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Political nature and socio-professional determinants of the concept of quality

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Abstract

This paper is based on the hypothesis that the notions of teaching quality used in the higher education sector have a political nature; in other words, they may describe the approaches agents take as regards the duties they perform in institutions of higher education or the model of governance those institutions should adopt. This paper uses the statements academics have made through a survey to describe the prevailing attitudes in Spain’s public universities and assess the influence that certain sociodemographic variables may have on the academics’ preferred options.

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Notes

  1. It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss whether students and graduates should be considered internal or external stakeholders as regards institutions of higher education. The term is used thus to accentuate the gap in perspective, in terms of quality, between students in higher education and the academics employed by universities.

  2. The platform was used under the auspices of an agreement between “encuestafacil.com” and the UNIVERSIA Foundation.

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Acknowledgments

This paper and the ECUALE research group have been supported by the University of the Basque Country’s (UPV/EHU) research group promotion fund. Number: GIU 13/42.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, Escuela de Estudios Empresariales, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Elcano 21, 48008, Bilbao, Spain

    Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Xabier González-Laskibar

  2. Department of Industrial Economics, Escuela de Estudios Empresariales, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Elcano 21, 48008, Bilbao, Spain

    Miren Barrenetxea-Ayesta

Authors
  1. Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri
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  2. Xabier González-Laskibar
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  3. Miren Barrenetxea-Ayesta
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Correspondence to Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri.

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Olaskoaga-Larrauri, J., González-Laskibar, X. & Barrenetxea-Ayesta, M. Political nature and socio-professional determinants of the concept of quality. High Educ 69, 673–691 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9796-z

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