Changing higher education by converging policy-packages: education choices and student identities

Abstract

The past two decades of higher education research in Europe describe new managerial and neoliberal turns in governance policies that have brought shifts in the way institutions of higher education are defined and run, justify their existence and practices and recruit and educate students. The expansion of higher education is often lifted as a key feature and motivation of these changes and it is also used in arguments for the need to change further. The European Union Lisbon Agreement is often referenced when changes are discussed and motivated by change agents. It describes needs of effectiveness and new kinds of programmes and courses to deal with increased volume and widening participation. New demands are described as having been placed on teachers, students and leadership, including an expanded role for student choices of and in higher education. Based on ethnographic research key aspects of extended choice are examined in the present article.

Keywords:

• cultural capital
• choice rationalities
• skilled/semi-skilled choices
• generification