Sociology Of Higher Education Research Articles

Scientific and Pedagogical Community of Russia Universities as an Object of Resource Mobilisation

The article is devoted to a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of mobilisational management of the resources of the scientific and pedagogical community (SPC) of Russian universities. The focus was placed on the concepts of NPS resource capacity and its mobilisation as one of the models of university management. The purpose of the article is to reveal the potential of theories of resource mobilisation, social community, resource concepts in the conceptualisation of the notion of mobilisation of NPS resource сapacity. The authors consider the main ideas and theses of theories developed in branches of sociological knowledge other than the sociology of higher education, and adapt them to the context of university management of the NPS. The authors´ interpretation of the concept of NPS as a social community and socio-professional community has been updated in the light of resource concepts. The content of the concept of NPS resource capacity is discussed as a set of opportunities into which a given university community converts the means and methods of its professional activities, as well as the associated properties inherent in scientific and pedagogical workers as a socio-professional community. One of the main results of the article is related to the substantiation of the approach to the classification of NPS resources.
 It is proposed to identify and take into account in university management practices the following five blocks of resources - socio-demographic (quantitative, age, gender resources); scientific research (research, publication, temporal resources); pedagogical (educational and pedagogical resources, advanced scientific and pedagogical qualifications, mentoring); resources for interaction between scientific and pedagogical workers (RPWs) and scientific teams (communication, resource of scientific schools and teams); moral-symbolic (symbolic and moral-ideological resources). Mobilisational university management is considered as a strategy for managing research and development staff, which involves concentrating the resources and efforts of academic staff on strategic directions and tasks of university development. As prerequisites for such a management approach, it is substantiated to take into account and update the processes of self-organisation of the NPS as a complex and highly professional community, to restore understanding, trust, and solidarity between it and the administrative and managerial corps of universities. The question is raised about the actors in the mobilisation of NPS resources, who must have a deep knowledge of the sources, features and patterns of functioning of the resources of the academic community. In conclusion, the article discusses the issue of demand in university management for a scientifically based approach to mobilisation management of NPS resources and the readiness of the administrative and managerial apparatus to use it.

Z세대의 디지털사회학적 시각에 대한 사례연구

This study aims to explore the application of digital sociology in higher education. By using the word cloud, generation Z's digital sociological perspective is analyzed, which is called digital native, for freshmen in 2022. To this end, the results of Korean students who took general education classes at C-University were analyzed. Based on the three research questions, (1) Gen Z showed a receptive attitude to text-mining techniques. (2) Gen Z experienced differences in data processing from the perspective of digital sociology according to the degree of humanities background knowledge. (3) It was possible to capture the common perception of “employment” of Gen Z.

Resources of the research-pedagogical community: Administrative and mobilization approaches

The study of the research-pedagogical community’s (RPC) resources of Russian universities in the sociological perspective is determined by the new conditions for the implementation of the development strategy of the Russian higher education. An adequate assessment and the full use of the RPC’ potential, including its unused resources, are of particular importance for Russian universities experiencing serious deficits today. The article proposes a new ‘optics’ for assessing the ability of the university management to mobilize traditional and unused resources of the RPC. The article aims at describing the administrative and mobilization management approaches to the analysis of the RPC’ resources in Russian universities. The authors consider the problem at the intersection of sociology of management and sociology of higher education. The article is based on the secondary analysis of the research data collected by the authors since 2016. The authors also consider documents of strategic planning for the development of higher education and science in order to identify the priorities of the RPC’s academic development and the requirements for them in new conditions. The research is based on the analysis of the statistical data on the main indicators for the development of the Russian higher education in 2014-2021, such as databases of the Monitoring of the effectiveness of higher education organizations, statistical yearbooks ‘Indicators of Education’, data of the Monitoring of the Economics of Education of the Higher School of Economics, and other open sources. Thus, based on the theoretical and empirical research of the higher education practices, the authors define the concept and structure of the RPC’s resources; explain the need for a managerial approach in universities as aimed at mobilizing the unused RPC’s resources; reveal the limitations of the university administrative decisions in assessing and use of the RPC’s resources. The authors make three main conclusions: first, about the meaning of the concept and structure of the RPC’s resources as an important means of managerial analysis; second, about the need for a model of the mobilization university management; third, about the consequences of the dominance of the administrative approach in assessing and use of the RPC’s resources.

Studies on Sociology Teaching in Higher Education: A Comparative Literature Review of American, European, and Turkish Sociology

This article is a literature review that comparatively examines publications and research conducted about the teaching of sociology in higher education. English, Turkish, and to some extent French academic journals and sources were surveyed, and articles about sociology education in different countries were compiled. Thereby, the possibilities and features of a field which can be called “studies on teaching sociology” were discussed and assessed within the context of American, European, and Turkish sociology. Through compiling the perspectives and ways sociology education are studied, the goal of this article is to draw attention to the issue of how to teach disciplines at higher education as well as to provide insights about potential future research on the topic. Teaching Sociology, the longest running academic publication devoted specifically to the teaching of sociology at higher education, was introduced and examined within the context of American higher education academic publications. Studies on the teaching of sociology in European countries such as England, France, and Germany as well as those on Türkiye were discussed in terms of the changes higher education has been going through over the last twenty years, such as the increase of the volume of the higher education, international standardization, the tension between research and teaching workload, and student focused research. While there is an increasing academic interest in the European, Turkish, and particularly American sociology concerning the topic, it is still an understudied field.

Gender, Type of Institution, and Access to Doctoral Education—An Analysis Based on the 2016 National Master’s Graduate Survey

Access to opportunities for higher education is a classic topic in the sociology of higher education, but studies on access to doctoral education are still rare. This paper drew on data from the 2016 National Master’s Graduate Survey to analyze this issue, focusing on the effects of gender and the types of the institution on access to doctoral education. The study found that approximately 10% of Master’s students graduating in 2016 chose to continue on to pursue a doctoral degree, and the factors of gender and the types of the institution both had a significant impact on the outcome for a student’s pursuit of doctoral education. After controlling for the types of the institution, age, number of papers published during the period of study, and other factors, the probability that women in a humanities discipline, social sciences discipline, science or medicine discipline would pursue a doctoral degree was significantly lower than for men. In the discipline of medicine, graduates from a Master’s program at a high-ranking educational institution had a higher probability of pursuing doctoral education. Further analysis indicated that, in comparison with men, women were more likely to be subject to age constraints when choosing to pursue doctoral education, and were also more likely to be affected by satisfaction with their academic advisor.

Sullied: The Albanian Student Movement of December 1990

The study analyzes the beginning of the Albanian student movement of December 1990 from a historical–sociological and comparative perspective. This historical interpretation of various sources (newspaper articles, activists’ memoirs, interviews, and archival documents) draws its theoretical arguments from social movement studies, student activism, and the sociology of higher education. The study offers a complex explanation of the role of the movement during the country’s democratic transition by also looking at similar cases. Considerations of the broader international and local implications, the role of the university, the academic staff, and the student organization all are accounted for. After tracing the repertoires of strategies and content of the movement to the Albanian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the study argues that student activism benefitted from the structural opportunities provided by changes introduced in higher education during the historical sequence of late Socialism.

Specialists training in a technical university in the transition to a robotic society

The prerequisites for the research of the topic arise from the tasks of society modernization and social training of professional staff for these purposes. The latter has traditionally been based on sociology as a science appropriate to the present moment, studying societal problems at the group and individual levels of individual behavior. However, during the transition to the Bologna model of education, it was withdrawn from the Federal State Educational Standard for training future engineers and dramatically downgraded in status, which had a negative impact on their personal potential as professionals. This was stated by employers who had been given the task of using these graduates for the purposes of Russia’s transition to an information, robotic society. The purpose of the research is to draw the attention of society and the authorities to the importance of strengthening the social training of groups capable of keeping up with the scientific and technological progress of society, using the base of sociological knowledge. For the methodological basis of the topic were used: the sociology of higher education, theories of personal role behavior, as well as the concept of social humanism. Three sets of sources and literature on the topic have been studied, revealing the main problem of society, which centers on the situation with “artificial sociality” as a condition of socialization of student youth, and the conjunction of their behavior with “digital risks”; as well as the impact of these risks on both natural and social environments. It is argued that students who are already taking these risks today are potential creators of new “digital” and other technologies, who have not mastered the skills of forecasting social and professional behavior and have not formed themselves as a whole person. The hypothesis formulated in the article about the tendency to reduce the hours of social training in universities for engineering personnel has been confirmed. The reason for this trend is the neoliberal policy of austerity on education.

The Formation and Development of Foreign Sociology of Higher Education: A Review

The review article summarizes the processes of development of higher education sociology abroad over the past 50 years. The choice of the research object was determined by the real achievements of national higher education systems and a high level of higher school sociology development in USA, Great Britain, France, Scandinavian countries, and Spain. The review reflects the advancement of leading sociologists of higher education in these countries. The authors have applied a methodology of comparative analysis studying the Western experience of sociological research in higher education, the main ideas and trends. The article dwells on the ways of changes in the content field of Western sociology of higher education. The practical significance of the review is determined by the possibilities of using the proposed analysis for the development of Russian sociology of higher education and University development practices.

Universidad y protesta social: una reflexión desde Chile

Desde octubre de 2019, Chile experimentó una intensa protesta social, a la cual luego se sobreponen los efectos de la pandemia del Covid-19. Este ensayo indaga en las causas de la protesta y el rol que desempeñan las universidades en tiempos de crisis. Para esto recurre a conceptos de la sociología de la educación superior y utiliza datos secundarios provenientes del debate público, la prensa, informes de agencias gubernamentales y observaciones recogidas por estudios de casos. Concluye que la protesta fue provocada por una brecha entre expectativas de participación en los beneficios de la modernización capitalista, movilizadas por la masificación de la educación superior, y las satisfacciones generadas por el Estado y la sociedad. En este cuadro, las universidades se han debatido entre abstraerse de las luchas sociales, plegarse a ellas o contribuir a superar la crisis desde su propia racionalidad institucional. 

Parental Unemployment and the Transition into Tertiary Education: Can Institutions Moderate the Adverse Effects?

Abstract We examine how parental unemployment affects children’s transition to postsecondary education in different institutional contexts. Drawing on theoretical perspectives in intergenerational mobility research and sociology of higher education, we estimate the extent to which these intergenerational effects depend on social and education policies. We use data from five longitudinal surveys to analyze the effects of parental unemployment on entry to postsecondary education in 21 countries. The results of multilevel regression analysis show that in contexts that provide better insurance against unemployment, in terms of generous earnings replacement, the adverse effect of parental unemployment is alleviated. Moreover, entry gaps between youth from unemployed and employed households are smaller in tertiary education systems with more opportunity-equalizing education policies that provide more financial support to students and reduce the role of private expenditure. Some evidence also indicates that policies are more relevant for children of less-educated unemployed parents.

Life story as a tool for teaching sociological imagination

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of life story for the teaching of sociology to Social Work students. It contains the results of a teaching experiment in higher education which aims to foster sociological imagination among students.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a mixed methodology. The quantitative data came from a survey handed out to the students with closed and open questions. The qualitative information came from the contents of class exercises in which the students had to connect the theoretical contents of the course of sociology with the biographical narratives of different research subjects.FindingsThe results reflect student satisfaction or appreciation regarding the use of the life story as a teaching resource, as well as a successful acquisition of sociological skills and knowledge, such as critical thinking, micro-macro connection and the interplay between structure and agency.Practical implicationsLife story and narrative methods should be employed in post-secondary education as teaching instruments.Originality/valueThe study contributes to expand the reflection on narrative techniques as a pedagogical tool. The paper provides several examples of class exercises with biographical narratives that have demonstrated to be successful for teaching sociology in higher education.

The Myth of Entitlement: Students’ Perceptions of the Relationship Between Grading Practices and Learning at an Elite University

While the existence of grade inflation in the American system of higher education is well documented, the argument that student entitlement drives this dynamic remains unproven. Drawing on an abductive analysis of twenty-nine in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted by undergraduate co-authors, this study addresses these questions: (1) How do undergraduates on one elite campus understand the meaning and function of the grades they have received in college and (2) Do these students think that grading practices impact their undergraduate learning experience, and if so, how? Our results show that entitlement is not a fixed generational attitude so much as a conditional sentiment that individual professor’s grading practices can either disarm or inflame. Our study extends qualitative inquiry on students’ perceptions of grades and develops a student-centered “peer-to-peer” method that can be applied to a wide range of other issues in the sociology of higher education.

Challenges in the Teaching of Sociology in Higher Education. Contributions to a Discussion

At a time when Sociology (either in its introductory or general dimension or in the form of specialised Sociologies) is acknowledged as a scientific discipline with important contributions in training at the higher education level, and not only for the future sociologist, there is a need to (re)think the problem of teaching Sociology in this context. This article seeks to contribute to this discussion on the teaching of Sociology in higher education, being a grounded reflection that is based on the authors’ teaching experience in the Portuguese context. Sociology has specificities, which we put forward through four framing principles, namely the need to permanently mobilise sociological imagination, be multi-paradigmatic, the need to be receptive to a heuristic interdisciplinarity, and, finally, foster reflexivity at several levels. These principles should, from our standpoint, shape the teaching of Sociology, both delimiting what should be taught and fostering the way to teach while abiding by these principles. As a conclusion, this problem of teaching Sociology needs an in-depth investigation, in the search for a growing pedagogical quality in a context of increasing opportunities to reform the type of teaching provided in higher education, which is a permanent challenge.

On the tensions of universities as a social institution – developing a comparative sociology of higher education

ABSTRACTThis review of Natasha Warikoo’s timely and insightful intervention on the relationship between race, social mobility and elite university institutions argues that education has always presented a profoundly contested terrain for debates about race, racism and inclusion but that for too long those debates were confined to pre-eighteen education. The review argues that this study, with its revelatory, comparative U.S./U.K. lens, reveals the complex tensions, ambitions, achievements, identifications, anxieties, limits of diversity, and denials that shape the experiences and perspectives of those students who are part of the population of elite universities. It concludes that Warikoo’s work makes an original and important contribution to the emergent and much needed sociology of higher education.

James E. Côte and Andy Furlong (eds) (2016) Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Higher Education

James E. Côte and Andy Furlong (eds) (2016) Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Higher Education London: Routledge, 396 pp., ISBN 9781138778122

Network Interaction of Universities in Higher Education System of Ural Macro-Region

The subject-matter of the analysis are the characteristics and forms of cooperation between universities of Ural Federal District on the basis of their typology. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the necessity and possibility of network interaction between universities of the macro-region. We prove the importance and potential effectiveness of universities network interaction in the terms of socio-economic uncertainty of the development of Ural Federal District and its higher education. Networking interaction and multilateral cooperation are considered as a new type of inter-universities relations, which can be activated and intensified by strengthening the relations of universities with stakeholders. The authors examine certain concrete forms and formats of network interaction and cooperation between universities and discuss selected cases of new type of relations. In it, they see the real and potential innovation of higher school nonlinear development processes. The statements of the article allow to confirm the hypothesis about the reality of strengthening the network interaction in macro-region. It can transform higher education in the driver of socio-economic development of Ural Federal District; ensure the competitiveness of higher education of the macro-region in the Russian and global educational space; enhance its role in the society; become one of the most significant elements of nonlinear models of higher education development in the country. The authors’ research is based on the interdisciplinary methodology including the potential of theoretical sociology, sociology of higher education, economic sociology, management theory, regional economics. The results of the study can form the basis for the improvement of the Ural Federal District’s educational policy.

New Horizons for Learning and Teaching Economic Sociology in the Modern Higher Education: Theoretical Aspects

The article is devoted to contemporary issues of learning and teaching economic sociology in higher education. The article draws attention to the theoretical and methodological problems of economic sociology. The author analyzes the current global social issues of economic development. The article outlines the prospects of development of teaching economic sociology. These prospects are related to the inclusion in the structure of the teaching and learning economic sociology of new independent topics. There are the topics that reflect contemporary social aspects of global economic problems. There are the problems of transformation of labor or organizational culture, development and global spread of the environmental ethics, the development of the civil society institutions, creation of lifelong learning society. New horizons of learning and teaching economic sociology appear in theoretical and educational deperiferization of these research topics. Modern economic sociology can continue its development only on the basis of transformation of the traditional theoretical discourse toward problem-oriented researches on global changes in different societies. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s5p24

Commercialization and Corporatization Versus Professorial Roles and Academic Freedom in the United States and Greater China

Commercialization and corporatization (C&C) arguably contribute to the strain in the academic roles of professors in research, teaching, and service, and in their political roles as organic, professional, and critical intellectuals, both in the United States and greater China. Although they may manifest themselves in different shapes and forms, these global trends have been going strong and are adversely affecting professors’ role playing, and in essence, their academic freedom, at different degrees in different places. The paper is informed by theoretical perspectives of the sociology of higher education, and its argument is supported by both quantitative and qualitative data. Higher education is not only an important engine of the economy, but also an important driver of social and political change. How well professors can play their roles will directly influence where a society is heading; hence, the importance of this topic and what this paper may contribute to the understanding and solution of the problem.

The Sociology of Higher Education

The Sociology of Higher Education

A Sociology of Higher Education in Korea: Review of the Studies and projecting the future

A Sociology of Higher Education in Korea: Review of the Studies and projecting the future