This article addresses the inadequacy of the universal approach to academic freedom, which fails to account for the extent to which academic freedom can be exercised. Instead of considering the fixed meaning of academic freedom, the article proposes a relational approach. One that focuses on the relation between academic freedom and the common…

Under Communism, the Catholic Church in Poland played the role of guarantor of preserving the national traditions and defender of freedom. Such was one of reasons for removing religion from the state school curriculum by the government of Poland in 1961. The political transformation of 1989 changed the concept of the Polish state. Religion as a…

This paper looks at the phenomenon of upward mobility through education from a comparative and historical perspective. Pierre Bourdieu referred to upwardly mobile individuals in France as the miraculous ("les miraculés"), oblates ("oblats"), or, less often, defectors ("transfuges"). A difficulty with applying a theory…

The main objective of this article is to show the evolution of the LIS [Library and Information Science] education in Poland, from the first forms of education programmes for librarians to the current situation. The author, using the method of document analysis and the deductive method, selected the most important dates, facts and factors that had…

Purpose: This article explains the process of construction and configuration of the Brazilian social imaginary on the global '68 using the daily press as source material. Design/methodology/approach: It looks at the narratives conveyed by the press about the condition, situation, motivations, aspirations and capacity for action of young university…

In the early twentieth century many countries across the world established national student unions and sent representatives to the International Student Union. Believing this to be a fundamental need in a globalising world, the new Turkish state did not wait long before joining this union. In fact, several student associations in Turkey attended…

'One day a poster announcing the preparatory course at the university appeared in a village. Pokusa [surname, "desire" in Polish] was among the first to enrol. He was accepted after passing an exam. Now he is one of the best students! -- All you need is a good will -- he explains.' That is how a local newspaper in 1953 encouraged peasant…

During the activity of the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish Questions from 7 July 1945 to 31 March 1947, several thousand Polish citizens were given the opportunity to study abroad. Despite their difficult financial situation, they strove to continue studying, where this had been disrupted before the war, or started studying anew. Such an…

The XXVth Anniversary of CercleS brings back memories not only of the CercleS Association and its development, but also of the role of Language Centres in European universities. This article presents the Centre of Languages and Communication (CLC) at Poznan University of Technology (PUT) in Poland. It focuses on the main challenges the CLC has…

It is often assumed within much of the academic literature and by many of those working in higher education that universities across Europe are homogenising, converging around an Anglo-American model as a result of neo-liberal pressures and the aim of creating a single European Higher Education Area. However, drawing on an analysis of 92 policy…

The new model of Polish education was designed by the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (KEN). The Commission, established in 1773, was the first ministry of education in Europe. It dealt not only with problems related to the learning-teaching process, but also promoted scientific development. The present analysis is an attempt at examining the process…

The aim of the article is to explore the impact of excellence as a powerful policy idea in the context of recent and contemporary developments in three selected Central and Eastern European countries, namely, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. More specifically, we explore how excellence as a "global script" was translated by policy…

This analysis focuses on changes in higher education governance in Poland and Romania in the post-communist era. The author applies a theoretical framework based on institutional isomorphism and historical institutionalism and maps the policy trajectories of both systems on the basis of three governance ideal-types. The public higher education…

This paper aims at studying the dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education (HE) both in a historical and a comparative perspective. It uses Bulgaria as a case study and places it among five other countries such as Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The adopted approach differentiates between equity in HE and inequalities…

In the period of the People's Republic of Poland, there were almost no students with disabilities at universities. The legislative, organisational, social and educational conditions at universities and students' dormitories made it impossible for people with disabilities to start higher education. In the period of serious socio-political,…