Congratulations to dr. Rūta Petkutė, who  on the 11 Aprilin  2022 successfully defended  of the doctoral dissertation The Instrumentalization of Academic Lifeworlds, Knowledge, and Education: Lithuanian Academics’ Responses to the European Higher Education Policy of Curriculum Restructuring (Tallinn University, Social Sciences, Education, Scientific supervisors – Ivor Goodon, professor Tero Henrik Autio (University of Tampere) and senior researcher fellow  Rain Mikser (Tallinn University) and  aquired a PhD in  Social Sciences (Education).

 

The dissertation is available at  Tallinn University Digital Library ETERA.

A brief annotation is presented below. 

The dissertation explores the implications that these reforms have for academic life, knowledge, and education in the cultural context of Lithuania. A sociological perspective  is used in order to understand how the changing broader social context shapes the role of academic knowledge and education in society.
 Bologna-initiated reforms in Europe signify a problematic cultural shift from the continental idea of the university as a site for pursuing different kinds of knowledge toward a more instrumental Anglo-American notion of the university as a source of immediately applicable knowledge.
University academics tend not to internalise the change and implement it only ‘on paper’. “The reason for this hidden resistance is that academics see the restructuring not as an educational, but as an externally prescribed economically-driven project that steers academic life, knowledge, and education towards instrumental ends

Opponents are associate proffesor Antti Saari (University of Tampere) and professor Liudmila Rupšienė ( Klaipėda university).