CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Nyircsak, Adrienn |
|---|---|
| Title | Reflexivity in European Higher Education Governance: Studies on Practice |
| Summary | This dissertation explores the concept of reflexivity in European higher education governance, through the case of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). Reflexivity is understood as the transformation of policy instruments in and through practice. The dissertation consists of three self-standing, but interconnected papers and a methodological chapter on epistemic reflexivity. All three papers apply praxiographic methods to understand how transnational and sub-national actors – European stakeholder groups and higher education institutions – incorporate and interpret the ESG in their organisational activities, generating feedback loops in policy-making. The first paper investigates reflexivity in policy learning through a comparative analysis of three transnational peer learning settings, relying on multiple streams of qualitative data. The paper addresses an important gap in the literature regarding the role of non-state actors in policy learning. It argues that reflective practice is a specific learning technology designed to support higher education institutions in organisational capacity-building as well as political “agency- building” ;. For stakeholder organisations, transnational peer learning provides opportunities to sustain an ongoing dialogue around the ESG at the European level, and cement their role as standard-setters. The second paper presents the results of ethnographic research at two radically different higher education institutions in Hungary and Sweden. Building on a Bourdieusian understanding of reflexivity as practice that is mediated by the habitus, it analyses how the two institutions negotiated internal quality reforms in the shadow of external evaluation, contrasting “habitual” and “crisis” reflexivity. In both cases, the crisis led to increased codification of institutional responsibilities and practices, but did not erode the resilience of the academic habitus in the context of everyday reflexivity. The third paper interrogates the notion of “practice” as a perspective of transnational organisation in contemporary higher education within the framework of reflexive governance. Relying on a combination of theory-driven and inductive qualitative methodology, the analysis traces the emergence of communities of practice in higher education. The findings indicate that communities of practice engage in an ongoing negotiation of meaning based on a shared European framework for quality assurance, through the production of secondary interpretations. This permits stakeholder groups to actively build their roles simultaneously as experts and advocates in formal cooperation structures involving national authorities. Based on the findings of the three papers, reflexivity is conceptualised as an empirically distinct logic of policy instrumentation, which hinges on the development of local theories of practice. As such, it gives impetus to “instrumentation within the instrument”, or the further elaboration of interpretations, guidelines, standards and frameworks for specific thematic, sectoral and institutional usage. This is supported by evidence concerning the emergence of a specific form of policy subsystems – transnational instrument constituencies. The research also contributes to the understanding of the practice of reflexivity, raising questions about the viability of reflexivity as an instrument of public policy. Ultimately, the dissertation can be interpreted as an act of holding up a mirror to the practice of knowledge production in the field of higher education. |
| Supervisor | Matei, Liviu |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/nyircsak_adrienn.pdf |
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