Skip to main content

Concluding Remarks

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 297 Accesses

Part of the book series: Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences ((SHSSHS))

Abstract

In the concluding remarks, the editors reflect upon lacunae and implications of the chapters presented before. We discuss the legitimacy of choosing nation states as levels of analysis, the problem of international cooperation in the SSH and the absence of useful typologies of countries in the sphere of higher education as well as possible indicators upon which such typologies could be built. Using our own data as well as data from international organizations, we ask furthermore why disciplines show different growth rates between countries and over time. While we are unable to present detailed explanations of the growth of disciplines, we offer two more abstract ‘models’ indicating what we believe determines different growth rates of disciplines in international comparison.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    According to data from UNESCO the share of students enrolled in private institutions of Higher Education increased in the first decade of the 21st c: In France from 15 to 17%, in Hungary from 13 to 15, in Italy from 6 to 8 and in Argentina in 2007 to 25%. The other countries from our sample did not report any numbers of students enrolled in private institutions. The data for UK are given as 100% private. (Altbach et al. 2009) Appendix, Table 2, pp. 199–205.

  2. 2.

    For the US see the classic study (Caplow and McGee [1958] 2001); for France and Germany: (Musselin 2010; Lutter and Schröder 2016) are not interested in the particularities of the hiring process but analyze the outcomes only.

  3. 3.

    It is worth remembering that distributing agencies seldom publish statistics about less aggregated entities than the container SSH, STEM, BioMed etc. In addition, it would be necessary to relate any of these figures also to the number of researchers and similar statistical populations.

  4. 4.

    Number of female graduates for one male graduate.

  5. 5.

    Disciplines are broader than study programs. According to a recent report in DIE ZEIT in Germany there are 19,000 different study programs in tertiary education. This number alone would legitimize the usage of the language of disciplines. DIE ZEIT 19.10.2017, p. 69.

References

  • Altbach, Philip G., Liz Reisberg, and Laura E. Rumbley. 2009. Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution; a report prepared for the UNESCO 2009 World Conference on higher education. Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001832/183219e.pdf.

  • Bartelse, Jeroen, and Frans van Vught. 2007. Institional [sic!] profiles: Towards a typology of higher education institutions in Europe. IAU Horizons 13 (2–3): 9–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boumans, Marcel. 2014. Haavelmo’s epistemology for an inexact science. History of Political Economy 46 (2): 211–229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1988. Homo academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caplow, Theodore, and Reece McGee. [1958] 2001. The academic marketplace. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, Norman. 1996. Europe: A history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fielden, John. 2008. Global trends in university governance. Education Working Paper Series 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleck, Christian, and Barbara Hönig. 2014. European sociology: Its size, shape, and ‘excellence’. In Routledge handbook of European sociology, vol. 1, ed. Sokratis M. Koniordos and Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsēs, 40–66. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbons, Michael (ed.). 1994. The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Peter A., and David W. Soskice. 2001. Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallin, Daniel C., and Paolo Mancini. 2004. Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Communication, society and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hausman, Daniel M. 1992. The inexact and separate science of economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Heilbron, Johan, Madeline Bedecarré, and Rob Timans. 2017. European journals in the social sciences and humanities. Serendipities: Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences 2 (1): 33–49. https://doi.org/10.25364/11.2:2017.1.3.

  • Helmer, Olaf, and Nicholas Rescher. 1959. On the epistemology of the inexact sciences. Management Science: Journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences 6: 25–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hénard, Fabrice, and Alexander Mitterle. n.d. [2009]. Governance and quality guidelines in higher education: A review on governance arrangements and quality assurance guidelines. https://www.oecd.org/edu/imhe/46064461.pdf.

  • Kropp, Kristoffer. 2017. The cases of the European values study and the European social survey—European constellations of social science knowledge production. Serendipities: Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences 2 (1): 50–68. https://doi.org/10.25364/11.2:2017.1.4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lutter, Mark, and Martin Schröder. 2016. Who becomes a tenured professor, and why? Panel data evidence from German sociology, 1980–2013. Research Policy 45 (5): 999–1013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2016.01.019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martins, Herminio. 1974. Time and theory in sociology. In Approaches to sociology: An introduction to major trends in British sociology, ed. John Rex, 246–294. International library of sociology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musselin, Christine. 2010. The market for academics. Studies in higher education. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons (eds.). 2001. Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. 2016. Education at a Glance 2016. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paradeise, Catherine, Emanuela Reale, Ivar Bleiklie, and Ewan Ferlie. 2009. University governance: Western European comparative perspectives. Higher education dynamics. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santiago, Paulo, Karine Tremblay, Ester Basri, and Elena Arnal. 2008. Special features: Equity, innovation, labour market, internationalisation. Tertiary education for the knowledge society, vol. 2. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schögler, Rafael, and Thomas König. 2017. Thematic research funding in the European union: What is expected from social scientific knowledge-making? Serendipities. Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences 2 (1): 107–130. https://doi.org/10.25364/11.2:2017.1.7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Searle, John R. 2005. What is an institution? Journal of Institutional Economics 1 (1): 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Anthony D. 1983. Nationalism and classical social theory. British Journal of Sociology 34: 19–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Vught, F.A. et al. 2010. U-Map: The European classification of higher education institutions. www.u-map.eu.

  • Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina G. Schiller. 2002. Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziegele, Frank. 2013. Classification of higher education institutions: The European case. Pensamiento Educativo. Rivista de Investigación Educacional Latinoamericana 50 (1): 76–95.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Fleck .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Fleck, C., Duller, M., Karády, V. (2019). Concluding Remarks. In: Fleck, C., Duller, M., Karády, V. (eds) Shaping Human Science Disciplines. Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92780-0_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92780-0_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-92779-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-92780-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics