Tuning the discipline of history in the United States: Harmony (and dissonance) in teaching and learning

Abstract

Tuning's progress in the discipline of history in the United States since 2009 illustrates the project's continuing capacity to develop “educational structures and programmes on the basis of diversity and autonomy”, maintaining the initiative's original European Union commitment in a markedly different academic environment across the Atlantic. Struggling initially against a backdrop of confusion, hesitancy, and resistance among US faculty, Tuning has been adopted by a steadily expanding number of educators in individual institutions, state systems, and the history discipline's premier professional society. Though operating, at times, in an uneven, imprecise, or pro forma manner, Tuning in the US manages to address several important goals: bringing a more coherent frame of reference to scattered conversations about higher education; framing a more meaningful discussion about the knowledge, skills, and non-monetized “value” developed through higher education; focusing on the central role of faculty discipline experts in the work of assessment, accreditation, and accountability; and engaging professional scholarly societies on questions of teaching and learning.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Higher Education in Africa: Global Perspectives

“…Broadly speaking, the Bologna Process inspired a global movement of disparate, multifarious efforts toward policy reforms in higher education (Knight, 2012). In the United States, the American Historical Association and a few Midwestern states were the first to adopt Tuning initiatives, even though the overall response has been relatively modest (McInerney, 2017). Perhaps most noteworthy of all is that the "Dublin Descriptors" (generic statements that describe expected qualifications or outcomes associated with completion of each Bologna degree cycle) and the subsequent Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (Adelman, 2008) informed the development of the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP).…”