“Policy is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”—A thematic issue of Nordic higher education and its micro/macro language policies.
Abstract
This paper deals with policymaking in the higher education sector as an activity which happens on many levels, with many and varying interests involved. As the present thematic issue highlights, language is present in higher education policymaking, whether explicitly or implicitly. This special issue’s initial claim is that “Policy is what happens while you’re busy doing something else”. What this statement brings to the fore is the sometimes overlooked fact that language policies are not the only policies influencing language choice or the overall language distribution of the higher education sector, neither nationally nor globally. This paper describes a case study of a university department in Norway and the various interests and considerations involved in making a decision to move from Norwegian to English as the language of tuition. It discusses how internationalisation policy and language policy may be imposed by different agencies, and sometimes involves a conflict of interest having to be resolved. The paper further discusses how the university department in the case study in its local linguistic practice relates to policies made at the institutional, national and international levels, and reversely how actual practice at the local level influences national policies. The paper thus aims to develop our understanding of the “micro-” and “macro-” levels involved in determining language choice and language distribution in the higher education sector.
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Notes
All WTO Members, some 140 economies at present, are at the same time Members of the GATS and, to varying degrees, have assumed commitments in individual service sectors. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/gatsqa_e.htm.
The Bologna Agreement of 1999 was initially signed by 29 European countries, and the Bologna Process now involves 46 countries attempting to connect their higher education systems. http://www.eua.be/eua-work-and-policy-area/building-the-european-higher-education-area/bologna-basics.aspx.
The Research Excellence Framework is the new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. It will replace the Research Assessment Exercise. It will be undertaken by the four UK higher education funding bodies. See more information at http://www.ref.ac.uk/.
Vekt På Forskning is a system for documenting research output in Norway. See more information at http://www.uhr.no/documents/Vekt_p__forskning__sluttrapport.pdf.
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An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0064-2.
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Ljosland, R. Policymaking as a multi-layered activity. A case study from the higher education sector in Norway. High Educ 70, 611–627 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9832-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9832-z