The Institutional Basis of Higher Education Research

Schwarz, Stefanie; Teichler, Ulrich

doi:10.1007/0-306-47662-2

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…A large part of higher education studies is carried out by part-time researchers (Horta & Jung, 2014;Kim et al, 2017), namely, scholars or practitioners who occasionally used higher education to investigate phenomena anchored in other disciplines and who thus present infrequent publications on higher education, contributing to an increase in the fragmentation of research on higher education. This phenomenon is also a consequence of the weak institutional basis of higher education studies (Teichler, 2000). The number of research institutes, journals and study programmes specifically on higher education is indeed limited, especially outside the United States and the United Kingdom, causing the scholarship on higher education to be spread out across other disciplines (e.g., management and sociology) and thus highly disconnected (Kehm, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An internationalised Europe and regionally focused Americas: A network analysis of higher education studies

Barbato

2021

Euro J of Education

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The study on which this article reports investigated the internationalisation of higher education studies by examining collaborations in the form of international coauthorships. We analyse how network-based mechanisms, related to structural relationship between authors (preferential attachment, i.e., higher tendency to collaborate among the most productive ones) and node level features (homophily, i.e., tendency to collaborate with similar others), affect higher education co-authorship networks. We build a bipartite co-authorship network based on 17,262 publications from 33 specialised higher education journals indexed in Scopus from 1996-2018. Scientific collaboration in higher education mainly occurs within national borders. We found that higher education is not an internationally oriented field of research, with around 90% single-country publications. A geographical divide was observed between the two largest communities (Europe, Asia and Oceania vs. the Americas) which was also reflected in the research themes addressed by these communities, structured around the known divide between (1) learning and teaching, and (2) policy-based studies. Preferential attachment was observed to be a network-based mechanism that contributes to drive the formation of new co-authorships. Similarly, homophily based on academic seniority and research productivity emergedThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An internationalised Europe and regionally focused Americas: A network analysis of higher education studies

Barbato

2021

Euro J of Education

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Higher Education Research in Europe

Teichler¹

The Dialogue Between Higher Education Research and Practice

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Higher Education as a Field of Study and Research

Bitzer¹,

Wilkinson²

2009

Higher Education in South Africa - A Scholarly Look Behind the Scenes

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In this chapter we address four issues concerning HE as a field of study and research. We start off by discussing the typical characteristics of a field of study as opposed to a discipline, then we trace a number of moments in the development of HE studies and research internationally and locally. Next we try to suggest a way to 'map' the field in South Africa against the background of international mappings and finally we suggest a number of issues to consider for possible future research to extend and promote HE as a field of study and research -particularly in South Africa. INTRODUCTIONIt is widely agreed that higher education (HE) in its variety of forms contributes to social and economic development through at least four major missions: PART SIX • RESEARCH FRONTIERS AND AGENDASYet, while HE considers itself to be a universal sector of society, its research, structures, curricula, governance and organisation vary greatly and seem deeply rooted in national, cultural and policy contexts (Schwarz and Teichler 2000). It therefore appears most fitting to study HE as a phenomenon or research object from a range of angles and perspectives. As HE has expanded enormously during the past decade or two, research interest in the field has grown significantly and it is well known that this research matters, as the character and performance of HE systems and institutions have considerable implications for all members of society, whether they engage directly with them or not .Earlier, a typical approach to study the field of HE was to explore programmes that emphasised the field as a focus or study object (Dressel and Mayhew 1974) and later encyclopedic versions (Knowles 1977; Clark and Neave 1992), in-depth articles of topical issues in 'handbook' format (Smart 1985;2008) HIGHER EDUCATION: DISCIPLINE OR FIELD OF STUDY?With developments and progress in higher education studies and research over the past two decades questions might arise as to whether HE as an object of study has not reached disciplinary status. This is a legitimate question as many prominent works and methodologies have pointed in that direction (see for instance Kogan, Bauer, CHAPTER 17 • HIGHER EDUCATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY AND RESEARCH 371However, Dressel and Mayhew (1974) have outlined at least six criteria for a field to be termed a discipline: Firstly, a general body of knowledge should exist that can be forced into a reasonably logical taxonomy so that scholars could tell, at least quantitatively, where the knowledge gaps exist. Secondly, it should possess both a specialised vocabulary and a generally accepted basic literature that outlines its parameters. Thirdly, some generally accepted body of theory and some generally understood techniques for theory testing and revision should exist. This criterion is supplemented by the essential of a generally accepted body of consistently applied techniques for analysis or a generally agreed set of methodologies. The fourth criterion is that a recognised sequence of experiences for the preparatio...

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The Institutional Basis of Higher Education Research

Cited by 3 publications

References 41 publications

An internationalised Europe and regionally focused Americas: A network analysis of higher education studies

An internationalised Europe and regionally focused Americas: A network analysis of higher education studies

Higher Education Research in Europe

Higher Education as a Field of Study and Research

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