Change and Continuity in Higher Education Governance? Lessons drawn from Twenty years of National Reforms in European Countries
Résumé
Determining whether change does or does not prevail over continuity is a classical question insociology and political science. Higher education studies do not escape this recurrentquestioning. In particular one can wonder how much change should be documented, whatfactors or dimensions should have been affected by change, which characteristics shouldchange processes bear, for an analyst to be allowed to state that change indeed occurred. Nosimple answer can be given to these questions. Furthermore, depending on the focus chosenby the researcher – actors versus structures, micro versus meso or macro levels, local versusnational perspectives, long term versus short term perspectives, individual versus institutionalsettings, norms versus practices, etc. – the balance between change and continuity may bedifferently assessed. A further difficulty results from the fact that change is not always radicaland provoked by identified reforms but may also be incremental (Lindblom, 1959) whensuccessive limited moves produce fairly profound change in the long run. [first paragraph]
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