Greek Higher Education reforms during the crisis: the discursive construction of contesting issues

Posted on November 10, 2016 by anna pultar

Our next research group meeting will be on Wednesday, 16^th November, 1-2 pm (CMB meeting room 6).

Nikos Kanellopoulos, PhD candidate in social policy, will present his latest findings from his research on Greek Higher Education reforms during the crisis.

 

Nikos Kanellopoulos: Greek Higher Education reforms during the crisis: the discursive construction of contesting issues

During the current economic crisis, a series of reforms in Greek Higher Education were proposed and made legal, with a view to address some of the deficiencies and challenges in the sector. Nevertheless, most of the policies have been partly implemented or largely amended, mainly due to the strong resistance by coalitions of university unions, some rectors and professors, and the youth organizations of political parties operating in universities. Furthermore, due to their embeddedness into this new socio-political context of the acute financial crisis in Greece, these reforms have largely collided with the deteriorating economic climate in Greece; this has dealt a severe blow not only to the basic, daily operations of Greek HE institutions, but even their survival in itself.

The aim of this research is to explore the role and function of the various contesting individual and/or collective discourses in the construction of the recent Greek HE reforms during the financial crisis and reveal the ideas and ‘imaginaries’ that underpin them. In this presentation I will explore three topics that emerged from the analysis of the interview data, namely the internal governance of the universities, the external policy actors’ influence and the impact of crisis.

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