Higher Education Policy最新文献

Success in the competition for external grants has become an important indicator when progressing in academic careers. Drawing on interview data with academics across various career stages and academic fields at one Finnish university, the study identifies four discourses that elucidate why research grants are deemed significant in advancing an academic career. The findings indicate that it is appealing for universities to use research funding success as an assessment criterion due to its connections to authoritative discourses in higher education and research policy. For example, funding success is seen as a symbol of high academic quality and as a signal of an individual’s ability to thrive in a resource-scarce environment. However, in the context of limited resources for research and the introduction of new societally oriented funding instruments, utilizing funding success as an assessment criterion overlooks academics’ different prerequisites for gaining funding.

In recent decades, policies have been implemented in Europe to promote gender equality in higher education and in academic research. The Spanish Organic Law 3/2007 for the effective equality of women and men contemplates Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) as a tool for companies and organizations, including universities, to achieve this end. One of the most relevant concerns in any GEP is the initial diagnosis of the situation, but the literature also points out a need for periodical monitoring of the state of inequalities to measure the impact, effects and consequences of the implemented actions of the plan. Hence, the aim of this article was to develop a questionnaire for equality as perceived by staff in a university labor context and to explore its preliminary psychometric properties. The GEPSU (Gender Equality Perception Scale for Universities) was developed by a group of women researchers who all have expertise in gender studies and experience and training in GEPs. A total of 270 people from different staff categories answered the GEPSU by Google Form survey at a Spanish Public University. The results for the dimensional structure and construct validity of the GEPSU showed three factors: labor Equality (Factor 1), Conciliation (Factor 2) and Motherhood/Fatherhood (Factor 3). We found high correlations between them and the results for their internal consistency were optimal.

Promotion and tenure (P&T) is the process by which academic faculty are evaluated on the trajectory and impact of their scholarly career. Faculty are typically assessed on their grants, publications, teaching, and service. Ethnically minoritized faculty face disparities in P&T, perhaps due to the lack of standards for quantifying their efforts in the community and scholarship that is relevant to issues of social justice and public concern. Efforts in social and mass media to translate research findings and to disseminate evidence-based prevention and intervention efforts, however, are not often considered in P&T despite their direct impact on the community and contribution to the field. This paper discusses how the academy can quantify and qualify the impact of social media and mass media work in existing P&T considerations, particularly for departments with faculty in social and applied sciences. We discuss how social media and mass media work can be evaluated within existing P&T review criteria, and we provide suggestions for committees to quantify the impact of online and media efforts. Last, we conclude with suggestions for departments, colleges, academic medical centers, and universities in higher education to support early career faculty who are engaging in this extremely important, often under-rewarded work.

For the most part, the concept of the “national university” possess significant overlaps with the public/state, civic, and flagship university. Toward enriching the conceptual toolkit of higher education, this study explores what has been meant by a 'national university' and how could we identify such an organization empirically. Through a thematic analysis of a digital corpus in English, the study identifies four substantive themes that characterize the national university as it was articulated during the formative period of the nation-state. The core themes of such a concept include functioning as a tool for state development in terms of human capital, cultural identity, and social networks; serving as a nation’s most advanced learning institution; providing meritocratic higher education without discrimination and in consideration of subnational divisions; and possessing a definite link with the central government. Comparing these findings with closely related organizational models in higher education, a key difference of the national university is in its role in articulating a national identity through providing advanced education that is particularly inclusive of subnational divisions. The paper further forwards two contrasting empirical approaches to the national university: a historical–legal de jure approach and a sociocultural de facto approach.

Education is the pillar of social development. Higher education in particular teaches how to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. For the better opportunities of tomorrow, forward-looking nations formulate inclusive education policies today. However, it is not uncommon to see authoritarian regimes control knowledge production and dissemination as an instrument of political socialization to establish their rules, making the education sector in particular the key political battleground. Using the Gramscian hegemonic approach, this article examines how education policies have been manipulated in many African states to serve the dominant interests of the ruling class. Drawing on evidence from Ethiopia, Egypt, Eritrea, Malawi, and Rwanda, the paper argues that the governing regimes in postcolonial Africa that turned dictators abused learning institutions to manufacture consent and legitimacy to their rules, undermining indigenous education and knowledge in Africa.

Since the 1990s, Israel has gone through a significant academic educational expansion. However, the part of the Israeli citizen Palestinian Arab population in this expansion was delayed until the last decade. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the delayed participation of the Arab population in academic educational expansion. Using age-period-cohort models and labor force surveys from 1995 until 2021, I present the trends in the increasing participation of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in academic education. The results suggest that the primary cause of this increase was a change in gender norms that enabled Palestinian Arab women to engage more fully in educational pursuits. The differences among the Arab population (Muslims, Druze, and Christians) are also discussed.

This paper explores the impact of managerialism on democracy in Higher Education by analyzing the implications of the Legal Framework of Higher Education Institutions in Portugal from 2007 to 2022. The findings, drawn from data on representation and electoral participation, reveal deficiencies in democratic governance. Notably, General Councils lacking legitimacy, and there is insufficient representation within the teaching and research community. Consequently, the disparities in electoral representation and labor rights disproportionately affect those facing precarity and job insecurity. The law's inability to strengthen accountability, transparency, and participation underscores the urgent need to promote democratic governance within public higher education institutions. By shedding light on the impacts of the Legal Framework, this research emphasizes the crucial task of evaluating and enhancing democratic governance in higher education for the benefit of the academic community and society at large.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid transition to remote teaching in Higher Education (HE) institutions worldwide. Whilst there is existing research on the advantages and disadvantages of online teaching from transactional and adult learning theory perspectives, there is a lack of investigation into the specific challenges faced by academics in the UK HE sector concerning their teaching and research during the pandemic. This paper aims to fill this research gap by examining the experiences of nearly 300 academics in the UK HE sector through a qualitative online questionnaire. The findings of this study reveal several challenges associated with the sudden shift to online teaching. These challenges include time constraints, a lack of digital skills, technology issues, and an increased teaching workload. Academics also encountered difficulties engaging and connecting with students, as remote teaching created a sense of detachment between them. This finding aligns with the theoretical propositions of the self-determination theory, particularly regarding the sense of relatedness. Remote teaching presented obstacles in gauging students' reactions and understanding, as it lacked interactivity, personalisation, and the ability to keep students motivated and engaged. Additionally, academics faced issues assessing online assignments and monitoring students' progress and development. The isolation from remote work further contributed to a lack of concentration in teaching and research. The study also highlights the significant increase in teaching loads experienced by academics, as they had to adapt their teaching materials to suit the new mode of delivery. Academic research was impeded by limited access to labs, equipment, research time, and support due to the demands of teaching. Field-based research was put on hold, and many academics found collaborating with colleagues without physical proximity challenging. Considering these challenges, the study proposes ideas for overcoming barriers in future crisis events. The findings have implications for research and policy, further discussed in the paper.

Universities are increasingly perceived as strategic organizational actors that position themselves in the competition for reputation, resources, and talent. This study asks whether such positioning within the organizational field can explain variance in university governance structures. We quantitatively explore and explain the distribution of governance structures in German universities based on the actual organizational structures. Using original, hand-coded data on office, election, and decision rules of 80 German state universities managed by the subnational states (Länder), our study contributes to the existing literature in two regards. First, we provide an innovative and comprehensive, as well as a detailed description of German university governance—capturing the full empirical variance. Second, we test the effects of organizational field positions characterized by (1) state legislation, (2) competition, and (3) disciplinary foci. The findings indicate significant effects on the distribution of governance structures by state legislation and unsystematic effects of strategic and disciplinary organizational fields.