This chapter addresses the concepts of diversity and differentiation in higher education. It explores the literature regarding these concepts and offers a conceptual framework which seeks to explain why processes of differentiation and dedif-ferentiation take place in higher education systems.
When discussing external diversity and processes of system differentiation, we will discuss the behaviour of the various “actors” in the system. These actors to a large extent are the higher education organisations that are part of a higher education system. We will interpret these organisations as “corporate actors” (Coleman 1990, p. 531), and will assume that the explanation of social phenomena like differentiation and diversity is possible by means of analysing the behaviour and/or opinions of these corporate actors who need not necessarily be natural persons (although the activities of corporate actors are of course carried out by people).
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- High Education
- High Education Institution
- High Education System
- Governmental Policy
- Institutional Diversity
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Aldrich, H.E. (1979). Organizations and Environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Birnbaum, R. (1983). Maintaining Diversity in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Campbell, D.T. (1965). Variation and selective retention in socio-cultural evolution. In: H.R. Barringer, G.I. Blanksten & R.W. Mack (Eds.), Social Change in Developing Areas. Cambridge: Schenkman.
Clark, B.R. (1978). United States. In: J.H. van de Graaf, B.R. Clark, D. Furth, D. Goldschmidt & D. Wheeler (Eds.), Academic Power: Patterns of Authority in Seven National Systems. New York: Praeger.
Clark, B.R. (1983). The Higher Education System. Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Coleman, J.S. (1990). Foundation of Social Theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
DiMaggio, P.J. & Powell, W.W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48, 147–60.
Durkheim, E. (1893). The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press.
Fox, W. (1993). Higher education policy in California. In: L. Goedegebuure, F. Kaiser, P. Maassen, L. Meek, F. van Vught & E. de Weert (Eds.), Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective (pp. 49–82). Oxford: Pergamon.
Hannan, M.T. & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology 82, 929–64.
Hannan, M.T. & Freeman, J. (1989). Organizational Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hawley, A.H. (1986). Human Ecology; A Theoretical Essay. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Huisman, J. (1995). Differentiation, Diversity and Dependency in Higher Education. Utrecht: Lemma.
Huisman, J., Meek, L. & Wood, F. (2007). Institutional diversity in higher education: a cross-national and longitudinal analysis. Higher Education Quarterly, 61(4), 563–77.
Maassen, P.A.M. & Potman, H.P. (1990). Strategic decision making in higher education, an analysis of the new planning system in Dutch higher education. Higher Education 20, 393–410.
Meek, V.L. (1991). The transformation of Australian higher education: from binary to unitary system. Higher Education 21, 461–94.
Merton, R. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press.
Morgan, G. (1986). Images of Organization. London: Sage.
Morphew, Chr.C. (2006). Conceptualizing Change in the Institutional Diversity of US Colleges and Universities. International Centre for Higher Education Management. University of Georgia, Mimeo.
Neave, G. (1979). Academic drift: some views from Europe. Studies in Higher Education 4(2), 143–59.
Parsons, T. (1966). Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Parsons, T.&Platt, G.M. (1973). The American University. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pfeffer, J.&Salancik, G.R. (1978). The External Control of Organizations, A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper&Row.
Rhoades, G. (1990). Political competition and differentiation in higher education. In: J.C. Alexander&P. Colony (Eds.), Differentiation Theory and Social Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
Riesman, D. (1956). Constraint and Variety in American Education. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Skolnik, M.L. (1986). Diversity in higher education: the Canadian case. Higher Education in Europe 11, 19–32.
Teichler, U. (2007a). The changing patterns of higher education systems in Europe and the future tasks of higher education research. In: European Science Foundation (Ed.), Higher Education Looking Forward: Relations Between Higher Education and Society (pp. 79–103). Strasbourg: European Science Foundation.
Teichler, U. (2007b). Higher Education Systems, Conceptual Frameworks, Comparative Perspectives, Empirical Findings. Rotterdam: Sense.
Trow, M. (1979). Élite and Mass Higher Education: American Models and European Realities. Stockholm: National Board of Universities.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van Vught, F. (2009). Diversity and Differentiation in Higher Education. In: van Vught, F. (eds) Mapping the Higher Education Landscape. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2249-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2249-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2248-6
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2249-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)