CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Guray, Gizem |
|---|---|
| Title | The Role of The Ombuds Mechanism in Student Empowerment: A Comparative Case Study in Austria and Sweden |
| Summary | The ombuds is an evolving complaint-handling tool, significantly applied in higher education. Universities where student unions represent students’ involvement in governance and advocate students’ rights over the years, conduct this mechanism by providing informal complaint procedures. Hence, this thesis explores the role of the ombuds mechanism in empowering students by analyzing procedural justice principles and organizational ombuds standards of practice. The method used in this thesis is a comparative case study and interviews with student unions’ representatives and experts from the Central European University and Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria, and Lund University and Stockholm University in Sweden. The research reveals that the ombuds mechanism empowers students in some institutions proactively while employing an influence in others up to a certain scale. Students’ perception of the mechanism's effectiveness regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion prompts almost on a similar scale. Finally, this study concludes with recommendations for elevating ombuds practices to enhance student empowerment and institutional fairness. |
| Supervisor | Lyer, Roberts Kirsten |
| Department | Public Policy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/guray_gizem.pdf |
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