Students’ choices and paths in the Bologna degree structure: An introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Twenty years after the signing of the Bologna Declaration, this special issue contributes to a discussion of the Bologna process with a particular focus on the implementation of the two-cycle degree structure (3+2) and the practices and paths of higher education students. In this introduction, it is argued that there is a need for more research concerning the policy as text, that is, the way the Bologna process is enacted by students and teachers in their daily practices. The 3+2 degree structure has indeed affected the practices of students, particularly by introducing a new transition and decision point in many countries. However, when considering the Bologna policy as text, it becomes visible that there are differences in the students’ concerns and practices across the six countries represented in the papers in the issue. This is not only the case due to differences in the national contexts prior to the Bologna process, but also to the role of other factors affecting the enactment of the policies. Thus, there are variations in the implementation – for example, concerning the social dimension – and the enactment differs due to national as well as programme differences, and differences related to academic disciplines.

Keywords

Bologna process higher education students national differences enactment of reform social dimension

Introduction

In June 1999, European ministers responsible for higher education (HE) signed the Bologna Declaration. The expressed aims included the promotion of ‘citizens’ mobility and employability and the Continent’s overall development’ (Bologna Declaration, 1999). The declaration stressed economic as well as cultural reasons for establishing a European area of HE (from the 2001 communiqué called the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)). To achieve this, increased student mobility was one of the focus points, as was making the HE systems compatible and comparable. The measures suggested included the establishment of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) as a system of credit transfer, the development of diploma supplements that would make national degrees easy to read and compare across countries, and the adoption of a two-cycle structure for HE. The first degree should be a minimum of three years long, and the second cycle should lead to a master’s and/or doctorate degree. The declaration further stated that the objectives expressed should be pursued ‘taking full respect of the diversity of cultures, languages, national education and of University autonomy’ (Bologna Declaration, 1999).

At a number of subsequent conferences for the relevant ministers from the increasing number of countries having joined the Bologna process, there have been published declarations confirming these initial objectives, and other objectives have been included. In 2001, lifelong learning was added as ‘an essential element’ in order to, inter alia, ‘improve social cohesion, equal opportunities and the quality of life’ (Prague Communiqué, 2001). This aspect was confirmed in the Berlin Communiqué (2003) where ‘ministers reaffirm the importance of the social dimension of the Bologna Process’, and where one aim, albeit one among others, was ‘strengthening social cohesion and reducing social and gender inequalities’.

The Bologna process, the making of an EHEA and the concomitant efforts to make HE programmes comparable have entailed some harmonisation of the various national HE systems. On the other hand, the extent of the implementation of the Bologna principles may have been oversold, particularly during the first decade of the process, and the integration of the principles at institutional level may be more diverse (Neave and Amaral, 2008; Teelken and Wihlborg, 2010).

Research concerning the Bologna process

The mere scope of the Bologna process, involving 47 countries having committed themselves to implementing the agreed principles and structures, has caused interest and concern about the consequences for HE in Europe. Reviews by Wihlborg and Teelken (Teelken and Wihlborg, 2010; Wihlborg, 2019; Wihlborg and Teelken, 2014) argued that research taking an explicitly critical stance towards the process has been sparse, but there are scholars critically examining and questioning the harmonisation and the principles behind the 20 years of Bologna process. Likewise, the compatibility of the Bologna principles and the traditions of the Humboldt University has been questioned (e.g. Michelsen, 2010).

The reviews by Teelken and Wihlborg suggest that most of the research concerns the policy level of HE, or it addresses the curriculum level (e.g. how the Bologna process has affected curricula of particular programmes). The same pattern was found in January 2021 in a search in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database for peer-reviewed papers using the search term ‘Bologna process’. By far most of the papers found concerned policy and governance issues as well as studies addressing the consequences of the Bologna process on national systems. There were a few studies concerning the way academics perceived the Bologna process and the concomitant changes, or about changes in teaching formats, and even fewer focused on how the students perceived and acted in relation to the process, with the qualitative study by Sarauw and Madsen (2020) and the quantitative study by Teichler (2019) as recent exceptions.

The focus of the research on structures and policy, however, is not that surprising. Broucker et al. (2019b: 222) note that the six goals from the original 1999 Bologna Declaration included three goals that were ‘interrelated and to some extent rather technical’ (namely, the development of a system of easily readable and comparable degrees, a two-cycle system and the ECTS system) and another three goals that were ‘broader and less focused’. Of these latter three, one also had a structural side to it (promoting co-operation concerning quality assurance), whereas one related to promotion of mobility and one to promotion of the European dimension in HE. Based on case studies of 12 countries presented in the book, Broucker et al. found that it is mainly the first three, technical goals that have been implemented, albeit with ‘minor differences [. . .] which generates the question to what extent those minor differences involve large consequences’ (Broucker et al., 2019b: 222). Similarly, in a stocktaking of the Bologna process after almost 20 years, the rapporteurs from the Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference commenced by stating that ‘structural reforms have been the most successful policy area of the EHEA. Even so, implementation is uneven’ (Curaj et al., 2018: 1).

Thus, the structural and policy aspects of the Bologna process have had the most attention from educational research, possibly because they have been the most visible and tangible parts in form of documents and institutional and structural changes. This focus, on the other hand, means that the implementation of the Bologna principles in the day-to-day practices of HE, and what this means for the practices of teachers and students, is still somewhat under-researched. The distinction made by Stephen Ball (1993, 2015) between ‘policy as text’ and ‘policy as discourse’ is relevant here.

Ball’s use of ‘discourse’ draws on the work of Foucault, and it concerns the point that policy acts by producing particular ways that we can act, talk and position ourselves in relation to that which the policy concerns. Policy as discourse is not whether or not the national systems have implemented the two-cycle degree structure. It is about what the Bologna process makes possible, legitimate and taken for granted, and what it excludes. Some of the critical research studying the Bologna process concerns these discursive aspects (e.g. Brøgger, 2019; Fejes, 2008; Sin and Neave, 2016).

With ‘policy as text’, Ball referred to the point that policies are encoded and decoded in complex ways and that this decoding is affected by ‘actors’ interpretations and meanings in relation to their history, experiences, skills, resources and context’ (1993: 11). In a later paper, Ball stated:

So on the one hand the distinction between ‘policy as text’ and ‘policy as discourse’ made in What is Policy? and explored further in How Schools Do Policy draws attention to the idea that policies are ‘contested’, mediated and differentially represented by different actors in different contexts (policy as text), but on the other hand, at the same time produced and formed by taken-for-granted and implicit knowledges and assumptions about the world and ourselves (policy as discourse). (2015: 311)

This aspect of the Bologna process, policy as text, has received limited attention. How do the students and teachers enact the changes following the Bologna process? The aim of this special issue is to fill this gap by contributing to the limited research. It adds to other recent publications that in relation to the 20 years that have passed since the signing of the Bologna Declaration and 10 years after the establishing of the EHEA have sought to take stock of the implementation (e.g. Broucker et al., 2019a; Vögtle, 2019). Not just the anniversary, but also the fact that the time span makes data available over a longer period of time allowing us to study the consequences of the reforms on the movements of students (cf. Teichler, 2019) makes it relevant to examine the practices following these reforms. The present issue thus adds to a wider discussion of what the Bologna process looks like after two decades. Further, it does so by taking a different approach than most commonly taken, namely that of how the students produce the Bologna process as a text.

A focus on students and choices

The papers in this special issue have a focus on the level of the students and in a particular an interest in the implementation of the 3+2 degree structure. The introduction of the two-cycle 3+2 structure (or three-cycle 3+2+3 structure when including the PhD level) is interesting because it has had a direct effect on the students’ study programmes and the choices students have to make. It is a part of the Bologna process where it is possible to trace the students’ enactment of the policies, just as the two-cycle structure may have bearings on another goal, namely the social dimension and increasing equality in HE. Changing the institutional background by changing the degree structure affected the students’ study processes and experiences at a micro level.

At the same time, the transition to the 3+2 structure was more substantial in some countries than in others due to the differences between the structures of the HE programmes in the various countries that existed before the beginning of the Bologna process. Some countries already had a 3+2 structure, others had two-tier systems where the length of the tiers differed from the 3+2 model, and still others were to change from a one-tier system where university programmes were full master’s programmes.

Consequently, there were also differences in students’ ways through HE. This meant that in some countries the implementation of the Bologna goals presented the students with a new, additional transition point and a new choice to make. For the individual students this meant that they had to engage in a choice process weighing various concerns, aspiration and conditions against each other at the end of their three-year bachelor programme. In Ball’s terms, the students had to produce a text out of the policy. Furthermore, inequalities in education are to a large extent related to transitions between stages (Breen and Jonsson, 2005; Mare, 1981). Therefore, there could be a concern that introducing an additional transition point would lead to increased inequalities, contrary to the Bologna goals concerning the social dimension (see e.g. the papers by Thomsen and by Reimer and Schwabe in this issue).

Thus, focusing on the students and on the implications of the 3+2 degree structure offers an opportunity to inquire into the translation of the policy to text by one of the key actors – the students. Further, it focuses on an element that not only has an immediate effect on the students, but also could have an effect on the social dimension in EHEA.

In addition to this, most previous research on choice of HE has mainly focused on the choice and transition from upper-secondary school into university; that is, the choice of bachelor programme (Bergerson, 2009; Budd, 2017; Bøe et al., 2011; Holmegaard et al., 2014; Reay et al., 2005; Taconis and Kessels, 2009; Thomsen, 2015; Thomsen et al., 2013). In comparison, studies of the choice of programmes at master’s level are scarce (e.g. Jepsen and Neumann, 2010; Mellors-Bourne et al., 2014; Neugebauer, 2015; Neugebauer et al., 2016; Tobbell et al., 2010), and studies adopting a qualitative approach are not common (Hilgemann, 2017; Kremer and Rüschen, 2014). Thus, we have limited research-based understanding of the choice process leading up to the decision about whether to pursue a master’s degree or not, and, if so, then in which programme. This also means that there is a limited knowledge of the consequences of this part of the Bologna process at the level of the students. The present issue contributes to enhancing this knowledge.

The special issue

The present special issue includes papers concerning the impact of the Bologna process in five different European countries: Denmark, England, Germany, Norway and Sweden. All five countries were part of the Bologna process from the signing of the first declaration in 1999. The countries offer a combination of similarities and variations concerning the implementation of the 3+2 degree structure and the traditions of the HE systems. The three Scandinavian countries in many ways have similar educational traditions, akin to the German system, while at the same time they differ in some respect. These four countries thus are cases of variation within an overall similarity. England represents a HE system with a tradition that differs from those of the Scandinavian and the German systems. However, it is supposedly mutual across the five countries that the implementation of the Bologna process has been accompanied and influenced by a more general reform movement rooted in new public management (Broucker et al., 2019a).

Concerning the 3+2 degree structure, the five countries reacted differently to this part of the Bologna process, and the adjustments made following the implementation of the 3+2 degree structure differed. Some countries, like Norway and Denmark, were early movers and launched substantial HE reforms in 2003 of which the adaptation to the Bologna degree structure was an integrated part. Other countries acted later (e.g. Sweden in 2007) and in Germany the change came slowly, but with a marked change in 2008 (cf. the paper by Reimer and Schwabe in this issue).

England already had a two-tier system and still has a 3+1 model. Rather than adopting the 3+2 structure, England has argued that degrees should not be based on ECTS points referring to time spent, but rather to achieved learning outcomes, thus allowing, for instance, a one-year master’s programme to be the equivalent of a two-year master’s elsewhere (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2007; Lucas, 2019). In Germany, the 3+2 structure meant that integrated master’s programmes needed to be divided into two separate parts, the bachelor and the master’s level.

In Denmark, the 3+2 structure had been introduced at universities in 1993, but because ‘almost all university programmes had both a Bachelor level and a Candidatus level’ (Rasmussen, 2019: 82) the university programmes at the end of the day were perceived as five-year units. Therefore, even though the implementation of the Bologna model in 2003 at the formal level changed little, the institutions needed to revise the programmes more thoroughly to meet the requirements of the two-tier degree structure. The situation for the Danish universities was thus similar to that of the German and Italian. For Danish students, it was the implementation of the Bologna model in the university act from that de facto introduced the 3+2 model, not the university act from.

Norway as well as Sweden had two-tier systems, but they differed from that of the Bologna model. Sweden had a highly complex model with,

on the one hand, general degrees of bachelor’s (3 years), and master’s (4 years), and, on the other hand, a variety of professional degrees ranging from 2 years to 5.5 years (including in between 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5 and 5 years degrees). (Börjesson et al., 2014: 102–103)

In 2007, this was changed to all degrees having the 3+2 model.

In Norway, the universities previously had a 4+2 years structure where the undergraduate level consisted of one major and two minor subjects or a double major, while the graduate level was two years in the field in which the student majored. In addition, there were professional, integrated degrees such as medicine and engineering. The integrated degrees are still offered, but most of the programmes were shortened by one year to fit the 3+2 structure. Also, there were changes in the degree structure at university colleges and in the admission system to master’s programmes (cf. the paper by Hovdhaugen and Ulriksen in this issue).

In Germany, there has been a change similar to the one in Norway in the relation between the types of institutions, the universities and the universities of applied sciences. Following this change, both types of institution could award both cycles of degree which ‘decreased the divide between the two main institutional types’ (Peksen and Zeeman, 2019: 45) (cf. the paper by Reimer and Schwalbe in this issue).

All five countries experienced adjustments following the Bologna Declaration and the subsequent additions. Furthermore, there have been extensive reforms and changes related to, inter alia, governance and funding and addressing challenges concerning dropout rates and the massification of HE. In some cases, the Bologna process has been used as an argument for changes that had little to do with the declaration and subsequent communiqués themselves, but the number of changes that have taken place makes it difficult to disentangle exactly which relates to what. This is what Neave and Amaral (2008: 45) call the ‘hidden face’ of the process, a kind of a ‘policy spin-off’. Therefore, national concerns and priorities have had a prominent place in HE policy in the implementation process. Although the Bologna principles have had an impact on the various HE systems, the Bologna process has not entirely defined or taken over the agenda of national HE policy in the five countries. This is in line with a comparison of the development in 12 countries. The comparison

clearly demonstrates that there is not one way within Europe, but that there are multiple ways, and that national or regional policy objectives with regard to the HE system still matter more than the aspired ideal of co-operation within Europe. This also indicates that system reforms are mostly conducted from an internal, national policy perspective – despite the European context wherein HE systems operate. (Broucker et al., 2019b: 228)

Thus, even at the structural level there are differences. Then, how does it look when it comes to the way students move in and through the HE systems, the implementation by students, the policy as text?

The papers

The papers in this issue address the Bologna process with a particular focus on the way the implementation of the 3+2 model has affected the trajectories and experiences of the students. four of the five papers concern the policy as text. That is, they study the way students have moved or how they reflect vis-à-vis the change in degree structure. The fifth paper (by Mendick and Peters) concerns policy as discourse by examining the way students are constructed in policy papers. Two of the four contributions take a quantitative approach and thus offer an insight into the students’ practices at a general level. Because the Bologna process has been going on for 20 years now, it is possible for quantitative studies to study the changes and their impact based on a more substantial amount of data and over a longer period of time. For qualitative studies, the time span means that the changes following the Bologna implementation have been more firmly rooted in the cultures and practices. Two papers take a qualitative approach to study more closely the way students respond to the introduction of an additional decision point after the bachelor degree.

The first paper, by Thomsen, studies the transition patterns of Danish students from bachelor to master’s level from 1993 to 2006, before and after the implementation of the Bologna structure. Thomsen does not find that the Bologna structure has been followed by increasing social class gaps in bachelor and master’s attainment. However, the new transition (from bachelor to master’s) has provided bachelor degree holders with an opportunity for moving from newer universities outside the two major cities to the old universities and for moving away from less lucrative fields of study (the humanities). These changes suggest that students have used the new 3+2 structure as an opportunity to change path rather than to leave university after three years. The 2003 University Act that fully implemented the Bologna structure fuelled these new movements between fields and institutions, but new economic incentives for institutions to attract bachelor students from other institutions have also contributed to the increasing between-institution movements.

The second quantitative paper, by Reimer and Schwabe, examines the changes in students’ movements over time in Germany. They find that the transition stage between the bachelor and the master’s levels appears to increase the social inequality. Thus, the implementation of one goal (the degree structure) pulls in the opposite direction of another Bologna goal concerning the social dimension and increasing equality. Similar to the findings in the Danish analysis, the transition from bachelor to master’s level appears to foster movements between institutions.

Thus, the analyses of the Danish and the German longitudinal data lead to different conclusions. In Denmark, the additional transition stage does not seem to increase inequality, while this appears to be the case in Germany. This emphasises that the consequences of the Bologna process in terms of the social dimension could differ between various countries. Another point is related to the changes found in both quantitative studies concerning movements between institutions. This suggests that the evaluation of the social dimension in the Bologna process should not only be considering unequal access to a master’s programme, but also the segregation within HE of more and less prestigious HE institutions as a way of maintaining inequality efficiently (Thomsen, 2015).

Two papers take a mainly qualitative approach and study the choices of students in two different contexts. The issue’s third paper, by Hovdhaugen and Ulriksen, compares the reasons students gave for entering a particular master’s programme in Norway and in Denmark. In a survey that the students completed shortly after having entered the master’s programme, the students responded to a multiple-choice question about what reasons they believed students would have for deciding to enter a master’s programme. After that, they wrote a short response to an open-ended question about why they themselves had decided to enter. There were substantial similarities in the students’ responses between the two countries. However, there also were some distinct differences in what the students did as well as in the way they explained their choices. These differences related to differences in the national implementation of the Bologna process, but even more so to national differences outside the educational system, in this case differences in the labour market.

The fourth paper, by Madsen and Holmegaard, is based on empirical data produced through a combination of different qualitative methods comparing students from two different university science study programmes in Denmark. They analyse the narratives that students constructed concerning their choice of what to do after having completed the bachelor degree, and the way the students’ experiences of their study programme as well as how they imagined their future were present in and affected these narratives. The data was produced over a period of two years. Madsen and Holmegaard find that the two science programmes presented the students with different repertoires to construct their choices from and as a result the students encountered different choice-processes and negotiations. This meant that the students experienced different opportunities and limitations concerning the possible futures they could imagine, as well as what future paths appeared possible and legitimate. This means that the transition point from bachelor to master’s level presented itself differently depending on in which disciplinary context and culture the students were located.

The final, fifth, paper in this issue, by Mendick and Peters, presents a discourse analysis of policy documents from the European Union (EU) and from England and Sweden, thus adopting a ‘policy as discourse’ rather than a ‘policy as text’ approach. The documents are analysed with a focus on how the purpose of HE is constructed in the documents, and how this positions the students concerning the transition from bachelor to master’s level. Mendick and Peters find that the policy papers in general take a neoliberal approach in the way they perceive the students, inter alia, through an emphasis on employability. At the same time, particularly in a more recent Swedish policy paper, they find a slightly different way of describing the purpose of HE and the students where purposes related to academic freedom and purposes other than the economic come to the fore.

Looking across the five papers it becomes clear that the national contexts are important for the way the 3+2 degree structure (as an example of the Bologna process) is acted out by students. This can be seen in the papers by Thomsen and by Reimer and Schwabe where differences in the funding of HE and in the grants for students that exist in Denmark appear to mitigate the social differentiations that studies from Germany found. Another example is that differences in the labour-market conditions in Norway and Denmark found in the paper by Hovdhaugen and Ulriksen have implications for the transition patterns and the justifications of students in the two countries.

Identifying the consequences of the Bologna process therefore needs to consider the national context, not just before the implementation of the various components, but during the implementation process as well. An example of this is that the papers by Thomsen and by Reimer and Schwabe suggest that the consequences of the Bologna process in relation to the social dimension and equality are just as much the results of specific, national situations as of the initiatives following the Bologna Declaration and subsequent communiqués. A similar observation is made in the paper by Hovdhaugen and Ulriksen. This does not mean that the Bologna process and concomitant changes in the European HE area are pointless or without consequences. It means that the consequences most likely are a result of a combination of the Bologna process and national conditions.

Actually, this is in line with the statement in the original Bologna Declaration (quoted at the beginning of this introduction) that the objectives of the declaration should be ‘taking full respect of the diversity of cultures, languages, national education systems and of University autonomy’ (Bologna Declaration, 1999). Still, it is an important point when politicians and administrators as well as scholars evaluate the results and implications of the process.

Moreover, when assessing the Bologna process one needs to look beyond the educational system and structures. It is necessary to consider the implementation at the level of students acting within the study structures as well as in relation to other systems outside education. The qualitative studies in this special issue show this complexity. The paper by Hovdhaugen and Ulriksen shows that when students decide what to do after a bachelor degree, they are aware of the employability agenda in HE. Hence, future job prospects are one concern for the students when they consider how to enact the structures, but this concern is also affected by labour-market structures and the students’ perceptions about the prospect of getting a job with a bachelor degree.

However, the analyses also show that the students consider much more than merely whether they can get a job. The students construct narratives related to their study programme, weigh various interests and aspirations, and eventually they make a decision. Thus, job prospects are just one among other concerns. This becomes particularly clear in the paper by Madsen and Holmegaard. In their paper, they show that the narratives students from two different study programmes at the same university construct about what they will do after the bachelor degree differ. These differences occur because the programmes present the students with different possible narratives – what the authors call narrative repertoires. Thus, there are not just national differences at play. Differences related to disciplinary cultures and programme cultures also affect the reflections and choices of students.

Together, the findings in the four papers show that the students produce a text of the policy, but, in line with the points made by Ball (1993, 2015), this text is much more than a straightforward realisation of the intentions expressed in policy documents. The implementation is affected by structures that could be perceived as external to the Bologna goals, by different disciplinary and programme cultures and by the students’ endeavours to create a meaningful study path and a future that appears attractive as well as legitimate. The findings in the paper by Mendick and Peters, who study the policy as discourse, show that there is indeed a strong discourse positioning students as people who are expected to focus on their employability when making choices about post-bachelor study paths. However, the authors also found that there are alternative discourses emphasising other purposes of HE than employability.

In their reflections following the Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference, Curaj et al. (2018) argued that the Bologna process has reached a critical moment. This not only concerns the very different extent of implementation in the countries being part of the process. It is also the sense that ‘the EHEA is losing steam and political interest’ (Curaj et al., 2018: 2). The ambition of the research included in this special issue is not to suggest how to revive or conversely how to close down the Bologna process. Rather, the findings in the present papers point at the inevitability of variance in the way the goals are implemented – not just because it was stated in the Bologna Declaration that there could be variations, but because the enactment of overall policies and structures has to adjust to the context. Furthermore, it is the ambition of this special issue to call for attention to how this enactment occurs at the level of students and how the students try to make sense of the structures. Not only will this serve as a reality check of the policies. It could also inform future revisions of the EHEA.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I deeply appreciate the valuable input and comments from Anne-Kathrin Peters, David Reimer, Elisabeth Hovdhaugen, Giuseppe Pellegrini, Heather Mendick, Henriette T. Holmegaard, Jens-Peter Thomsen, Lene Møller Madsen and Ulrike Schwabe in the writing of this introduction.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by a grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research (grant number 7013-00104).

ORCID iD

Lars Ulriksen

Author biography

Lars Ulriksen is a professor of the sociology of science education at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research focuses on higher education with a particular interest in the encounter between students and the higher-education institutions, the teachers and teaching. He has been involved in research on transitions from high school to university, and he was the PI of a research project about the choices and transitions related to the completion of the bachelor degree.

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