Resumo

MAGALHAES, António M.. The Identity of Higher Education: higher education and the university . Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2006, n.7, pp.13-40. ISSN 1645-7250.

Higher education is a product of modernity, built in the crossroad of the Humboldtian model, the Napoleonic model and the Oxbridge model. Higher education, as we know it, was centred in the handling of knowledge, i.e., in its production (research) in its distribution (teaching) and in its dissemination across society (service to community). Knowledge and its handling defined not only the institutional mission, but also the nature of higher education organizations. To these components of the ‘idea’ of higher education, others equally important elements were added: the role of higher education institutions in the consolidation and development of the nation-state. The cadres necessary to the functioning of the state apparatus found in the universities a privileged place for their training. This paper argues that in a context in which the production, distribution and dissemination of knowledge are changing, a context in which globalization/localization processes erode - mainly in Europe - the national level, and a context in which massification and democratization of access to higher education induce sociological patterns different from the originals, higher education itself is assuming a schizo identity: tertiary education, post-secondary education, research-driven higher education, vocational higher education, etc. This situation demands increased reflexivity, by simultaneously refusing an essentialist approach to the ‘idea’ to higher education and stressing the need to promote educational perspectives not reducible to its adaptability, i.e., refusing the framework of a paradigm in which the criterion of an institution legitimacy is proportional to their survival capacity in an ever changing environment

Palavras-chave : ensino superior; modernidade; identidade.

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