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The political, social, and institutional environments in which contemporary universities operate have changed rather dramatically over the past two decades in ways that threaten the resilience of the academic core, both in its ability to map knowledge comprehensively and also to maintain a balance between the branches of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. This paper traces historical changes (2003–2019) in the academic core of two "flagship" research-intensive universities located in Northern Europe. The results show that some branches of the academic core are undergoing dynamic processes of program churn that make them resilient. Furthermore, the data show that this resilience is enabled in large part by bridging different branches of knowledge by establishing what we term interbranch programs. In addition to the abovementioned findings, the paper links ongoing discussions regarding change in HE systems and institutions to the literature on organizational resilience, and it advances insights for a possible future theory of how adaptation plays out in the academic core over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the recent growth of experiential learning (EL) and the university-community (or so-called town-gown, TG) connections created as a result of this expansion. The research is framed by critical scholarship on the nature and role of the university and the place of liberal education specifically, as well as policy drivers aimed at social and economic impacts from EL. Two subthemes are also examined: first, the role of the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines in EL expansion and, second, the extent to which TG connections focus on the university's local host community as opposed to more distant and even international arrangements. Mixed research methods including public document analysis and key informant interviews are used to document and interpret EL developments across nine varied universities in Ontario, Canada. The results underline broad sector commitment to EL that in turn creates new and different TG connections for the university. Rapid expansion has brought a variety of challenges identified both by universities and community EL partners. The paper concludes with discussion of policy implications and consideration of the future of EL in light of the 'digital pivot' of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines patterns of knowledge production in the social sciences (SS) and in the arts and humanities (A&H) in Latin America (LATAM). We report on a longitudinal analysis of 127,515 journal articles published between 2002 and 2018. The analysis reveals six major patterns: (i) a rapid growth in the production of journal articles; (ii) large differences in article production across nations; (iii) significant variations in the magnitude and the growth of articles across disciplines within the SS and the A&H; (iv) a present predominance of single-authored articles that has nevertheless been declining in favour of collaborative articles; (v) a significant variation in the magnitudes of collaborative articles with researchers outside LATAM, a collaboration that tends to be with the global North; and (vi) differences in research leadership across LATAM nations. A set of possible explanations is offered for each of these patterns, set within a dynamic global knowledge production context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current expansion of English language publishing by scholars from China is supported by national and university policies, including monetary and career incentives to publish in English. These incentives, which extend to work in the humanities and social sciences (HSS, the focus of this paper) as well as the sciences and technologies, are situated in evolving strategies of internationalization. China has moved from an internationalization strategy simply based on learning from the West, to a 'going out' strategy designed to both lift domestic research capacity and advance China's influence in the world. However, the 'going out' strategy nonetheless embodies ambiguities and dilemmas. The world of academic knowledge is not a level playing field but more closely approximates the centre–periphery dynamic described in world systems theory. This study explores the influence of publication incentives in the context of a centre–periphery world. It draws on analysis of 172 institutional incentive documents and interviews with 75 HSS academics, university senior administrators, and journal editors. The study identifies practices within China's HSS that reproduce centre–periphery relationships. By focusing on international publications, Chinese universities run the risk of downplaying Chinese-language publications and adopting standards and norms from global centres to assess domestic knowledge production. These could result in creating knowledge from and about China primarily in Western terms without adding a distinctive Chinese strand to the global conversation. Nonetheless, the study also identifies alternative dynamics that challenge the existing power hierarchies in global HSS, highlighting indigenous knowledge and the need to pluralize global knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender segregation in higher education (GSHE) is recognized as a key factor to explain the persistence of gender inequalities in the labor market despite the reversal of gender gap in educational attainment. Women are systematically overrepresented in fields of study, such as social sciences and the humanities, which offer relatively poor labor market prospects; at the same time, they are underrepresented in fields that perform above the average, as engineering and ICT. Several explanations for GSHE have been proposed in the literature, but their explanatory power has to be assessed yet. Using a rich longitudinal dataset on a recent cohort of Italian upper secondary school leavers, in this paper we jointly test seven potential mechanisms for GSHE. Our results show that rational choice explanations—such as skill-based explanations and gender differences in career preferences—fail to account for GSHE. On the contrary, expressive motivations related to preferences for school subjects and for specific occupations are found to mediate to a significant extent GSHE. However, our most important result concerns the key role of curricular track choice at upper secondary level which, alone, mediates two third of the gender difference in access to the humanities and social sciences and one third of the gender difference in access to engineering and ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study conducted as part of an action-research project-INTEGRA I&E-aiming to promote the research and teaching (R&T) nexus at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of a Research University in Lisbon, Portugal (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, ISCTE-IUL). This study set out to investigate a multi-informant perspective of the academics' rhetoric (conceptions, perception of barriers/facilitators and consequences) concerning the nexus, which can be considered at different levels of the curricular and organizational structure. Focus groups were conducted with 26 professors and 8 researchers from six different disciplinary areas and, afterwards, recorded and transcribed. A content analysis was used to categorize and quantify participants' responses. Four themes emerged: practices linking R&T, barriers, facilitators and consequences of the nexus. Different levels of analysis were identified for each theme, namely, the level of ISCTE-IUL, Research Centers, Departments, Courses and Classes. Some disciplinary differences were also encountered. This study contributes with a multi-informant and multi-level perspective of academics' conceptions of the R&T nexus in a Portuguese research-oriented university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of curriculum design in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and more specifically the challenge of designing foundation courses for first-generation or 'disadvantaged' learners. Located in the social realist school of the sociology of education studies that builds on the legacy of Basil Bernstein, we emphasise the importance of knowledge and understanding the principles that generate 'what counts' in particular courses and disciplines. In order to operationalise this, we used Maton's Legitimation Code Theory to uncover the knowledge/knower structures in eight first year courses in four of the most popular majors in a Faculty of Humanities. Our data sources were curriculum documents and exam papers in particular. The findings are presented and the 'codes', 'gazes' and 'lenses' for each set of courses delineated. The findings are being used to inform the design of a set of curriculum and pedagogic interventions that aim to offer powerful ways of knowing to novices in the Humanities and Social Sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]