixty-two in Spanish and Portuguese, and one hundred twenty-five in English departments (Council of Graduate Schools Communicator). Given these numbers, Literature is doing quite well. However, the Humanities in general are struggling, partially because we in the profession are not doing as effective a job as we could in teaching our students when they are seeking academic employment to look beyond a narrow selection of Very High Research Universities, nor are we publicizing the value of the education we offer. This conclusion leads me into a somewhat darker discussion. At the Council of Graduate Schools meeting in Washington, D.C. in December 2006, the Comptroller General of the United States, David M. Walker, in a paper titled America's Fiscal Future: Implications for Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, gave a complex and almost terrifying picture of the American economy over the next forty years. In brief, if some major changes are not made in federal expenditures and tax codes in the U.S. in the next few years, America will go bankrupt. Let me note that the Comptroller General wrote and gave this speech before Al Gore's film and the United Nations report on global warming. But apart from floods and droughts, the effect a national bankruptcy would have on higher education is obvious. If the head of the gao does manage to persuade Congress to balance the budget and not pay a projected 40 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (gDP) in interest on loans (as we will be doing by 2040 if we continue current policies), we still are not out of difficulty. Part of the challenge America faces is that international competition in higher education is becoming much more intense, as I'll mention in a bit more detail in a few minutes. On the lighter side of the future of education, we also heard another paper at the Council of Graduate Schools conference outlining the 150-year history of higher education and the last sixty years of world-wide mass education. The transition that an ever increasingly educated world population is making and will continue to make is almost miraculous, as many of you know who have seen the abrupt changes in educational systems in places like China and India. Add to this that countries like Australia are developing very fine higher educational systems, and that they are competing intensely for international students, students who formerly would have come to the United States. I could spend additional time here talking about the changes in the European education system as a result of the Bologna Treaty, a treaty that basically outlines a plan to harmonize the higher education system in Europe so that students can transfer with ease back and forth between different European countries and universities. …

Research and Training in Higher Education: The State of the Art

The author presents a tour d'horizon of the field of higher education studies, including research on higher education, citing the relevant publication series and journals dealing with the subject, the strongest institutions, worldwide, offering university level studies in the field, and the antecedents of the endeavour. It is growing in importance as higher education institutions and systems expand, diversify, and become increasingly complex, requiring more and better insights regarding themselves for various purposes. The field needs to more fully tap findings in parallel interdisciplinary fields and to publicize the results of private institutional endeavours such as institutional research. A very glowing prognosis for higher education studies is given.

Editorial: The Review and the Field of Higher Education

The Review and the Field of Higher Education Philip G. Altbach I This journal has a unique role in higher education. It is one of the major journals reporting research and scholarship on post-secondary education. It is also the only journal that has the significant responsibility of reflecting on the field of higher education studies. It has the potential to influence higher education policy and practice by linking the research community with policymakers and senior administrators in America’s colleges and universities. The challenge for The Review in the coming period is to link its multiple missions effectively and to provide a forum for dialogue and communication, thus enhancing the impact of research on policy. The Association for the Study of Higher Education, which sponsors this journal, is a unique organization with a special role in the complex web of American higher education. It speaks for the higher education research community and for those involved in the academic training of professionals in the field. Its core members are in these two overlapping communities, which constitute two of the central constituencies in the higher education community. Researchers work not only in universities but also in policy departments of universities and in state and federal government agencies. The higher education professoriate trains a significant proportion of mid-level management in colleges and universities; and graduates of higher education programs can increasingly be found in top leadership positions in academic [End Page 1] institutions, as well as in governmental agencies that deal with higher education. The field of higher education has achieved a significant level of professional standing and intellectual rigor. Those holding advanced degrees in the field are accepted at all levels of the administrative hierarchy in academic institutions. Graduate-level training in higher education is increasingly seen as useful preparation for administrative careers in academe. Just as impressive, policy organizations and agencies in government and the private sector see training in the field as highly relevant. This achievement is especially noteworthy when one considers that, although the field of higher education studies can trace its history back to the early 20th century, it has grown significantly only since the 1960s. Indeed, the history of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and of this journal reflects the development of the field. II There is an interesting bifurcation in the field. While training in higher education is seen as relevant preparation for professional work in administration, policy, and research, much of the potential influence of the higher education research community has yet to be realized. While we have no hard data, it seems unlikely that much direct use is made by policymakers in academic institutions or in government of much of the research produced by scholars of higher education. There are, of course, exceptions to this generalization; but overall, the impact of research on policy seems to be limited. This comment probably sums the case for most other fields from health care to international commerce. The “disconnect” between policy and research may be especially strong where the topic being researched has become politicized. This situation is certainly the case for higher education, where debates about tuition costs, affirmative action, and other policy issues are played out on the pages of daily newspapers and in the halls of government. The pages of this journal may yield some insights regarding both the strengths and the weaknesses of higher education research. While the quality of most of the research reported over the years in The Review is high, much of the research consists of limited case studies on topics that presidents or policymakers facing more pressing issues often consider to be of peripheral relevance. At the same time, even though many of the articles published in this journal do speak to important issues in higher education, they do not receive much attention beyond the community of higher education scholars. Here, the canons of traditional scholarship to which a research journal like The Review subscribes may limit the direct impact of [End Page 2] research. Other publications, such as Change, reach a wider audience, in part because of how articles are written. The dilemmas of communicating research are not easily solved. This journal is...