Yes

The research problem that formed the basis of the investigation reported upon in this thesis relates to the challenges and opportunities that arise from the retention of World English Speaking (WES) student-teachers as they seek to gain entry into the teaching profession in Australia. Two key questions guided the exploration of this problem. How do the curriculum, teaching and assessment practices in teacher education assist and/or hinder WES student-teachers’ retention? What problems, if any, do they have in becoming Australian teachers? These are examined from the perspective of the WES student-teachers themselves, their teacher educators and the WES school teachers involved in supervising them during their practicum. Facing acute teacher shortage in some subjects and some areas in Australia, this research project investigated issues affecting retention of WES student-teachers to meet the requirements of Australia’s ethnically diversified school communities. Methodologically, this study used an evidence-driven, conceptually informed, valuerational approach to education research. A case study design provided the basis for a cross-sectional, retrospective, non-experimental plan which was used to collect and analyse data. The subjects, teacher educators and WES student-teachers were contacted via the university teacher education program; while WES school supervising teachers were selected from schools where WES student-teachers did their practicum. Theoretically it explores the power and limitations of current theorisation of teacher shortages in terms of global cultural flows, specifically the trans-national mobility of knowledge workers. This thesis situates their experiences in the context of current and projected teacher shortages as well as testing current theorisation about global cultural flows of people in terms of the trans-national mobility of knowledge workers. This thesis argues that while teacher-educators recognise the difficulties in engaging educationally with WES student-teachers, and WES student teachers and their supervising teachers are aware of and able to identify other difficulties they confront becoming “Australian teachers”, the possibilities for making productive responses is constrained by cultural as much as economic factors. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Twenty-nine national ministers of education from across Europe signed the Bologna Declaration in 1999 to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. This initiated the Bologna process, which had broad objectives in the realm of higher education: to increase mobility and improve the comparability and competitiveness of European universities. Since 1999, the process has encompassed forty-six signatory states along with various NGOs and supranational bodies, including the European Commission. Through a historical and descriptive analysis using multiple theoretical frameworks (neo-institutionalism and IR integration theories), this paper examines the driving forces behind the extensive university reform, asking which actors have been the dominant agenda-setters during the initial phases of the Bologna process. European higher education has been a multi-actor and multi-level policy field characterized by a politico-normative body of literature, and so the discourse – especially pertaining to the effects of globalization – is examined to determine how the dominant agenda-setters have legitimized their policy agendas. Universities in Europe, traditionally path dependent institutions, were setting their own policy agendas during the 1980s and 1990s, and the result was an uncoordinated institutional convergence towards a perceived ‘world model’ of structure and governance. With the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 (and its predecessor the Sorbonne Declaration in 1998), national ministries of education became the dominant agenda-setters for higher education, pursuing intergovernmental national cooperation legitimized through a discourse of international collaboration to mitigate the risks of the competitive global environment. Between 1999 and 2001, the European Commission regarded the reform process as an aspect of European integration and seized the opportunity to be the dominant agenda-setter, legitimizing this through a discourse of lifelong learning as part of the Lisbon Agenda. Utilizing aspects of the new open method of coordination, the Commission’s agenda focused on endogenous horizontal coordination, so that the national systems of higher education would be more attractive in the competitive external environment. After 2001, the methods of European-level steering continued as part of the process, but new actors and stakeholders began to cloud the policy field and diffused the dominant agenda-setting capacity of any single level or actor.

This thesis analyses the effects of the Bologna Process on the implementation of Quality Assurance standards in Turkish higher education. Using a qualitative case study approach, this thesis explores the changes and policies that have been adopted to promote quality assurance at the institutional, national and international levels. In order to better understand how quality assurance systems are shaped within the Bologna Process, I conducted interviews with eight Turkish Bologna experts. The experts provided first-hand experience and knowledge of the QA systems implementation process. Further, I performed a detailed document analysis to examine the policies related to the quality assurance system. Through these methods, I uncovered a number of unique challenges faced by the Turkish higher education system in the implementation of a sound quality assurance system. One of the most significant challenges relates to the fact that the Council of Higher Education has still not established a fully functional national QA agency in accordance with the European Standard and Guidelines. This discrepancy affects the implementation of a uniform QA system at all levels. The findings suggest that the Bologna Process, which aims to improve transparency in the European Higher Education Area, has had positive impact on QA systems in Turkish HE. The positive effects demonstrate the capacity of the Turkish HE to respond to an increasing need for a highly qualified workforce. With an improved adaptability on the part of the institutions, graduates of Turkish universities will be able to comparably compete with those from other European institutions. / Graduate / 0745 / 0515 / sbugday@uvic.ca

Twenty-nine national ministers of education from across Europe signed the Bologna Declaration in 1999 to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. This initiated the Bologna process, which had broad objectives in the realm of higher education: to increase mobility and improve the comparability and competitiveness of European universities. Since 1999, the process has encompassed forty-six signatory states along with various NGOs and supranational bodies, including the European Commission. Through a historical and descriptive analysis using multiple theoretical frameworks (neo-institutionalism and IR integration theories), this paper examines the driving forces behind the extensive university reform, asking which actors have been the dominant agenda-setters during the initial phases of the Bologna process. European higher education has been a multi-actor and multi-level policy field characterized by a politico-normative body of literature, and so the discourse – especially pertaining to the effects of globalization – is examined to determine how the dominant agenda-setters have legitimized their policy agendas. Universities in Europe, traditionally path dependent institutions, were setting their own policy agendas during the 1980s and 1990s, and the result was an uncoordinated institutional convergence towards a perceived ‘world model’ of structure and governance. With the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 (and its predecessor the Sorbonne Declaration in 1998), national ministries of education became the dominant agenda-setters for higher education, pursuing intergovernmental national cooperation legitimized through a discourse of international collaboration to mitigate the risks of the competitive global environment. Between 1999 and 2001, the European Commission regarded the reform process as an aspect of European integration and seized the opportunity to be the dominant agenda-setter, legitimizing this through a discourse of lifelong learning as part of the Lisbon Agenda. Utilizing aspects of the new open method of coordination, the Commission’s agenda focused on endogenous horizontal coordination, so that the national systems of higher education would be more attractive in the competitive external environment. After 2001, the methods of European-level steering continued as part of the process, but new actors and stakeholders began to cloud the policy field and diffused the dominant agenda-setting capacity of any single level or actor.

Twenty-nine national ministers of education from across Europe signed the Bologna Declaration in 1999 to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. This initiated the Bologna process, which had broad objectives in the realm of higher education: to increase mobility and improve the comparability and competitiveness of European universities. Since 1999, the process has encompassed forty-six signatory states along with various NGOs and supranational bodies, including the European Commission. Through a historical and descriptive analysis using multiple theoretical frameworks (neo-institutionalism and IR integration theories), this paper examines the driving forces behind the extensive university reform, asking which actors have been the dominant agenda-setters during the initial phases of the Bologna process. European higher education has been a multi-actor and multi-level policy field characterized by a politico-normative body of literature, and so the discourse – especially pertaining to the effects of globalization – is examined to determine how the dominant agenda-setters have legitimized their policy agendas. Universities in Europe, traditionally path dependent institutions, were setting their own policy agendas during the 1980s and 1990s, and the result was an uncoordinated institutional convergence towards a perceived ‘world model’ of structure and governance. With the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 (and its predecessor the Sorbonne Declaration in 1998), national ministries of education became the dominant agenda-setters for higher education, pursuing intergovernmental national cooperation legitimized through a discourse of international collaboration to mitigate the risks of the competitive global environment. Between 1999 and 2001, the European Commission regarded the reform process as an aspect of European integration and seized the opportunity to be the dominant agenda-setter, legitimizing this through a discourse of lifelong learning as part of the Lisbon Agenda. Utilizing aspects of the new open method of coordination, the Commission’s agenda focused on endogenous horizontal coordination, so that the national systems of higher education would be more attractive in the competitive external environment. After 2001, the methods of European-level steering continued as part of the process, but new actors and stakeholders began to cloud the policy field and diffused the dominant agenda-setting capacity of any single level or actor. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

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In this thesis I examine the question: how do Kazakhstan academics respond to the reforms of higher education (HE) carried out as part of Europeanisation? I study the local academics' accounts of the process of implementation of the Bologna Process and of wider Western education standards within local post-Soviet practice, since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This local policy implementation is examined within the framework of educational policy borrowing, grounded in works by Steiner-Khamsi, Silova, and Phillips. Thirty-eight interviews were conducted in four HE institutions in different regions of Kazakhstan and analysed through the application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) based on work by van Dijk and Fairclough. Using the method of CDA, I explore how power relationships and abuses of power play out between the educational authority and the academics in the politically driven reform environment, and how academics respond to this in their views of the reforms. I found that participants overall are critical of the reform process. They respond with three discourses, identified as nostalgia and loss, progress and modernity and chaotic reform. While the discourse of nostalgia implicitly connects to the 'better' Soviet education, as an ideological belief inherited from the past, and the discourse of progress reflects the spread of the ideology of European modernity, they both appear in connection to the central discourse of chaotic reformation. I found that chaos, which is a prime characteristic of the reforms in Kazakhstan HE, is linked to clashes between political/educational motivations and Soviet/Western approaches. These findings support my main argument that the specific post-Soviet context should be taken into account in studies of education in the 'Second World'. These 'context models' are influential on how Western standards are implemented in the reality of post-Soviet education.

This diploma thesis deals with topic of Bildung as tradition of ideas, it's predecessors and followers. In first part thesis provide terminological background to correctly grasp the wide of term Bildung. This is because the term is handed differently by different thinkers. The second part concentrates on genesis and evolution of tradition of Bildung. This part starts with J. A. Comenius and his humanist opinions about nature of world, continues with I. Kant and his ethical and pedagogical ideas to W. von Humboldt and J. H. Newman. These two thinkers are presented as two main figures of Bildung tradition in nineteenth century. Third part is concerned about shifts and changes that terms knowledge and education underwent in twentieth century. The third part deals with theories of T. W. Adorno and K. P. Liessmann which are built around topic of crisis of knowledge in contemporary world.

In 1999, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy jointly signed the Bologna Declaration and proposed to establish an open European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna Process promoted the integration of higher education in Europe, and counteracted the integration of European politics and economy. Currently, 48 countries have joined the Bologna process. The influence of the Bologna process has also developed from Europe to other countries in Asia, Africa, and North America. The Bologna Process has established six goals at the beginning: credit system, degree system, student mobility, lifelong learning, quality assurance and European research area. From 1999 to 2000, the Bologna Process has accomplished these goals and put forward a plan for the new decade. The dissertation takes 2010 as the node and divides the Bologna Process into policy objectives and policy subjects through the policy network analysis framework, and analyze the correlation between policy subjects through the neo-functionalism. The result shows that the Bologna process will further deepen its goals in the next decade and attract more countries to join in the context of globalization. However, due to differences in economic and political backgrounds, there will be an differentiate integration based on their own...