3rd Global Conference The Idea of Education Monday 9th August - Wednesday 11th August 2004 Prague, Czech Republic Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 1: Case Studies in Education I Chair: Seth Agbo Fight or Flight: The Academic Community in Post-War Germany, 1945-1949 Gordon Cooper Department of History, University of Sydney, Australia This paper assesses the academy’s resistance to denazification measures and the extent to which attempts to ‘democratise’ universities were stifled in the German universities of Bonn and Leipzig between 1945 and 1949. As symbolic institutions of cultural and elite reproduction, universities provide an ideal lens through which to examine the broader societal impact of Allied denazification procedures: it was these institutions that were ultimately responsible for inducing a cultural shift in Germany, especially amongst the so-called ‘45er’ generation that had been educated and socialised during the Nazi era. The extent to which universities were cleansed of impropriety is therefore central to issue of democratisation in East and West Germany after 1945. As recent research has demonstrated, academics based in the occupied West were better equipped to avoid prosecution for an association with the Nazi past simply by invoking the neo-humanist Idee der Universität (‘idea of the university’) as a claim to membership of an apolitical academia before 1945. No substantial departure from the secretive and inherently anti-democratic university structure occurred in Bonn or other western universities until the student rebellions of the 1960s. Rather, the impetus for reform came from a youth backlash against the continued existence of ‘brown professors’ in the universities, a reality that seemed to confirm the Federal Republic’s unwillingness to remove former Nazis from positions of influence and prestige. This contrasts perceptibly with experience of professors at Leipzig and other Soviet Zone universities, where education was transformed into a relatively compliant commodity industry through the process of ‘stalinisation’. Such research is unique because, as a comparative micro-study of the function of a specific type of institution, it is positioned to cut through the competing myths of democratic legitimacy that defined the relationship between the FRG and the GDR in the post-war period. These states tended to legitimise their existence by highlighting their own democratic credentials over the apparent failings of the ‘other Germany’. The manner in which universities were purged of Nazi influence after 1945 therefore became entwined in the broader exercise of nation-building. While East Germany denounced the West as the sole inheritor of Germany’s fascist legacy (pointing especially to the re-incorporation of compromised academics and bureaucrats into positions of social and political power during the Adenauer era), the West derided its counterpart for wielding a brand of repressive totalitarianism that, they suggested, was reminiscent of Nazi-era excesses. Such claims are still hotly contested and with good reason – they either confirm or deny the legitimacy of the socialist experiment in the GDR and question the extent to which the Germans mastered the guilt associated with the recent past. Knowledge, Perceptions and Attitudes to Mergers at the University of the North Kirti Menon Consultant, Council on Higher Education and School of Public and Development Management, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa This paper sets out to critically examine the attitude to policy initiatives of a specific constituency, within higher education. The constituency is based at the University of the North (Limpopo), a historically disadvantaged institution in South Africa. The study focuses on the attitudes of senior management at the institution to the proposal that the university merge with a medical institution (MEDUNSA) located in a different province by 1 January 2005. A current trend in higher education internationally is that debates on change and transformation have taken centre stage. The major drivers can be identified as globalisation, internationalisation, diminished state funding, rising costs per student, the new knowledge economy and the widening of access and responding to the needs of the economy and society. The present policy regulatory framework in the country has taken cognisance of these challenges and what it means for South Africa higher education. The additional imperative confronting the country is that the system is located in a fledgling democracy scarred by the vestiges of apartheid. It is noted that a decade post-apartheid, the key socio-political objective of transcending the apartheid constructed higher education system is foregrounded in the policy instruments developed by the Department of Education. The higher education system leans towards maintaining traditional positions of argument that are rooted in identities of historically disadvantaged institutions and historically advantaged institutions. The release of the ministerial proposals is predicated on the need for institutions to become efficient and effective, focus on quality provision, equity, responsiveness, accountability and transformation. The proposal to merge the University of the North with two other historically disadvantaged institutions forms the basis of this research. Adopting the qualitative paradigm, the research focuses on perceptions, attitudes and beliefs towards the ministerial proposals of senior management in the pre-merger phase. The case study focuses on other completed mergers in the South African higher education environment in order to assess the validity and reliability of some of the conclusions derived from the attitudinal study conducted in 2003. Download Conference Paper - Professional Associations and Universities: A Case study of the Australian Association of Social Workers Lynelle Osburn School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia Professional associations can operate to limit access to professions through accreditation arrangements with universities, lobbying government for course finding and limiting employment access to all but those with accredited qualifications. Actions of professional associations can challenge principles of social justice and equity even in professions (like social work) where these principles are central to the profession’s ethos. What might the role of the university be in these manoeuvres? Are there benefits to universities that might reinforce attribution of power to a profession. The example is the Australian Association of Social Workers and course changes and development in Australia.