Koustourakis, G., & Sklavenitis, N. (2013). European Higher Education Area establishment and equal opportunities: A sociological analysis of the Bologna Process official decisions (original) (raw)
This work tries to analyze the official discourse on the development of a European Higher Education Area and focuses on the issue of equal opportunities of access to and completion of study in higher education. For this aim official documents of the first decade of the 21st century referring to the Bologna process (communiqués and declarations of the Bologna process ministers responsible for higher education) were studied using the qualitative content analysis. The results of this work showed that the question of equal opportunities was included in the priority of the social dimension and occupied the Bologna process mainly from the year 2005 and on although mentions for equal opportunities to higher education studies exist in all Bologna process communiqués. The priority of social dimension was the outcome of the adaptation of human capital theory and mainly involved notions such as mobility, lifelong learning, students ' socio-economic background, gender and underrepresentation. 265 necessary to face the challenges of competitiveness and the use of new technologies and to improve social cohesion, equal opportunities and the quality of life" (Prague Communiqué, 2001, p. 2).
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Journal of Educational and Social Research, 2013
This work tries to analyze the official discourse on the development of a European Higher Education Area and focuses on the issue of equal opportunities of access to and completion of study in higher education. For this aim official documents of the first decade of the 21st century referring to the Bologna process (communiqués and declarations of the Bologna process ministers responsible for higher education) were studied using the qualitative content analysis. The results of this work showed that the question of equal opportunities was included in the priority of the social dimension and occupied the Bologna process mainly from the year 2005 and on although mentions for equal opportunities to higher education studies exist in all Bologna process communiqués. The priority of social dimension was the outcome of the adaptation of human capital theory and mainly involved notions such as mobility, lifelong learning, students' socioeconomic background, gender and underrepresentation.
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