scholarly journals Higher Education Timescapes: Temporal Understandings of Students and Learning

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852199697
Author(s):  
Rachel Brooks ◽  
Jessie Abrahams ◽  
Achala Gupta ◽  
Sazana Jayadeva ◽  
Predrag Lažetić

This article draws on data from six European countries (Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain) to explore the higher education timescapes inhabited by students. Despite arguments that degree-level study has become increasingly similar across Europe – because of global pressures and also specific initiatives such as the Bologna Process and the creation of a European Higher Education Area – it shows how such timescapes differed in important ways, largely by nation. These differences are then explained in terms of: the distinctive traditions of higher education still evident across the continent; the particular mechanisms through which degrees are funded; and the nature of recent national-level policy activity. The analysis thus speaks to debates about Europeanisation, as well as how we theorise the relationship between time and place.

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 485-505
Author(s):  
Iryna Kushnir

This article belongs to a limited body of scholarship concerning inclusion in the Bologna Process. The Bologna Process aims to create the European Higher Education Area with comparable higher education structures within the European Higher Education Area member states. Unlike previous research that focuses on the implementation of one of the Bologna Process inclusion-related action lines (i.e. lifelong learning, student-centred education and social dimension), this article adopts a broader lens, and investigates the evolution of the meaning of ‘inclusion’ in the key international Bologna Process policy documents. This article argues that there is still a lack of clarity around the meaning of ‘inclusion’ in the Bologna Process, and the list of underprivileged groups that the Bologna Process aims to include in higher education, is absent. This article calls for an urgent review of this problem in the Bologna Process at the European Higher Education Area ministerial conference scheduled for 2020 which will set the agenda for post-2020 work in the European Higher Education Area.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Boni ◽  
Jordi Peris ◽  
Estela López ◽  
Andrés Hueso

In this article the authors explore power imbalances in a decision-making process to define the contents of a new Spanish degree adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), specifically the industrial design and product development engineering degree which started in the academic year 2009/10 at the Higher Technical School of Design Engineering (ETSID) at the Technical University of Valencia (UPV). They start the article with a description of the tool they used to analyse the power issues: the power cube, developed by John Gaventa. Then, they briefly explain the process of adaptation of the Bologna Process at the UPV in general and at the ETSID in particular. They introduce the methodology used in their research by referring to the type of questions asked and the criteria used to select their informants. Subsequently, they discuss the answers, paying special attention to three aspects: the quality of participation and the quality of the process; the types of power; and the concept of education. Lastly, they propose a series of recommendations intended to improve the quality of participation in deliberative processes at university.


Author(s):  
María Matarranz

Two decades have passed from the Sorbonne Declaration in 1999 to the present day, a period of time in which we have witnessed the great changes that have occurred in higher education systems in many countries of the world, specifically the countries belonging to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).Four countries started by signing the 1999 Declaration, today there are already forty-eight countries involved in the EHEA.In this article, a tour of the milestones that have been shaping and kneading the EHEA is made, addressing the most relevant issues addressed in the different meetings of the ministers of higher education. Next, we will stop at one of the most relevant indicators of the EHEA: the quality assurance systems that, because of the Bologna Process, have been deployed both at the supranational and national levels. We will make an overview of the implementation of educational quality in the countries. Finally, we will reflect on the impact that the perspective of educational quality has had in the countries of the European Higher Education Area. 


Author(s):  
Nina Novikova ◽  
Konstantin Polyakov

The authorsp rovide information on educational systems of the EU countries in the context of harmonization of educational systems of European Higher Education Area countries. The article discloses the main directions of education integration aimed at achieving general strategic goals set in Paris Communiqué and Statement of the Fifth Bologna Policy Forum, signed in Paris in 2018 during the Ministerial Conference and the Bologna Policy Forum. The problems of the internationalization of education, the basic principles of the integration of higher education and study programmes aimed at ensuring quality of training in European higher education area is considered. Particular attention is paid to existing approaches to guarantee the quality of higher education and the formation of quality assessment systems at the international, national and regional levels to create the conditions for sound quality management of education. The features of changes in foreign and Russian education related to the Bologna process and to the development of European integration in higher education are shown.


2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Fiedler

The Bologna process aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which university studies are comparable and compatible and degrees more transparent. Its priority is the introduction of the three-cycle system Bachelor — Master — Doctorate. At the University of Leipzig a project was launched to connect the implementation of the new structures with the establishment of a programme in interlinguistics and Esperanto studies. In the winter semester 2007/2008 a compulsory-optional module with the title Universal Languages was taught, consisting of a weekly lecture, seminar and a language course Esperanto. It was an initiative of the Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik e.V. and financially supported by the Esperantic Studies Foundation. The paper reports on the structure, contents and results of the module and draws conclusions for similar initiatives at other European universities.


Author(s):  
Evgen Khan

The integration processes, which take place in the world community in all spheres of the human activity have a great influence on the system of higher education. During this period, the common European education space is formed, which expressed particularly through harmonization of education standards, approaches, curricula, and specialties in different countries of the world. The open educational space provides for the increasing of student mobility and co-operation of university lecturers from different countries, which should help to improve the university graduates’ employment system and increase the status of these countries in the field of education. Academic mobility is one of the areas of the Bologna Process, which ensures the integrity of the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area. At the same time the European space means not only the space of the states of the European Union. This space covers the territories of all member states of the Bologna Process. The course for the development of academic mobility is enshrined in almost all major documents governing the Bologna process. They note that the academic mobility of students, researchers and lecturers allows its participants to take advantage of European educational values (Prague Communiqué of Ministers of Education 2001), which forms the basis for the formation of the European Higher Education Area (Berlin Communiqué 2003), is an essential element of the Bologna process, which creates the new opportunities for personal growth, development of cooperation between people and institutions (London Communiqué 2007), etc. It is very important to find out how much our country is involved in the process of academic exchanges and international cooperation in the field of education, especially with European countries, as far as the international academic mobility is an important factor in the process of European integration.


Author(s):  
Stefan Marius Deaconu ◽  
Roland Olah ◽  
Cezar Mihai Haj

Abstract In the last decade, the Bologna Process has underlined many times the need for Student-Centred Learning (SCL), Innovation in Learning and Teaching, providing support to learners and removing obstacles that students face in order to fulfil their potential. As SCL is still at the core of the Bologna Process, the instruments which are meant to record the students’ perspective are very important. However, we consider that there is a deficit regarding the needed research that would lead to efficient ways of delivering positive outcomes for the entire academic community. In that sense, this paper will focus on how national student surveys have been developed in several countries, as there are some reasons to consider this instrument as one of the most efficient, especially in consolidating and developing learning and teaching. The paper will take into consideration three examples from the European Higher Education Area: the National Student Survey (United Kingdom), Studiebarometeret (Norway) and the National Sociological Research about Students’ Satisfaction (Romania) and will approach aspects such as the structures and stakeholders which are involved in developing and coordinating the process, the subjects tackled by these questionnaires, why and how they were selected. Our study provides an insight regarding the usefulness of a national student survey for the future development of European Higher Education Area. It also shows the potential relevance of these questionnaires for the Bologna Process. The paper will also present how these instruments have evolved across time and how they were received by the public opinion. We will draw a set of conclusions starting from examined good practices and the literature review. As a result of this paper, we consider that a national students’ survey represents one of the most useful tools for HE stakeholders in order to assess the quality of learning and teaching.


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