Description
Book SynopsisWith the emergence of mass higher education, many national governments have identified a diverse higher education system as a policy objective. This volume attempts to further our understanding of processes affecting diversity by addressing them from a theoretical and empirical perspective in a comparative setting.
Trade ReviewMartin Hayden, Southern Cross University This book makes an important contribution to the literature on policy studies in higher education because of the quality of the contributions, the status of the contributors and the importance of the topics addressed. The book provides and extraordinarily rich insight into the remarkable diversity across, and within, national higher education systems and it presents a great deal of evidence that, over time, these systems can shift one way and then the other in terms of the amount of diversity they exhibit. I regard the book as being valuable for anyone with an interest in higher education systems generally and as an essential text for scholars exploring the dynamics of structural change within, and across, national higher education systems. Higher Education Research & Development
Table of ContentsIntroduction. On diversity, differentiation and convergence (L. Goedegebuure et al.). Theoretical Perspectives. Diversification of higher education: viability and change (B.R. Clark). Homogenization, integration and convergence: the cheshire cats of higher education analysis (G. Neave). Isomorphism in higher education? Towards a theory of differentiation and diversity in higher education systems (F. van Vught). Country Experiences. Diversity and differentiation in the Australian unified national system of higher education (V.L. Meek, A. O'Neill). Diversity within a decentralized higher education system: the case of Canada (G. Jones). The problem of diversification in higher education: countertendencies between divergence and convergence in the Finnish higher education system since the 1950s (O. Kivinen, R. Rinne). Diversity in higher education in Germany: the two-type-structure (U. Teichler). Diversity in the Netherlands (J. Huisman). From equality through equivalence to quality through diversification: changes in the Swedish higher education policy in the 1990s (M. Bauer). Differentiation and diversity in a newly unitary system: the case of the United Kingdom (O. Fulton). Diversification in American higher education: historical patterns and current trends (R.L. Geiger). Conclusion (V.L. Meek et al.).
