Within the frame of an international workshop The Roles of Universities in European Integration, we would like to invite you to this online interactive workshop. Please register here before 13 December to receive the Zoom link: 

Register for the Event

Abstract:

Central to the governance system coordinating the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is the idea of differentiated integration. Through differentiated integration, the aim is to construct a European union with sustainable development, balanced economic growth, and a competitive social market economy, while respecting European cultural and linguistic diversity. Operating through the open method of coordination, differentiated integration has been developed as a methodology and a technology legitimating and justifying (non)integration in specific policy areas, higher education included (Veiga, 2019). Bologna is a major case in point. Under the framework of the Bologna Process, national higher education systems have been invited to move at their own speed towards shared objectives (e.g., Bologna action lines) with regard to a common policy of setting up the EHEA. The framework of the European Higher Education Area was to accommodate variations between the member states, higher education institutions and disciplinary areas as all moved towards the shared political goal of furthering European integration. The EHEA was meant to create a space in the EU and beyond, in an imagined timeframe, where and when higher education systems would be comparable, compatible and relevant for social and economic development. Later this common policy was aligned with the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs. However, these movements at different speeds have not contributed to a European view about the EHEA. The governance system coordinating the EHEA has been driven by a redefinition of the integration of the European higher education systems that is shaped by principles of competition, efficiency, competence-based education, and responsiveness to industry-based requirements for skills. These principles are in tension with those of social justice and cohesion and contrary to the meaning of education in higher education.

This workshop explores this tension by providing a space for reflection about what is valued in the establishment of the EHEA with the objective of discussing some alternatives.

Aims:

1. Identify the assumptions construing and constituting the meaning of European integration in higher education and research.
2. Discuss alternatives of what is valued in the establishment of EHEA.

Literature:

• Heinze, Torben and Christoph Knill. 2008. “Analysing the Differential Impact of the Bologna Process: Theoretical Considerations on National Conditions for International Policy Convergence.” Higher Education 56(4):493–510.
• Holzinger, Katharina and Jale Tosun. 2019. “Why Differentiated Integration Is Such a Common Practice in Europe: A Rational Explanation.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 31(4):642–59.
• Veiga, Amélia. 2019. “Unthinking the European Higher Education Area – Differentiated Integration and Bologna’s Different Configurations.” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 1–18.

Participants:

PhD fellows as well as senior scholars from across Europe in the areas of higher education studies, anthropology, sociology and politics of higher education, critical university studies, etc.

Format:

The workshop will last for 2 hours and will be divided into the three parts. Starting with a 30-minute introductory lecture, the participants will be invited to think about the political management of European integration in higher education. The lecture will equip participants with the tools for their further work in small groups (45 minutes). During the small groups' discussions, participants will be asked to focus on the ideas ascribing meaning to European integration in higher education, to question the assumptions driving the governance system coordinating the EHEA and to formulate alternatives. The plenary discussion (30 minutes) will create a space for the presentation of alternative futures of European integration implicit in teaching and learning.