Challenges in developing the academic profession in the Western Balkans |
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| Authors: | Samo Pavlin Zoran Sušanj |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;2. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia |
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| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the developmental challenges facing the academic profession in Europe and especially in some Western Balkan countries, Croatia and Slovenia. First, we look at how the higher education environment determines key changes to the academic profession: expectations to demonstrate professional expertise, internationalisation, segmentation, and precarity. While these processes are mainly considered from the above perspective, we also examine the work of academics from within. Second, we discuss aspects of academic tasks, challenges of synchronising academic work with performance measures, intensification of work and expansion of bureaucratic tasks. Building on these perspectives, we introduce a qualitative pilot study that tests how these general trends described in the literature may be applied to given situations in five countries of former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo. Although these countries cover a relatively small geographical area, the differences among them with respect to the economy, society and politics are important. Our findings suggest that problems accumulating in academic work in Slovenia and Croatia were in almost all of the surveyed aspects less problematic than in the three other observed countries. |
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| Keywords: | academic profession croatia higher education kosovo north macedonia precarisation professionalisation serbia slovenia western balkans |
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