This ground-breaking and exhaustive analysis of university ranking surveys scrutinizes their theoretical bases, methodological issues, societal impact, and policy implications, providing readers with a deep understanding of these controversial comparators. The authors propose that university rankings are misused by policymakers and institutional leaders alike. They assert that these interested parties overlook the highly problematic internal logic of ranking methodologies even as they obsess over the surveys assessment of their status. The result is that institutions suffer from...

Moving the academic debate on from its current focus on development to a more nuanced sociological perspective, this fresh research is a collaboration between academics in South Korea and Germany that assesses the factors shaping world-class universities as institutional social systems as well as national cultural treasures. The work explores in detail how WCUs have moved to a central position in policy circles, and how these often ambitious government policies on WCUs have been interpreted and adopted by university administrators and individual professors.

The authors provide a...

This ground-breaking and exhaustive analysis of university ranking surveys scrutinizes their theoretical bases, methodological issues, societal impact, and policy implications, providing readers with a deep understanding of these controversial comparators. The authors propose that university rankings are misused by policymakers and institutional leaders alike. They assert that these interested parties overlook the highly problematic internal logic of ranking methodologies even as they obsess over the surveys assessment of their status. The result is that institutions suffer from...

This book discusses mass higher education development in East Asian countries by means of three main issues: the strategy for higher education development; the way professors and students in the region are experiencing the rapid developments; and the challenges imposed by mass higher education. These challenges include the quality of education as well as structural changes in the rapidly developing systems, funding sources for supporting mass higher education, and job markets for college graduates.

Part I discusses how the East Asian countries have accomplished or are in the process...

Moving the academic debate on from its current focus on development to a more nuanced sociological perspective, this fresh research is a collaboration between academics in South Korea and Germany that assesses the factors shaping world-class universities as institutional social systems as well as national cultural treasures. The work explores in detail how WCUs have moved to a central position in policy circles, and how these often ambitious government policies on WCUs have been interpreted and adopted by university administrators and individual professors.

The authors provide a...

This authoritative reference source covers all higher education themes in a comprehensive, accessible and comparative way. It maps the field for the twenty first century reflecting the massive changes that have occurred and the challenges ahead for future research. It provides a rich diversity of scholarly perspectives and covers the entire spectrum of higher education from a geographical, a topical and disciplinary perspective. It is unrivaled in its capacity to go beyond national boundaries and provides indispensible comparative analyses.

The major reference works available about...