Enacting the University: Danish University Reform in an Ethnographic Perspective
Authors: Wright, S., Carney, S., Krejsler, J.B., Nielsen, G.B., Williams Orberg, J.
Free Preview- Uses a national lens to study international higher education reform
- Uniquely incorporates voices from students, academics and policy-makers
- Clearly shows what forces shaped Danish universities after the millennium
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- About this book
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This book examines the transformative power and the limitations of one of Europe’s most significant university reforms from an ethnographic and historical perspective. It incorporates voices positioned across university and policy-making hierarchies in its analysis of how Danish universities have been transformed. To do this, the book continually juxtaposes two meanings of ‘enactment’: a top-down view based on laws and institutional power, and a bottom-up view of multiple actors shaping their institution in day-to-day life and in actively contested changes. By conceiving of the university as ‘enacted’ in both ways at once, the book explores how and why the university comes to be imagined and instantiated in new ways.
The book traces the arguments for reform through a two-decade long, dynamic struggle between international forums and national industrial, political and academic interests over the definition of the university. It discusses which ideas finally became dominant and how this happened. It looks at government reforms from 2003 onwards, and, by means of notable ‘telling moments’, explains how the governance and management of the university were transformed. It examines how academics found room to manoeuvre between contesting discourses that affect their identity and work. Finally, it shows how students engaged with new versions of historical debates about their participation in shaping their own education, their institution and society.
- Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Introduction: An Ethnography of University Reform
Pages 3-24
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Enactment of the University – Issues and Concepts
Pages 25-51
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University Reform: International Policy Making Through a Danish Prism
Pages 55-85
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Contested Narratives of University Reform
Pages 87-126
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Steering Change – Negotiations of Autonomy and Accountability in the Self-Owning University
Pages 127-153
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Enacting the University: Danish University Reform in an Ethnographic Perspective
- Authors
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- Susan Wright
- Stephen Carney
- John Benedicto Krejsler
- Gritt B. Nielsen
- Jakob Williams Orberg
- Series Title
- Higher Education Dynamics
- Series Volume
- 53
- Copyright
- 2019
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Nature B.V.
- eBook ISBN
- 978-94-024-1921-4
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-94-024-1921-4
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-94-024-1919-1
- Series ISSN
- 1571-0378
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XVII, 329
- Number of Illustrations
- 5 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
- Topics