The launch of the forum for International Education and Pedagogical Issues

Students as ‘objects of criticism’? Variations in the construction of higher education students across six European countries

The School of Education is delighted to announce the launch of the forum for International Education and Pedagogical issue with inaugural guest speaker Professor Rachel Brooks, from the University of Surrey.

It is often assumed within much of the academic literature and by many of those working in higher education that universities across Europe are homogenising, converging around an Anglo-American model as a result of neo-liberal pressures and the aim of creating a single European Higher Education Area. However, drawing on an analysis of 92 policy documents from six different European countries, this article demonstrates that enduring differences remain – at least in so far as constructions of students are concerned. While European policy may assume that higher education students can move unproblematically across national borders, as part of the Erasmus mobility scheme, for example, the paper will show that understandings of ‘the student’ differ in significant ways both across countries and, to some extent, within them. This has implications for both European policy and academic theorisation.

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