It has long been known that Italy is characterized by the highest levels of professional regulation in Europe, but little attention has been given to the link between professional regulation and educational stratification. This article investigates the association between social origins and education by focusing on fields of study within tertiary education and by disaggregating the upper class of social

Amid growing debates about globalization of higher education (HE) reproducing inequalities, an analysis of race as the organizing influence underlying this global phenomenon remains absent. This conceptual essay argues that our understanding of globalization of HE would benefit from an intersectional understanding of critical Whiteness studies and temporal studies to help racialize and further temporalize

Internationalisation and forced migration are rarely thought about as related phenomena in higher education (HE) literature. Internationalisation is associated with movement, choice and brand recognition, and used in international rankings methodologies as a proxy for quality. Forced migration is associated not only with movement, but also with lack of choice, containment, or ‘stuckness’. Some scholars

Two studies were conducted to examine the relationships among university students’ academic self-concept, perceptions of the learning environment, engagement, and learning outcomes (academic achievement, generic skills development, and learning satisfaction). Study 1 (N = 1,502) adopted a cross-sectional design and supported a model showing that engagement mediated the effects of academic self-concept

Global climate change threatens university campuses around the world. However, prior research suggests that universities around the globe tend to prioritize preventing further climate change rather than developing plans to address the effects of ongoing, irreversible climate change. Further, scholarship on climate change and disaster resilience tends to focus on national and municipal government efforts

Student-teacher relationships play an important role in both teacher and student experiences in higher education and have been found to be linked to learning, classroom management, and to student absenteeism. Although historically conceptualised in terms of immediacy or distance and measured with reference to behaviours, the growing recognition of the role of emotions and of power—as well as the development

Due to an oversight by the Publisher during typesetting stage, there was an error in respect to the name of Siri B. Borlaug. The country “Norway” was mistakenly captured as part of the first name, hence the presentation “Norwary Siri B. Borlaug”. His name is now correctly presented here as well as in the original article.

One of the central goals of doctoral programs is to develop independent researchers and scholars who will lead the next generation of knowledge production. Despite extant evidence of inequalities in doctoral education, few studies have closely examined the experiences of first-generation college students who pursue a Ph.D. We examine how first-generation and continuing-generation doctoral students

A worldwide trend towards high levels of participation in higher education, paired with concerns about the post-university destinations of an increasing pool of graduates, have brought about two parallel phenomena: a process of sharp stratification in higher education and the growing relevance of postgraduate education as undergraduate study becomes nearly ubiquitous, particularly among the most advantaged

The present research considers the possibility that guidelines emphasizing academic freedom and faculty self-governance (i.e., those articulated by AAUP and UNESCO) might compete against national norms in shaping faculty fairness perceptions of institutional policies. We investigate the extent to which expectations of academic freedom and faculty self-governance are universal across countries. Grounding

Widening participation (WP) in Higher Education (HE) is often positioned as key to resolving social inequality; it underpins arguments that increasing levels of education lead to reduced levels of poverty. Located within the tension of duty and need, WP is positioned as both the responsibility of the University and a financial imperative. This paper considers the student experience of this tension

Previous research shows a discrepancy between different teachers’ assessment of student theses. This might be an even larger problem in the context of teacher education, since teacher trainers originate from different disciplines. This study aims to investigate how different assessors prioritise between criteria for assessment. Criteria were elucidated using repertory grid interviews with teacher trainers

Higher education institutions are striving to lower student dropout rates to increase the number of academically qualified persons in the labour market and decrease misguided investment. Researchers generally acknowledge that students who are firmly decided on their studies tend to drop out of their studies less frequently. Building on the extended expectancy-value model via the cost component, this

Higher education institutions are required to promote inclusion. In this context, faculty members play an important role, which can be limited by their beliefs and prejudices. The aim of this study was to explore the level of knowledge and beliefs declared by faculty members about inclusive education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 119 faculty members of all areas of knowledge from

This article explores male and female academics’ perceptions of what it means to be both a parent and an academic and the relations between them. Based on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of interviews with 35 academics from a university in England, findings suggest that the way in which academics experience being both a parent and an academic depends upon how they understand the meaning

In this article, we present a curricular perspective that can be used to understand students’ focus on assessment in higher education. We propose that the degree of alignment between the objectives and assessment of the curriculum plays a crucial role in students’ motivation. In case of perfect alignment, all objectives have an equitable probability of being assessed. Thus, all learning contributes

Decision making is becoming more complex for prospective university students, in both the Global North and Global South. This study explored motivating information and knowledge for students’ decision making on programmes to undertake at the university level in Tanzania. The study followed a descriptive design which mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore how information and knowledge

In contemporary higher education systems, funding is increasingly associated with performativity, assessment, and competition, and universities are seeking different forms of financing their activities. One of these new forms is crowdfunding, a tool enabled by the digitalization of finance. Based on data from the UK higher education system and two crowdfunding platforms, our study adds to previous

A significant body of work problematises the assumption that student evaluations of teaching (SET) actually measure teaching quality. This is concerning, given that SET are increasingly relied upon not only to evaluate candidates for employment (so job acquisition is influenced by flawed data) but also to inform performance metrics for those in employment (so job security is influenced by flawed data)

A quarter of a century after South Africa’s transition to democracy, the rhetoric of ‘transformation’ remains firmly ingrained in its higher education policy and discourse. In many of the reviews, reports, proposals, and frameworks on the transformation of the South African university system, one thing stands out: an oversupply of rhetoric and a dearth of empirical data. This article is a direct response

The shift in contemporary workplaces has caused higher education institutions to place importance on developing non-academic attributes along with academic success to help students accomplish academic and occupational goals. Reflective and integrative learning as a cumulative process of students’ experiences inside and outside the classroom during university years can facilitate the development of

The benefits of paired learning, rather than individual learning, have been pointed by several studies. Although Chevruta, which has been essential in Jewish education for centuries, is arguably the original form of long-term paired learning, little empirical research has focused on exploring its components and consequences. In the current study, Chevruta learning is conceptualized as a combination

Nearly 50% of graduate students report experiencing emotional or psychological distress during their enrollment in graduate school. Levels of distress are particularly high for transgender and nonbinary graduate students who experience daily discrimination and marginalization. Universities and colleges have yet to address and accommodate the needs and experiences of transgender and nonbinary graduate

This study investigates how organizational features of university and workplace institutions shape coherence between ideas about the knowledge required for professional education across the curriculum, in two “semi-professions”—teaching and social work. While coherence is imperative for program design in professional education frameworks that include theoretical and practicum components, it is often

Student movements have played a significant political role in the history of Latin America. Since the beginning of the 20th century until now, students have transformed their universities, resisted totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and struggled against US military occupations. In the early 1900s these movements promoted university reforms, autonomy, shared governance, Latin Americanism, and university

This study examined faculty identification and commitment at regional universities, institutions marginalized by global status hierarchies that position internationally known research universities at the top while assigning low status to regional universities. Analysis was focused on the USA because of the country’s global influence. The study used interpretive qualitative and secondary data analysis

This paper uses register data to study how a particular age reward feature affects admission into two highly competitive study programs: medicine and law. The Norwegian admission system to higher education is centralized, and applicants compete in two quotas: one quota almost entirely based on grade point average from upper secondary education and one quota where students can compete with improved

Concerns about expansion in higher education (HE) have increasingly become a focus of educational policymakers in sub-Saharan countries. However, critical analysis and discussion of the expansion of higher education in Mozambique and changes in its composition have received little attention. We used historical track data provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Higher and Professional and

This study examined the motives underpinning involvement in community engagement by academics. The broader context of the study is the idea of universities as actors for and contributors to the public good, especially through community engagement. Engaging with communities is associated with the historical social mandate of universities, and is generally framed as a way through which universities participate

Crises affect international students’ overseas experiences, but crisis theory is rarely considered in international education studies. This article provides a comparative study of two countries, using a ‘most similar cases’ research design, to analyse host-nation government responses to crisis situations. The two countries are Australia and New Zealand. The crisis in each case relates to racial discrimination

Much has been written about instructor attitudes towards lecture capture, particularly concerning political issues such as opt-out policies and the use of recordings by management. Additionally, the pedagogical concerns of lecturers have been extensively described and focus on the belief that recording lectures will impact on attendance and will reduce interactivity and active learning activities in

This paper summarizes the discourse on student ratings of teaching in higher education. It reconceptualizes student ratings within a larger process of promoting quality in teaching and student learning. As students engage in productive dialogue with teachers and administrators, metrics drawn from decontextualized surveys are admittedly a vital resource. Our paper contends, however, that student ratings

Higher education (HE) researchers have become increasingly interested in transnational academic mobility as a field of inquiry. A phenomenon frequently associated with ‘progress’ and ‘development’, research accounts are written about academic migrants who harness career momentum and experience upward social mobility resulting from their travels. In contrast to scholarly accounts which link mobility

Student engagement is a crucial factor in the success of students enrolled in higher education. Despite the existence of numerous studies on the factors that influence student engagement, investigating the factors that affect the level of student engagement in higher education is important. In applying the behavioral reasoning theory (BRT), this research investigates factors that influence freshman

The overrepresentation of female students in study abroad programmes across the Western world represents one of the major gaps in scientific research on study abroad. In this paper, I explore possible theoretical and empirical explanations, drawing on Personal Investment Theory and investigating study abroad motivations and decisions of a nationally representative sample of higher education students

Over the last four decades, the number of universities in Chile has increased dramatically (from eight to more than 50), along with the total enrollment of students (from 100,000 to 670,000 approximately). University presidents have played an increasingly important and complex role in this process. Meanwhile, understanding what happens at the very top of universities and who governs them is long overdue

The growing influence of global rankings drives higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe to conform to the indicators and implement changes to obtain world-class status. We examine why HEIs in similar institutional environments are structured and processed differently on the ranking issue with different outcomes. By employing a qualitative method, we engaged in a 44-month study period

Academics have multiple identities, and their professional identities can sometimes be fragmented. This can lead to identity tensions and hinder their development as teachers. Our data consists of interviews with seven academics at a research-intensive university and the teaching portfolios created during their teaching practicums. All academics participated in 2 years of pedagogical studies, wherein

More and more European higher education students decide to take part in international student mobility (ISM). However, not much is known about the actual benefits of studying abroad. This paper assesses UK and Italian students’ returns from ISM. Three research questions are addressed. First, does international student mobility increase graduates’ employment probability and postgraduate study uptake

Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities continue to experience differential outcomes within the United Kingdom (UK) mental health system, despite increased attention on the area. The trauma of racism for BME academic and professional staff within higher education remains problematic against a backdrop of cultural and organisational institutional racism. Within higher education (HE), BME staff consistently

Undergraduate internships have gained popularity among students, universities, governments and firms since the creation of the European Higher Education Area. However, empirical research on the relationship between internships and labour market performance of graduates is still scarce, particularly in Spain. This paper examines whether internships improve job attainment in the short run (first employment

Work-integrated Learning (WIL) is renowned for providing a bridge between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ that fosters ‘employable graduates’. This study critically argues that the WIL discourse continues to ascribe a dualistic meaning to graduate employability that primarily contributes to creating the so-called theory–practice gap for students. As an argument towards such a conclusion, a genealogical discourse

Life outcomes for people who spent time in the care of the state as children (‘care-experienced’) are known to be significantly lower, on average, than for the general population. The reasons for this are complex and multidimensional, relating to social upheaval, disrupted schooling, mental and physical health issues and societal stigmatisation. Previous studies across several countries have demonstrated

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.

During the past two decades, PhD graduate numbers have increased dramatically with graduates viewed by governments as a means to advance the knowledge economy and international competitiveness. Concurrently, universities have also invested in policies to monitor satisfaction, retention, and timely completion—and researchers have expanded the study of PhD experience. We, as such researchers, have increasingly

Higher education institutions and lifelong learning opportunities offer important skills and knowledge for developing the complex, sustainable, and integrated solutions that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require. Utilizing interview data from a retrospective study of 14 African alumni of a US public land-grant institution, this research explores alumni’s lived experiences to understand how

The threshold concept framework is a key contemporary theory in pedagogy. The core idea is that ‘threshold concepts’ are distinctively ‘troublesome’ for students and act as gatekeepers to their disciplines. No doubt the theory is compelling because there is surely something right about this. Student difficulty with conceptual material is familiar to all teaching practitioners. Furthermore, to avoid

We examine relationships between motivations towards higher education choices, gender and beliefs about the financial consequences of these choices. We control for home background, school type and students’ expectations of grades they will achieve at age 16. We use a unique individual-level UK data set from a random sample of schools with a student sample size of 5012. These motivations are coded on

The growing literature on gender inequality in academia attests to the challenge that awaits female researchers during their academic careers. However, research has not yet conclusively resolved whether these biases persist during the peer review process of research grant funding and whether they impact respective funding decisions. Whereas many have argued for the existence of gender inequality in

Academic and policy discourse has idealised academic mobility despite studies showing that it can have adverse effects on individuals’ experiences and contribute towards exacerbating existing inequalities. This article focuses on career (im)mobility stories of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) early career researchers that are variously sticky with emotion and affect. It places

Although increasing attention has been paid to post-study career trajectories of returnees in emerging economies, there are very few studies on how returnees navigate the home labour market. To fill this gap, the present study aimed to explore how returnees negotiated their employability trajectories in home labour markets. It employed a mixed-method approach, conducting a survey and individual interviews

Sustainable Development Goal 16 commits to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels’. While the concerns of SDG16 with violence reduction, rule of law, and governance are relevant to all societies, this paper focuses on fragile and conflict-affected countries, many

COVID-19 has shed a light on what it is like to be international students and the issues that they face in higher education (Cheung, 2020). Although there has already been a burgeoning literature on international students’ experiences, research in this area is largely fragmented and under-theorised, since different research fields (e.g. cultural studies, applied linguistics, social psychology, and

As an increasing number of international students are studying in English-speaking universities, there has been growing interest in exploring the factors and complexities that impact international students’ academic achievement and adaptation during their studies. The present study aimed to investigate how international students adapt to new academic environments in US universities by exploring the

The flipped classroom is proposed as an answer to challenges in higher education. However, studies that explore its influence on first-year student motivation are largely lacking. Using the self-determination theory, this study examines the influence of large-scale flipped lectures, here called ‘expert labs’, on first-year student motivation in the context of a health sciences course (n = 219 students)

This study examines the experiences of business development centers in higher education institutions (HEIs) to promote entrepreneurship in underserved communities. It draws experiences and perspectives from multiple stakeholders to examine the contribution of HEIs toward equitable economic development and social renewal. Based on extensive qualitative data analyses, this study highlights the role of

Universities play a critical role in the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals through the third mission, i.e. public engagement activities. However, female academics miss opportunities to be part of this mission because they are caught in many roles that prevent them from getting involved in the SDGs. In light of SDG5, Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, we conducted interviews

Providing instructional explanations is a core component of effective instruction and an important teaching skill. Teaching skills are generally regarded as learnable, and teacher education programs aim to improve teachers’ professional competences. In this study, we analyze to what extent explaining skills can be fostered during teacher education at university by means of a specific training module

Various efforts have been made in higher education in Sweden to meet the demand for more transparent governance and increased efficiency and quality. The purpose of this article is to investigate how university teachers handle standardized models for assessment and examination and orientate in this field of tension between professional responsibility and professional accountability. This study examines

There are many factors that motivate students to choose a particular academic major, whether it is due to interest, salary, or family. Government policies and the curriculum imposed on students may also have an impact. The education and training of future pharmacists offered in various universities should include the skill set necessary for fitness to practice in all the different areas of pharmacy