If we want to combat contemporary "neoliberal" attacks on universities, we should start by refusing the way that their pseudo-rationalities already determine so many aspects of the intellectual and institutional regimes that we consider under threat. This paper sketches an analysis of those aspects of the internal practices of academia…

Student engagement has become increasingly important in higher education in recent years. Influenced internationally by government drivers to improve student outcomes, many countries and institutions have participated in surveys such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and its progeny, the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement…

The term "gender gap" refers to the significant underrepresentation of females in many subjects. In Computer Science, the gender gap exists at all career levels. In this article, we study whether there is a performance gap in addition to the gender gap. To answer this question, we analyzed statistical data on student performance in…

Diversity studies are common in higher education today. However, these often only include ethnicity and gender issues. This research focused on intellectual diversity and uses the controversial writer and philosopher, Ayn Rand, as an illustration of the issues facing intellectual diversity in higher education today. The purpose of this study is to…

In 2007, I began research for my doctoral dissertation on what a curriculum in an undergraduate degree in homeland security should look like. At that time, the field of homeland security was a nascent discipline, and as such it did not have a standardized academic curriculum. There were several institutions of higher learning in the United States…

This article describes the emergence of higher education as a field of research, scholarship and study. In the first part, the meaning of higher education as a field of research is defined contrasting Europe and the US. Then, the institutional basis of higher education research in Europe is analysed (learned societies, institutes and centres,…

Inherent in most school curricula is some sort of curriculum hierarchy--that is, an assumption that some school subjects are more valuable than others. This paper examines the epistemological assumptions that underpin one such curriculum hierarchy, which I refer to as "the traditional curriculum hierarchy". It is a pervasive and…

Through this study we sought to gain understanding of the challenges professors face as they make the transition to teaching online. We measured professors' online teaching self-efficacy using survey research methods. Results showed that online teaching self-efficacy was high among the professors surveyed with no self-efficacy scores lower than…

We estimate the short-term effects of the introduction of the Bachelor degree system in Germany, a change in degree regulations such that students need less time to earn a first degree, on college enrollment and dropout rates. We use variation in the timing of the reform at the university department level to identify the effects of the reform…

This essay takes up John White's argument for an engagement and collaboration of philosophy of education with other disciplines, and in particular with other forms of educational research. It examines the benefits and risks of "situated" or "embedded" philosophy as well as Hannah Arendt's claims about the separation of…

Several authors have suggested that the contract between the university and society formulated in the nineteenth century is breaking down, and a new relation between knowledge and society is being installed. This paper investigates what is at stake in this shift by re-visiting the roots of disciplinary knowledge, examining Durkheim's social…

This reflective essay investigates why writer's block affects novice and expert writers on a continuum from students in first-year writing seminars to teachers of writing, paying particular attention to the shared experiences of this pair of practitioners. I begin by focusing on my own experiences as a blocked writer making a disciplinary…

The sociology of sport literature is now sufficiently broad to allow a general analysis of research patterns in this field. To facilitate the identification of these vectors of expansion, sources referenced in articles published in "Sociology of Sport Journal and Journal of Sport and Social Issues" between 2003 and 2011 are examined in…

The issue of the presumed "identity" of Comparative Education as a field of study or a discipline has been discussed for decades. Yet what remains open to question is a kind of systematic structure that provides the basic principles for a coherent exposition of the field. After conceptualising and rejecting almost a dozen possible…

Burnout is increasingly present in organizations and in the most diverse professions, namely, in university students. Burnout can have negative repercussions on their well-being and can even lead them to abandon their studies. The objective of the study focuses on academic burnout and taking medication as a consequence of the requirements of the…