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Vassiliki Papatsiba

Other affiliations: University of Oxford
Bio: Vassiliki Papatsiba is an academic researcher from University of Sheffield. The author has contributed to research in topics: Higher education & Erasmus+. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 20 publications receiving 470 citations. Previous affiliations of Vassiliki Papatsiba include University of Oxford.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the analysis of student mobility in the EU as a means to stimulate convergence of diverse higher education systems and argue that promoting student mobility was not an act of a limited ambition, but on the contrary, an initiative aiming at the foundation of a system of higher education institutions at a European level.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the analysis of student mobility in the EU as a means to stimulate convergence of diverse higher education systems. The argument is based on official texts and other texts of political communication of the European Commission. The following discussion is placed within the current context of the Bologna process and its aim to introduce system‐level changes towards convergence and harmonization that were not achieved through EU schemes of student mobility. Without disregarding the tension between popularity and limited impact of EU mobility programmes, I argue that promoting student mobility was not an act of a limited ambition, but on the contrary, an initiative aiming at the foundation of a system of higher education institutions at a European level.

125 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse political rationales for promoting student mobility in Europe and discuss these in the light of individual experiences of mobile students, and discuss the extent to which drives for mobility and outcomes at the individual student level are in line with the political perceptions and expectations of the above-mentioned institutional actors.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyse political rationales for promoting student mobility in Europe and discuss these in the light of individual experiences of mobile students. Since the creation of the ERASMUS programme in 1987, student mobility in Europe has been the subject of unusual political promotion. More recently, in the context of the Bologna process, the goal of increasing student mobility has been reaffirmed by various higher education actors. Student mobility is thought to be both a component of the European Higher Education Area and one of its outcomes. Beyond this apparent widespread acceptance, we examine, on the one hand, underlying legitimating ideas and rationales that accompanied the institutionalisation of student mobility by the European Commission and a regional French authority. We also discuss the extent to which drives for mobility and outcomes at the individual student level are in line with the political perceptions and expectations of the above-mentioned institutional actors.

102 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine national branding of UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understand promises of capitals, and trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government.
Abstract: This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the ‘Education UK’ and subsumed under the broader ‘Britain is GREAT’ campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy.

94 citations

Book ChapterDOI
28 Oct 2005
TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of 80 student accounts on experiences of Erasmus mobility within Europe has shown that student mobility reinforces the individual belief of being able to face changing environments, to monitor the self and to be monitored as a self, and to take control on one's lifepath in a reflexive way, by accepting risks impelling new dynamics.
Abstract: The rise of the era of mobility, or at least of a rhetoric on the benefits of mobility for individuals, can closely be connected with the late modernity and optimist views of the self's capacity to adapt to the challenges posed by globalisation. Mobility thus becomes an act expressing the individual appropriation of an “enlarged” action-space, supposed to become less constrained by social determinism. According to this assumption, mobility can also be seen as a form of elective biography (do-it-yourself biography) and would favour the emergence of a freer individual. Results of the analysis of 80 student accounts on experiences of Erasmus mobility within Europe have shown that student mobility reinforces the individual belief of being able to face changing environments, to monitor the self and to be monitored as a self, and to take control on one's life-path in a reflexive way, by accepting risks impelling new dynamics. From the students’ perspective, mobility experience seems to release impulses for personal growth and individual autonomy. Yet this advantage, however important it may be, often dominates the other outcomes of a mobility period, such as cultural and political awareness, intercultural competence and enlarged feeling of belonging. This result creates a tension with views and expectations for students to become “culture carriers” and vectors of Europeanisation, since the pro-social and societal dimensions of student mobility outcomes, as an experience supporting cultural awareness and understanding, tolerance and civic conscience were less systematically present at the end of the stay abroad.

31 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality by Aihwa Ong as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the field of transnationality. ix. 322 pp., notes, bibliography, index.
Abstract: Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Aihwa Ong. Durham, NIC: Duke University Press, 1999. ix. 322 pp., notes, bibliography, index.

1,517 citations

Book
01 Jan 1972
TL;DR: Invisible colleges diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages as discussed by the authors The advantages are not only for you, but for the other peoples with those meaningful benefits.
Abstract: No wonder you activities are, reading will be always needed. It is not only to fulfil the duties that you need to finish in deadline time. Reading will encourage your mind and thoughts. Of course, reading will greatly develop your experiences about everything. Reading invisible colleges diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages. The advantages are not only for you, but for the other peoples with those meaningful benefits.

1,262 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the view of sociologists presented in a recent book of Ulrich Beck (Macht und Gegenmacht im globalen Zeitalter, 2002, translated into French under the title Pouvoir et contre-pouvior a l'ere de la mondialisation, 2003), and show some analogies between Beck and Held.
Abstract: Sociology was born as an attempt to delimit an object of investigation offered by society as a social reality. The ambition was that of “treating the social facts as things” (Durkheim) or of understanding and explaining the social relations by respecting an “axiological neutrality” (Max Weber). Today, however, we are in the presence of a new kind of sociologists, and they are by no means the less popular ones, who are not trying to avoid assessments in their analysis of the present social world. I have in mind especially two sociologists, Ulrich Beck (Munich) and David Held (London). I will discuss in particular the view of sociology presented in a recent book of Ulrich Beck (Macht und Gegenmacht im globalen Zeitalter, 2002, translated into French under the title Pouvoir et contre-pouvoir a l’ere de la mondialisation, 2003), and I will show some analogies between Beck and Held. Finally, I will try to identify the points hat make the present sociological epistemology different from that of the great founders of this science.

615 citations

07 Mar 1994

555 citations