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Abstract
Similar to other European countries, the introduction of non-academic, especially managerial, criteria in higher education has shaped and altered Austrian universities since over a decade. This paper presents the results of a frame analysis of Austrian higher education debates from 1993 until 2010. It outlines how reforms in higher education were prepared and enhanced by a new policy discourse, with a special focus on the way gender equality is framed in reform debates. Our article describes three core frames: ‘from local to global’, ‘from ivory tower to business’ and ‘from civil servant to excellence’. We cluster these three frames around imaginations of space that are embedded in the normative foundations of academia, and discuss how this links up with arguments for gender equality. We furthermore propose to analytically separate two conceptions of the university: the ‘entrepreneurial’ and the ‘managerial’ university.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Definition of gender mainstreaming: ‘Gender mainstreaming is the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies, at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making' (Council of Europe Citation1998, 15).
2 Consisting of the conservative Austrian People Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ).
3 An earlier version of the three frames can be found in Kreissl et al. (Citation2013).
4 Research, technology and innovation (comment by the authors).
5 The neologism ‘interventionitis’ points to the fact that too much intervention is seen as an illness.