Bologna and beyond. Experts, entrepreneurs, and users and the challenge of the internationalisation of universities
Bologne et au-delà. Experts, entrepreneurs, usagers face à l’internationalisation des universités
Published on Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Abstract
Announcement
This conference aims at studying the impact of international and European reforms of Higher Education (HE) systems – especially the Bologna Process – on HE in post-communist Central and Eastern European countries (including Germany).
Unlike mainstream scholarship, which is generally concerned with the relative influence of institutions such as the European Commission in this process, we would like to suggest an alternative analytical perspective, consisting in analysing the so-called "Bologna process" from the grassroots level, focusing on those who shape it, interpret it and experience it on a daily basis.
In order to achieve this, the contributors will examine the experts circulating between national spaces (academic, administrative and political fields) and the European level. Another set of contributions will focus on representatives of the academic community who fulfil temporary management roles: deans, members of rectors’ conferences, scholars in charge of various degree-awarding programs and departments. These persons can hold an expert position when they participate in ministerial negotiations or contribute to editing strategic documents. At the same time, they continue to be HEI "users" and they are subject to the constraints and contradictions entailed by the reform process.
We will also study the effects of HE internationalisation and harmonisation processes on a category of "users" that has been rarely included in the existing scholarship, namely the students and the academics themselves, in order to find out whether they can and have to adjust their practices to the new constraints and resources derived from the Bologna Process (the injunction to internationalise curricula, the benchmarking of teaching programmes and degrees, modular courses, competition for material resources, etc.).
Far from being univocal, the Bologna Process complements ongoing transformations initiated long before it started, promoted by international organisations such as the OECD, the Council of Europe or UNESCO as well as by various philanthropic actors involved in social science and humanities reform. Participants will be encouraged to investigate how these various international transfers fit together: are they contradictory or are they complementing and reinforcing each other due to the circulation of common patterns and models, quantitative and qualitative objectives, HE management tools?
Finally, the policies aiming at the harmonisation of academic systems justified by the purpose of building a European Research Area and an internationally competitive European Higher Education market can induce side effects, such as deepening the already existing gaps between different parts of Europe.
In that sense, we suggest questioning the impact of "Bologna" on the academic spaces of its peripheral participants, such as the European Union candidate or new member states, but also neighbouring countries in the broad sense as well as, more recently, non European states who have been engaged in promoting convergence with the European Higher Education Area under various international cooperation programmes.
Papers should address at least one of the following issues
- Sociology of Bologna Process actors (experts, academics, etc.)
- Analysis of international transfers of knowledge, tools, technical indicators, etc.
- Direct and/or indirect impact of the Bologna Process on its academic "users" (students, academics, HEI technical staff)
- Global effects of the Bologna Process on the CEE academic space (uniformisation vs. heterogeneity; consolidation of symbolic hierarchies, new power relations etc.).
Provisional schedule
Deadline for sending the proposals : 15 December 2012
Announcement of the final list of contributors : 15 January 2013
Deadline for sending the papers : 15 May 2013
Please send your contribution proposals (1 page) to the organisers
using the following e-mail addresses: ioana.cirstocea@misha.fr; dorota.dakowska@unistra.fr; laure.neumayer@wanadoo.fr; anja.roecke@sowi.hu-berlin.de; carole.sigman@online.fr
Date
20-21 June 2013
Organisation
Ioana Cîrstocea (CNRS, GSPE), Dorota Dakowska (IEP de Strasbourg, GSPE), Laure Neumayer (Paris I, CRPS), Anja Röcke (Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften), Carole Sigman (CNRS, Centre franco-russe de recherches en sciences humaines et sociales de Moscou)
Subjects
- Europe (Main category)
- Mind and language > Education > History of education
- Mind and language > Education
- Zones and regions > Europe > Germanic world
Places
- Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme – Alsace (MISHA) - 5 allée du Général Rouvillois
Strasbourg, France (67)
Date(s)
- Saturday, December 15, 2012
Keywords
- Système universitaire, enseignement supérieur, réforme
Contact(s)
- Dorota Dakowska
courriel : dorota [dot] dakowska [at] misha [dot] fr
Information source
- Annette Schläfer
courriel : annette [dot] schlafer [at] sorbonne-universite [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Bologna and beyond. Experts, entrepreneurs, and users and the challenge of the internationalisation of universities », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, https://doi.org/10.58079/m0i
