European Higher Education Policy and the Social Dimension

A Comparative Study of the Bologna Process

Y. Kooij

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781137473134
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137473141
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Teoria e pratica della didattica

The Bologna Process has significantly shaped recent higher education policies across Europe but the impact of the social dimension has been neglected. This book provides an overview of the major Bologna reforms and through a cross-country comparative study discusses whether this social aspect can ever successfully be incorporated into policy.

1

Introduction

Higher education systems all over the world have been going through substantial changes since World War II. The massive expansion of higher education and the changes it brought to higher education systems; the increasing role of higher education in knowledge economies and societies; changes in governance and funding structures; internationalisation and globalisation; and increasing competition can be listed as the main trends influencing higher education systems. Higher education institutions, countries and regions react to these trends in a variety of ways. The Bologna Process, which started as an inter-ministerial initiative of 29 countries in 1999, can be considered a major reaction of the European higher education systems to these trends. The Process calls for coordinated action and policies around the themes of internationalisation, learning and quality among the 47 member countries, and has suggested various action areas to deal with these themes. Despite the changing number and content of the action areas over time, they can be grouped into degree structures, mobility, lifelong learning, the social dimension and quality assurance. The initial reform suggestions concern degree structures, mobility and quality assurance, and are mostly structural in nature. Since 2001, reform areas with a ‘softer’ nature have also been included in the Bologna Process, for instance lifelong learning and the social dimension. The social dimension entered the Bologna Process agenda in 2001 as an ambiguous item. It was only loosely related to the action areas of the Process, and was not clarified beyond the reaffirmation of its existence until 2005. Its goals and the means of achieving these goals have changed and expanded, which has made the social dimension more comprehensive but less clearly defined. When the Bologna Process declared the creation of the European Higher Education Area in the benchmark year of 2010, it was still difficult to discuss major reforms in the social dimension, unlike other action areas of the Process. Yet, at the same time, the social dimension is still part of the Bologna Process, and, as such, has to be addressed.

Since 1999 the Bologna Process has been one of the major drivers of higher education policies in its signatory countries. Improving the understanding of this Process is needed for better comprehension of the changes occurring in higher education policies. Despite the attention paid to the Bologna Process reforms in general by policy makers, researchers, the media and other social actors, the social dimension issue has not received this level of attention. It continues to be an ambiguous item with respect to its definition, its goals and the means of achieving these goals. In addition to this, the social dimension is a paradoxical policy issue in the Bologna Process. As will be discussed, the mainstream trends in higher education policy are opting to reduce public funding as much as possible, on the grounds of efficiency and effectiveness. On the one hand, the Bologna Process promotes increasing the competitiveness and attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area and suggests measures with respect to the economic benefits of higher education. On the other hand, through the social dimension, it promotes participative equality in higher education. This book will also shed light on this paradox.

Although there is copious literature on the various aspects of the Bologna Process, focusing on 1999–2010, the social dimension, in contrast, has remained an under-researched area. It has only recently been possible to observe increasing attention being paid to the issue, mostly in the form of empirical studies with only limited or partial consideration of the social dimension, for example the Independent Assessment of the Bologna Process Report prepared by the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), ECOTEC and International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) (2010a); “Evolving Diversity. An Overview of Equitable Access to Higher Education” (2010) by the EQUNET Consortium (Bohonnek et al. 2010: 2); “Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference” (Brennan and Elias 2012) and “Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe: Funding and the Social Dimension” (Eurydice 2011). There are also studies on the access or participation (in)equalities in higher education (for example OECD 1974, Shavit 2007, Koucky et al. 2009, Brennan et al. 2009, Eggins (ed.) 2010, Goastellec (ed.) 2010). These studies discuss possible indicators to measure access inequalities and focus on their effect on the life chances of the graduates in general, without necessarily relating them to the social dimension of the Bologna Process. Current literature is investigating the social dimension mostly with regard to the social repercussions of participation in higher education by statistically measuring and comparing participative (in)equality in higher education. This book, instead, explores the definition of the social dimension of the Bologna Process as a phenomenon with respect to its goals and means, and interrogates its reflections at national level. It looks at the development of the social dimension as a policy issue at system level.

As the Bologna Process is a multi-actor and multi-level policy platform, we may expect to encounter various interpretations of the social dimension by different actors. In this regard, the study first examines the differing understandings of the social dimension. This is done by analysing the interpretations of various actors of the Bologna Process. The formulation of the policy goals and guiding principles at Bologna level with the involvement of various actors is only one stage in the whole process. The Bologna Process provides policy goals and generic means, and the details of implementation are defined at the national, and possibly institutional, level. It is thus necessary to look at the national interpretations of the social dimension in order to better understand its meaning. Therefore the study looks, secondly, at the degree to which national implementation reflects international-level policies in relation to the social dimension. Finland, Germany and Turkey are included as the case study countries to elaborate the effect of the social dimension on the relevant national policies. Finally, the current position of the social dimension in the Bologna Process is discussed, based on the findings of the previous sections. The study examines the social dimension from a policy process perspective as an item of the Bologna Process that managed to enter the agenda, but was unable to develop into a proper policy to be implemented. It should be highlighted, however, that the study does not and cannot attempt an implementation analysis. One explanation of the current status of the social dimension of the Bologna Process is given through agenda-setting theories.

1.1 Methodology

Higher education research, as an interdisciplinary field, mostly has a case-oriented approach. Most of the research topics concern problems, for example the employability of graduates, the internationalisation of higher education and research, and implementation analyses of reforms such as those of the Bologna Process. In this sense, it is mostly carried out as applied research, which aims at improving understanding of the nature of a problem in order to intervene, and hence control it, more effectively (Patton 2002: 217). This book contributes to the body of knowledge on the social dimension of the Bologna Process. The study analyses the social dimension in the whole of the Process, looks at different explanatory features, none of which alone can explain the phenomenon sufficiently, and provides “thick descriptions” of the social dimension. By analysing different realities of the social dimension, rather than claiming to present the truth about it, the study constructs an interpretation of the social dimension of the Bologna Process. Instead of stating how the social dimension should be, the study analyses different policy actors’ perceptions of the social dimension. Empirical knowledge is accepted as relative and mutually created by the actors through their perceptions of and interactions with the social dimension, as well as by the researcher through her interpretation of the actors’ perspectives and her interaction with the research topic (Miles & Huberman 1994: 8).

The data, collection methods and analysis are qualitative in nature. The grounded theory approach and case studies comprise the main elements of the design. The grounded theory approach, developed by Glaser and Strauss, is meant to build a theory rather than to test a theory. The concepts and categories appearing as a result of systematic analysis create the building blocks of a theoretical framework, which will finally explain the collected data. The central steps in the grounded theory approach are systematic and cyclical coding, categorising, comparing and explaining the relations between these categories to build an explanatory conceptual framework. This study takes these steps as its guidelines. In the initial phase of coding, the paragraphs or larger segments of texts are coded in order to discover the items that are related to the social dimension of the Bologna Process. This phase is followed by a line-by-line analysis in order to define the properties of each concept. In coding, the nature and meaning of the entire document are taken into consideration. Different types of documents are treated differently in coding and analysis. During the coding process, a myriad of codes appeared and changed over time; some of them disappeared, some appeared and some divided or merged. These codes are linked to each other through cyclical recoding and the systematic comparison of data from different actors and from the same actor over time. This process continues until a level of saturation is reached. The codes are gathered into categories and the relations among them are elaborated. These systematic comparisons are also fed by the knowledge originating from the literature. By this means, the risk of overlooking certain properties or dimensions in the data is reduced. As a result of cyclical coding, a coding scheme is developed to analyse the social dimension in terms of its development, goals and means and the surrounding issues. The underlying idea of the coding scheme originates from the nature of the ministerial documents, which are considered to have weight due to having been signed by ministers. These documents define certain policy goals and means to be transferred to the national level. In the search for a definition of the social dimension, a compatible format is adopted which looks at the goal and the means of achieving these goals. Strategic goals are understood as the ultimate aims of the social dimension in the Bologna Process, operational goals as the intermediary objectives to reach the strategic goals, and the means as the concrete measures to achieve these goals. The coding process also brought out further categories that cannot be analysed as core elements of the social dimension, but cannot be neglected. These are the categories explaining the development of the social dimension by looking at its status, role and follow-up and its surrounding issues, which had a discontinuous relationship with the social dimension. These categories have secondary importance for the analysis; nevertheless, they are necessary for a wider and more complete understanding of the social dimension. In the comparative development of categories, the secondary categories especially help to show that the social dimension is a moving target.

The documents are coded with the help of the MAXQDA program. The practical help of the program in organising a large amount of data and its flexibility in managing the codes and categories are acknowledged. In the coding and recoding process, the memo function of the software made it easier to keep a clear track of conceptual information and the development of explanations of relations among different codes.

Since the grounded theory approach requires constant comparison and analytical development of the coding scheme, it is possible to observe a flow in the analysis from inductive approaches (exploring codes and constructing categories) to deductive approaches (applying the goals-means scheme in the analyses). This coding scheme is applied to analyse each actor’s understanding of the social dimension, as well as interrogating the reflection of the social dimension at the national level with the help of country case studies. In this study, cases “are chosen because it is believed that understanding them will lead to better understanding, perhaps theorising, about a still larger collection of cases” (Stake 2000: 437). This study conducted case studies in order to better understand the social dimension of the Bologna Process at the national level. Initially, each case is analysed separately in order to gain a full understanding. The units of analysis are the higher education systems in Finland, Germany and Turkey. Next, the cases are examined in search of a pattern. The goals-means scheme is used as the framework of analysis.

The empirical basis of the study is comprised of the data collected from 1999 (the beginning of the Bologna Process) to 2010 (the benchmark year for the establishment of the European Higher Education Area). Even though it is not possible to limit social dimension-related issues, for example equality of opportunities, access to higher education, and student services, to a short period of time, the study examines only the properties and the reflections with regard to the social dimension of the Bologna Process. The data from the selected countries also focus on this period and issues relevant to the social dimension. Data are gathered purposefully to provide in-depth information on the social dimension of the Bologna Process, at two levels: the Bologna level and the national level. At the Bologna level, initial data are gathered in a comprehensive way from all members and consultative members: international stakeholder organisations¹ and ministerial-level representatives responsible for higher education in 46 countries. In further analysis, the number of actors is reduced based on the attention they paid to the social dimension. To this end, all reported activities of the actors in the Bologna Process context during the last decade, such as the organisation of workshops, research and publications (policy and statement papers, reports and so on), are looked at, and the actors that have carried out activities in relation to the social dimension are included in the analysis. Annex IV and Annex V list the activities of the actors. It needs to be noted that this list is based on the European stakeholders and not the individual countries. This decision is based on the same relevance criterion. While stakeholders have rather stable interests in the Bologna Process issues, it was not possible to observe the same continuity in the individual countries. The country case studies show the diversity of the policies relevant to the social dimension, and hence deepen understanding of it as a policy element. Three countries (Finland, Germany and Turkey) are selected out of 46 Bologna Process countries at the time. The case study countries are different from each other in size, geographical location, state structure, societal compositions, the structure of their higher education systems and participation policies for higher education. This choice uses the great heterogeneity of the cases as an advantage “in capturing the core experiences and central, shared” patterns of the social dimension (Patton 2002: 235). Furthermore, I lived and studied in the selected countries, which provided me with the advantages of direct observation and enhanced my understanding of the context. In addition to this, I have had the opportunity to participate in some events of the Bologna Follow-Up Group. This information strengthened my analysis by providing a wider and fuller understanding of the selected higher education systems, as well as the Bologna Process as the main context.

Interviews and written documents comprise the main sources of data. The major part of the data is drawn from written documents collected at both Bologna and national levels. These documents are comprised of reports (for instance reports from workshops or other international meetings, progress reports), policy papers, ministerial communiqués, national legislations, formal evaluations or studies, as well as survey data. At the Bologna level, the documents which are produced by the main policy actors of the Process are gathered from institutional websites and publications. Notably, not all documents were produced by the same individuals or within the same (funding) context, and this resulted in nuances in some cases. In order to reduce this effect, the study focuses on the regular reports of the actors, when available, and the documents produced directly in relation to the Bologna Process. Table 1.1 provides an overview of the written documents.

The national-level documents include the national reports for the Bologna Process (2002–2009), which were prepared for the stocktaking exercise, the reports and policy papers produced by the national-level Bologna actors, laws and regulations related to higher education, and existing statistics from international institutions, for instance Organisation for European Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNESCO Statistics, EUROSTUDENT, national statistics offices and statistics units of the relevant institutions.

Semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with the representatives of the above-mentioned international stakeholders and with national Bologna actors in Finland, Germany and Turkey. The interviews were conducted within the context of the Independent Assessment of the Bologna Process Project, which was carried...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  A Discussion on the Key Themes of the Social Dimension
• 3  The Bologna Process
• 4  The Social Dimension of the Bologna Process
• 5  The Social Dimension at the National Level
• 6  The Social Dimension as an Agenda Item
• 7  Conclusion
• Annexes
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index