The Rationality of Higher Education Reform. Perspectives on a Post-Autonomous Knowledge Regime

Based on the diagnosis that the German version of the current higher education reform in Europe is about to fail its own goals (more mobility, less bureaucracy.), the article asks what may be latent functions of the reform process. A first account is summing up political objectives which are not sui...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Soziale Welt 2006-01, Vol.57 (4), p.373-396
Main Authors: Reitz, Tilman, Draheim, Susanne
Format: Article
Language:ger
Subjects:
Educational Policy
Federal Republic of Germany
Higher Education
Reform
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Summary:Based on the diagnosis that the German version of the current higher education reform in Europe is about to fail its own goals (more mobility, less bureaucracy.), the article asks what may be latent functions of the reform process. A first account is summing up political objectives which are not suited for public representation & unintended structural effects which may stabilize: orientation by standardization, a mid-term reduction of higher education costs combined with increased student numbers, a tightened social selection. But since all of these effects are only issues of prognosis at the moment, a second account is asking about reform tendencies which prove destructive of an older, now increasingly dysfunctional model of higher education. Accordingly, the second answer is that the current reform breaks with an academic life form characterized by the virtually anomic reflection of possible world views & subjectivities (as it has been installed in mass scale during the 1970s), turning towards the imperative that education & research permanently have to prove their normality & necessity. Thus the principles of the new knowledge regime are: applicability, control through communication, & marketing. References. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0038-6073