The Ideological Reconstruction of Higher Education: Problematising Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the ideological forces working in the sphere of quality assurance in higher education. Through discourse analysis on two seminal policy documents, the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ENQA 2005) and OECD Work on Education (OECD 2010), the ideologically underbuilt discourses of Europe and Cost-effectiveness are identified. These work together to maintain a wider discourse of quality assurance that is conveyed through demands for accountability, assessment and a systems’ level mentality. The discourses within quality assurance in higher education are ideologically grounded in neo-liberal values, creating a shift in the long-term purpose of higher education into the delivery of measurable outcomes and employable students. This study suggests that further research, as well as policy-making, within the field needs to consider the ideological basis for these discourses and the hegemony of Neo-liberalism they support. Critical voices need to question our views on the purpose of higher education and the implications these have for the future.