The Eagle and the Circle of Gold Stars: Does the Bologna Process Affect US Higher Education?

The Bologna Process is almost at its end and European policy‐makers currently reflect on appropriate objectives and policies for the next decade. Given that the Bologna Process is generally seen as an example of unprecedented change in European higher education and that the major overarching objective of the Process was to increase the competitiveness of European higher education vis‐a‐vis the USA and Japan, it is worthwhile to investigate how and to what extent US higher education has responded to the European developments. This article analyses to what extent elements of the Bologna Process are reflected in recent US higher education policy discourse, using Tolbert and Zucker's (1996) framework of institutionalization which assumes a gradual process of the diffusion of an innovation. This analysis stresses a more uneven, piecemeal and even haphazard process, particularly in the initial stages of the institutionalization process, and suggests an adaptation of the framework.

[1]  Jeroen Huisman,et al.  National and european policies for the internationalisation of higher education , 2004 .

[2]  Marijk van der Wende,et al.  Internationalisation policies: about new trends and contrasting paradigms , 2001 .

[3]  T. Jost.  Country Report USA , 2000 .

[4]  P. Berger,et al.  The Social Construction of Reality , 1966 .

[5]  S. Barley.  Technology as an occasion for structuring: evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. , 1986, Administrative science quarterly.

[6]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutional conditions for diffusion , 1993 .

[7]  Sybille Reichert,et al.  Trends 2003 Progress towards the European Higher Education Area Bologna four years after: Steps toward sustainable reform of higher education in Europe , 2003 .

[8]  T. Lawrence,et al.  Institutions and Institutional Work , 2006 .

[9]  C. Cruz.  RESEÑA de: EURYDICE. Focus en the structure of Higher Education in Europe 2004/05: National Trends in the Bologna Process. Bruselas: Unidad Europea de Eurydice, 2005 , 2006 .

[10]  K. Weick.  FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[11]  T. Eagleton,et al.  The Significance Of Theory , 1990 .

[12]  U. Teichler.  The Changing Debate on Internationalisation of Higher Education , 2004 .

[13]  Hans de Wit,et al.  Internationalization of Higher Education in the United States of America and Europe: A Historical, Comparative, and Conceptual Analysis , 2002 .

[14]  H. Laroche,et al.  Karl E. Weick (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, Californie , 1996 .

[15]  Pamela S. Tolbert,et al.  The Institutionalization of Institutional Theory , 1996 .

[16]  Pamela S. Tolbert,et al.  Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935 , 1983 .

[17]  Elaine Romanelli,et al.  Convergence and Upheaval: Managing the Unsteady Pace of Organizational Evolution , 1986 .

[18]  Ulrich Teichler,et al.  Research on Internationalisation in Higher Education , 2007 .