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Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2023

Manfred Stock, Alexander Mitterle and David P. Baker

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula…

Abstract

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula aimed at training future workers with specific new skills. Presented here is comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities, with their global growth in numbers and enrollments, in concert with expanding research capacity, create and privilege knowledge and skills, legitimate new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies. A process referred to as academization of occupations has far-reaching implications for understanding the transformation of capitalism, new dimensions of social inequality, and resulting stratification among occupations. Academization is also eclipsing the more limited professionalization processes in occupations. Additionally, it fuels further expansion of advanced education and contributes to a new culture of work in the 21st century. Commissioned detailed German and US case studies of the university origins and influence on workplace consequences of seven selected occupations and associated knowledge, skills, and degrees investigate the academization process. And to demonstrate how universal this could become, the cases contrast the more open and less-restrictive education and occupation system in the US with the centralized and state-controlled education system in Germany. With expected variation, both economies and their occupational systems show evidence of robust academization. Importantly too is evidence of academic transformations of understandings about approaches to job tasks and use of authoritative knowledge in occupational activities.

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How Universities Transform Occupations and Work in the 21st Century: The Academization of German and American Economies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-849-2

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Book part
Publication date: 27 November 2015

Ana Maria F. Almeida and Maurício Ernica

With just a small proportion of the population holding a college degree, the material and symbolic advantages of higher education are quite substantive in Brazil. In the last…

Abstract

With just a small proportion of the population holding a college degree, the material and symbolic advantages of higher education are quite substantive in Brazil. In the last decade, social demand led to the expansion of public universities and the adoption of affirmative actions. Using data from four public universities in the state of São Paulo, the paper shows an increase in the numbers of students from lower-income and less educated families. Their relative inclusion, however, has reproduced the traditional social segmentation in Brazilian higher education, keeping access to prestigious majors more difficult to those with fewer resources.

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Mitigating Inequality: Higher Education Research, Policy, and Practice in an Era of Massification and Stratification
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-291-7

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Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 30 November 2023

Pedro Pineda

I historically compare changes in institutional frameworks creating academic positions linked to temporary employment by analyzing university employment statistics in Chile…

Abstract

I historically compare changes in institutional frameworks creating academic positions linked to temporary employment by analyzing university employment statistics in Chile, Colombia, Germany, and the USA. I find that temporary academic positions were institutionalized through the creation of previously inexistent academic categories called a contrata in Chile, de cátedra in Colombia, “junior professor” without tenure in Germany and “postdoc” in the USA; used in higher education and employment laws since 1989, 1992, 2002, and 1974, respectively. Under institutional frameworks demanding the maximization of students and research, universities have increasingly contracted academics through temporary contracts under rationales that differ between regions. In Colombia and Chile, public university leaders and owners of private universities contract such teaching positions to expand student numbers through lowering costs. In Germany and the USA, employment insecurity is mostly driven by temporary scientific positions under a main rationale of scientific expansion. The share of temporary positions has increased exponentially in Colombia and Germany in recent decades, whereas in the USA there has only been an increase since 2012. Moreover, in Chile, the share of permanent positions has decreased since 2012. The common trend is one of isomorphism of vertical academic structures sharing a pyramidal form, with a wide base of academics working under conditions of contractual insecurity. Such trends follow a rationale for maximization of student numbers as well as administration, and scientific production that is in tension with prioritizing wellbeing and improvement of academics’ working conditions. Yet, in these environments, the institution of tenure in the USA and recent Chilean regulations on accreditation represent mechanisms counteracting precarious employment.

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University Collegiality and the Erosion of Faculty Authority
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-814-0

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Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2018

Jelena Brankovic

How do organizational associations affect extra-organizational boundaries? This chapter addresses this question by looking into the long-established practice among universities to…

Abstract

How do organizational associations affect extra-organizational boundaries? This chapter addresses this question by looking into the long-established practice among universities to form associations. In order to examine how associations delineate boundaries in universities’ institutional environment, the chapter draws on the scholarly work on categories and conceptualizes associations as meta-organizations. The chapter finds that category-based identities, and other organizational characteristics, enacted to demarcate members from non-members play a central role in this process. In following these lines of demarcation on a sample of 185 national and international university associations a typology emerges, accompanied by a global diffusion pattern. Three sets of institutional conditions are then identified as being conducive to this process: (1) the twentieth-century university expansion and the consolidation of national higher education fields, (2) the intensification of cross-border interaction and the advent of international institutions, and (3) the formation of a global field and the rise of competition as an ideological imperative.

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Toward Permeable Boundaries of Organizations?
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-829-3

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Article
Publication date: 15 August 2008

Kinglun Ngok

This article aims to review the latest developments of the higher education sector in China since the mid‐1990s by focusing on the expansion of university education.

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Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to review the latest developments of the higher education sector in China since the mid‐1990s by focusing on the expansion of university education.

Design/methodology/approach

It is argued that while massification of higher education is an important indication of the progress in China's higher education system, the quest for world‐class universities indicates China's ambition to earn international reputation in higher education sector compatible with its increasing economic power.

Findings

The driving force of these two developments is from the state, which demonstrates the dominant role of the Chinese government in higher education policy and administration. However, the ambitious state constitutes both a driving force and a constraint for China's higher education. The strengthening administrative control accompanied by the financial benefits from the government has led to bureaucratization of China's universities. China's world‐class pursuit necessitates a fundamental change of the existing pattern of relationship between the state and university and university governance model.

Practical Implications

The strategic plan to build up world‐class universities shows that China is not satisfied with the quantitative growth of its higher education, but is seeking to achieve a breakthrough in quality higher education.

Originality/value

The paper explains how China's desire to achieve world class status within the area of higher education is being achieved.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 22 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

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Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2023

Monique Lathan and Manfred Stock

In this chapter, the interplay between the development of the discipline, the development of the field of study, and the emergence of professional fields is examined using the…

Abstract

In this chapter, the interplay between the development of the discipline, the development of the field of study, and the emergence of professional fields is examined using the example of mathematics. In connection with the formation of the modern research university, mathematics has emerged as an independent scientific discipline and as an independent field of study. In the process, mathematics attains a high degree of formalization and internal coherence. This is the basis for the penetration of mathematicians into more and more professional fields, even outside science. Real problems or real facts are reduced to aspects that are amenable to mathematical modeling by treating them as quantifiable parameters. As mathematics expands as a field of study, more and more professional sectors become applications of mathematical models. As a consequence, more mathematical fields of study are differentiating themselves, specializing in these application fields. This chapter analyzes this dynamic and its preconditions.

Details

How Universities Transform Occupations and Work in the 21st Century: The Academization of German and American Economies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-849-2

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Article
Publication date: 4 September 2020

Gazi Mahabubul Alam, Morsheda Parvin and Samsilah Roslan

Universally, university is considered as the apex body which is ethically obliged to present a substantial society. In doing so, universities often innovate dynamic business…

Abstract

Purpose

Universally, university is considered as the apex body which is ethically obliged to present a substantial society. In doing so, universities often innovate dynamic business models and theories. Ideally, the countries whose universities contribute for better and sustainable business growth are the advanced one. However, universities themselves should be the business organisation – an argument is yet to receive attention. Although literature lacks in the area of education business especially university provision, the sector behaves as business entity after the inception of private sector. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the paradigm transformation of university sector and its impact on the society.

Design/methodology/approach

Given the differentiated nature of research questions, multiple techniques are used to collect the data. However, this research adopts the norms of qualitative methods. Both secondary and primary data are used. While secondary data are collected by University Grants Commission (UGC), primary data are collected through interviews.

Findings

Findings show that the development of university sector started following monopoly model. More than half a century, the same model was continued. Thereafter, duopoly model was introduced which carried until the inception of private sector. The growth of private sector followed oligopoly model which was further extended to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These days, society compares university with “diploma mill”, as production of knowledge and civic society is longer than the part of the core business of university. Consequently, compromising with research is to be judged as a threat to overall development that includes business and social development.

Originality/value

A few studies have been published in the area of private university. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, none covers the oligopoly-ism and SME-ism behaviour of university and its impact on the concept of university and on the society. Therefore, this project aims to understand the norms of university business and its substantial contribution on the social change.

Book part
Publication date: 3 June 2008

Chuing Prudence Chou

Worldwide systems of higher education are experiencing intense and unprecedented transformation, both in its operation and in their relationship to governments. The adoption of…

Abstract

Worldwide systems of higher education are experiencing intense and unprecedented transformation, both in its operation and in their relationship to governments. The adoption of neo-liberal, free-market economic policies in the 1980s, and the consequent deregulation of education has impacted many systems in Europe, North and South America, and Asia (including New Zealand and Australia) (Olssen, 2002). Many of these nations have restructured their systems of public education in an attempt to acquire relative autonomy and to assume responsibility as individual institutions. As a result of deregulation and liberalization, the trends of individual institutions are to become more competitive and accountable by creating an overall market mechanism within the education system (Giroux, 2002; Dale, 2001). The issuance of educational loans by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) supports these trends. In general, the IMF and WB serve as a support mechanism for neo-liberalism in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe by the promotion of market mechanisms which effect increases in private investment in education and accountability in higher education institutions (Chou, 2003).

Details

The Worldwide Transformation of Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1487-4

Book part
Publication date: 27 November 2015

Rosana Heringer

This paper aims to contribute to the development of a new concept of support for higher education students in public universities in Brazil. The recent expansion of enrollment in…

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the development of a new concept of support for higher education students in public universities in Brazil. The recent expansion of enrollment in federal universities in Brazil, due to the affirmative action policies and increase in the number of admissions, has increased the number of students in need of special support, including financial help and special programs for academic support (language courses, enrollment in special projects, and others). We explore different dimensions of student support in order to contribute to a more complex perspective about the demands and expectations of these students.

Details

Mitigating Inequality: Higher Education Research, Policy, and Practice in an Era of Massification and Stratification
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-291-7

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1993

Peter R. Senn

Investigates the importance of English language sources ofFriedrich Theodor Althoff (1839‐1908), a German of great influence bothin his own country and, indirectly, in the United…

Abstract

Investigates the importance of English language sources of Friedrich Theodor Althoff (1839‐1908), a German of great influence both in his own country and, indirectly, in the United States. Explores some measures of his influence in education and international understanding. Examines a wide variety of sources. Explains how it could happen that an influential person would end up in intellectual history with almost no recognition. Challenges several conventional assessments. Althoff′s most important contributions are in print and more almost certainly exist in university archives, but the material is scattered and unorganized. Because we do not yet have the full story of this remarkable and complex man, firm conclusions about his influence are not yet possible.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 20 no. 4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

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