190109 SE BM 10 Bachelor's Thesis (AHP+SB) (2023S)

The central aim of this seminar is to investigate and discuss the development of the higher education landscape in Europe and beyond, in the course of the 19th and 20th century. The Napoleonic and Humboldtian reforms (c. 1800) in respectively France and Germany count as the starting point for an analysis of the crystallization and consequent diffusion of these so-called university ‘models’. More in particular, the focus will be on frictions and struggles that forced these models to adapt to meet changing social and political demands within the national context, but also to meet the specificity of the cultural context of other nations in Europe and on other continents. Even more specifically, attention will be paid to the challenge that technology, the knowledge economy, and digitization posed to established conceptions of the university.

After a few introductory sessions, students chose a topic for their Bachelor’s Thesis together with the seminar leader. In general, the Bachelor’s Thesis is
• an educational historiography of a particular development,
• a critical analysis of educational policy,
• a comparative perspective on a central topic in higher education studies, or
• a philosophical analysis of an important question in university studies.

Examples of possible topics include: (a) Historical case study of a specific context (e.g., influence (or not) of German model in Japan, higher education in British colonies); (b) Contextual study of an author/thinker who has been influential (e.g., Wilhelm von Humboldt, Clark Kerr); (c) Universities and social movements (e.g., 1968, Cordoba-student movement); (d) Feminist and decolonial critiques of university education (e.g., bias in science, ‘epistemicide’); (e) Higher education in a digital environment (e.g., new forms of teaching and learning, MOOCs and internationalization); (f) Internationalization and nationalism in higher education (e.g., mobility programs, critiques of Europeanization, nationalist movements); (g) Impact of Bologna within a specific context (e.g., in Austria); (h) Developments in teaching and learning in higher education (e.g., lecture, seminar, … + field specific didactics (laboratory work) and new developments (cf. active learning) in policy and practice); (i) Changing conceptions of academic freedom (e.g., liberal, Humboldtian idea versus neoliberal, commercial idea); etc.