20 Years After the Bologna Declaration: The Social Sciences’ Differing Ways of Co-Producing the European Higher Education Area

• In Event: STS and Universities - III

Abstract

While comprehensive research has been conducted on the Bologna process (BP) as well as on the European Higher Education Area, the roles of the social sciences in these reforms have remained mostly overlooked. Based on a systematic literature review of articles and reports from 1999-2018, the interplay of social sciences with politics in the creation of the EHEA is analysed, employing the theoretical concepts of co-coproduction of knowledge, boundary objects as well as invited and uninvited participation. The highly abstract and global concept of the BP becomes so pervasive, as it offers linkages to various social sciences and politicians. Thus, representatives of national and European policy explicitly and implicitly interact with different stakeholders in the social sciences.
Two dominant ways of knowledge production can be identified: classical social sciences are driven by their own research agenda while new interdisciplinary fields, such as empirical education research and higher education research are geared towards measuring and optimizing the reform(s) on the basis of quantifiable data. While the latter acts invitedly and highly visibly, the former produces knowledge mostly uninvitedly and hardly visible – unless it is taken up by interdisciplinary fields. This takes place: detailed knowledge about the changes following Bologna and refined theories are welcomed and employed by interdisciplinary fields.
This presentation can be aligned to the RS’ call to explain how the Sociology of Knowledge perspective can be employed to investigate the processes of boundary making within sociology as a discipline, and how these new alliances challenge sociology as a discipline.

Author

• Jana Heinz, Technische Universität München