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Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions pp 1–8Cite as

Institutional Diversity in Higher Education, Institutional Profiling

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Synonyms

Institutional profiling; Institutional variety

Definition

The variety of higher education institutions within a higher education system.

Introduction

The issue of institutional diversity in higher education has attracted and continues to attract the attention of researchers and policy makers across the globe. We define institutional (or organizational) diversity as the variety of higher education institutions within a particular higher education system (Huisman 1995, 51). For a proper understanding of institutional dynamics taking place in higher education systems, the concept of diversity is best to be situated against its dynamic counterparts diversification and homogenization (Huisman 1995, 1998). Diversification denotes a process in which the variety of higher education institutions increases (over time) and homogenization (often described as academic drift; see below) or the loss of variety – higher education institutions becoming more similar – within a higher education...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Jeroen Huisman

Authors
  1. Jeroen Huisman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeroen Huisman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. CIPES, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro Teixeira

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Huisman, J. (2016). Institutional Diversity in Higher Education, Institutional Profiling. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_32-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_32-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

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