Policy Framing in Higher Education in Western Europe: (Some) Uses and (Many) Promises

Abstract

This chapter contributes to our understanding of the transformation sweeping the higher education sector in the last 50 years by examining how higher education policy has been framed and reframed since the 1970s in Western Europe. How policies are framed and reframed is important because it helps us make sense of higher education policy reforms around the world: the various models that drive it, the politics promoted, and the potential winners and losers resulting from framing and reframing. The literature review on framing and higher education policy in Western Europe shows that scholars examined three overlapping themes: the origin and evolution of European higher education policy cooperation (the ‘European Story’), Europeanization (‘When Europe Hits Home’), and the evolution of national higher education policy (‘National Story’). To provide a more considered discussion of framing and higher education policies, we then examine the higher education policy frames, framing, and reframing at the European-level, in Germany, and in Norway. The conclusion reflects on the avenues in which the framing approach could be used to generate more interdisciplinary and comparative higher education research in the post-pandemic context.