300223 Social Boundaries in Higher Education (LEH) (SoSe 2016)

Universities all around the world are undergoing thorough transformations instigated or buttressed by global forces, and they face similar problems while competing for status, influence, and wealth. University students constitute the most central stakeholder ‘group’ in higher education whereas the student body has significantly changed in the last decades: in size, in demographic composition, in needs, aspirations, and in expectations. Student choices, visions, and their voiced critique have exerted significant pressures on individual institutions and on entire systems of higher education. Therefore, the current transformations of universities as well as those of student bodies are intertwined. While top-down approaches examining higher education from policy and from systemic perspectives have established themselves as a growing study field, inquiries observing these challenges from the vantage point of students have been rather scarce, so far. Therefore, this ‘Lehrforschung-Seminar addresses the global challenges of higher education from student perspective. It concentrates at students, inquiring how global influences they face directly and via their educational institutions impinge upon their preferences, choices and possibilities.
In the last decade, social scientists from various disciplines have geared more and more attention at higher education. New studies inquire into the changing characteristics of universities – e.g. in the quest to respond to a growing diversity of student bodies, to neo-liberal imperatives as well as to new social expectations. They also ask why pronounced inequalities remain in higher education, despite the egalitarian underpinnings and the universal promise. How do the new developments – in particular, the higher admission rates, the national and global competition, and also the increasing economisation of the academic system - challenge higher education theory, policy and practice? What insights do we gain from these dynamics on the nature of change in contemporary societies? -This seminar uses a constructivist perspective on the making and unmaking of social boundaries seeking to understand changing modalities of inclusion and exclusion in higher education across the world. The purpose of the seminar is to address these issue in three ways:
• In the first part, we look at the current state of higher education research across the disciplines, and in particular in the emerging field of anthropology of higher education.
• The second part examines how social boundaries are constructed in higher education systems in different parts of the world. The focus lies here on research of
- access of people with different social and spatial backgrounds in the higher education system as well as their positioning along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity, and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion.
- in turn, we look at institutional responsiveness to growing diversity and heterogeneity, policies of affirmative action and politics of student organisations.
• In the third and final part of the seminar, we use our empirical insights to critically assess wider agendas of international organisations such as the World Bank (2002), UNESCO (2009) or OECD (2012), which all propagate university education as a means to advance development, democracy and good lives. While they emphasise human capital (knowledge, technology, innovation) as an engine for economic growth, we also reflect how higher education can contribute to the building of more just societies. Against this backdrop, we also inquire into student politics aimed at achieving more justice and inclusion.

Requirements for participation, required level

The seminar is open for master students, in particular to those planning to conduct ‚Lehrforschung‘-research. The seminar requires very good English competences.

Bibliography

1. Bradley A. U. Levinson, Mica Pollock, Shabana Mir (2011), A companion to the anthropology of education, Wiley-Blackwell
2. Robertson, Susan; Dale, Roger; Moutsios, Stavros; Nielsen, Gritt; Shore, Cris; Wright, Susan (2012) “Globalisation and Regionalisation in Higher Education: Toward a New Conceptual Framework”, Summative Working Paper for Work Package 1, Department of Education, University of Aarhus
3. Read, Barbara; Archer, Louise; Leathwood, Carole (2003) “Challenging Cultures? Student Conceptions of ‘Belonging’ and ‘Isolation’ at a Post-1992 University”, in: Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 261-277
4. Kristen, Cornelia; Reimer, David; Kogan, Irena (2008) “Higher Education Entry of Turkish Immigrant Youth in Germany”, in: International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. 49 (2-3), pp. 127-151
5. Walker, Melanie (2012) “Universities, Development and Social Justice. A Human Capabilities Perspective”, Paper presented at the Symposium ECER 2012, The Need for Educational Research to Champion Freedom, Education and Development for All, pp.1-12