(?)INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE (POST)MODERN WORLD: RE-, DE-, COUNTER-, ANTI-, SUB-, SUBVERS-, DIVERS-, ALTER-...

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of institutional processes in the sphere of higher education in the (post)modern world. The authors raise the question of the way of naming and describing these processes in the space between “re-”, “de-”, “counter-”, “anti-”, “sub-”, “divers-”, “alter-”, “subverse-”, without exhausting the possible understanding and interpretations exclusively by the categories they have found. Three key questions that the authors pose are the questions “ubi vadis?”, “quomodo vadis?” and “quo vadis?”, that is, the questions of the origins, method (image) and direction (trends) of institutional transformations of higher education. Here the authors pay special attention to the influence of the processes of globalization and the development of the space of communications and “high technologies”, deforming the social autonomy of the education system and the phenomenology of the compatibility of the Student and the Teacher. The social prerequisites of these processes are studied separately, in particular the growing role of education and, along with it, the growing hopes and expectations that have led to the transformation of the system of relations within the education system itself and to a change in the distribution of powers and decision-making opportunities between the subjects of the educational process. The focus is also on the diversification and marginalization of discursive equipment and facilities using the example of the rhetoric of inclusiveness and diversity and also the rhetoric of "sustainable development". The processes of the educational institution themselves are studied as triggered by the invasion of globalist marketization using the example of the (re)constitution of new research areas, the increasing importance of national-cultural factors and local specificity, "customization", which give rise to complications and deinstitutionalization of international mutual recognition systems. In such contexts, the authors argue, that universities are looking for new grounds for recognizing themselves and their activities, which is aggravated by the emergent phenomena of the pandemic situation. The authors conclude that traditional forms of higher education are losing their relevance and alter-institutionalization of education is taking place with the emergence of parallel "corridors" and alter-industries. This is aggravated by such factors as the internationalization of curricula, digitalization of education, institutions of continuous education, massification, reconfiguration of new educational inequalities, destruction of selection systems due to a decrease in social exclusivity, as well as diversification-institutionalization due to the diversification of educational programs.