Yükseköğretimin kitleselleşmesinin yükseköğretim kurumları üzerindeki etkileri yükseköğretim araştırmalarının ana gündemlerinden bir tanesi. Elit yükseköğretim sistemlerinden kitlesel yükseköğretim sistemlerine geçiş ile birlikte aday öğrencilerin üniversite tercih süreçleri ve üniversite/akademik bölümlerin kendilerini öğrencilere tanıtma biçimleri büyük değişimlere uğradı.

Elizabeth Bronwen Knight, Monash Üniversitesi (Avustralya) Eğitim Fakültesinde 2018 yılında tamamladığı “The Impact of Massification of the Higher Education Sector on the Idea of a Degree in the UK” başlıklı doktora tezinde 1976-2013 yılları arasında Birleşik Krallık’ta farklı statüdeki yükseköğretim kurumlarının aday öğrencilere çeşitli dokümanlarla verdikleri mesajların söylem analizini yaparak, bu 40 yıla yakın dönemde lisans eğitimi alma amaçlarının dönüşümünü inceliyor.

Özet

This study investigates whether the messages sent by academic institutions of different status in their prospectuses about the idea of a degree have changed over the period of massification in the UK 1976-2013. The study concludes that there are differing identifiable discourse topics, and these have changed over the period, especially away from a traditional liberal higher education to a focus on graduate employment. The major change found over the period is an increase in the homogenisation of marketing materials, which enhanced the coding of institutional status, and as a result now requires increased support for prospective students.

Research Problem

The thesis contends that significant questions exist regarding messages about the idea of a degree and that these have changed during the phenomenal expansion of the universities in the UK over the last forty years. The questions are presented as part of the student choice process. The thesis is driven by a desire to investigate how changes in the nature and size of higher education have impacted on the universities’ presentation of the degree in their prospectuses. This research is transparent about the ideology that motivates it, which is rooted in a desire for fair access to higher education; the aim of the research is to understand how the massification of higher education has impacted on issues of equity within the higher education sector, as it relates to access to information for educational decision-making. My work is particularly driven by the question of whether the massification of the UK higher education sector has increased the social justice of the system, or whether, as some argue, it has entrenched social reproduction and obscured the mechanisms of elite reproduction (Naidoo & Whitty 2014).