UNLEASHING INDIVIDUALIZATION.

THE CHALLENGE OF PERSONALIZATION IN TERTIARY EDUCATION

L. ANDREESCU1, A. CURAJ2, R. GHEORGHIU3 Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, andreescul@gmail.com 2 Polytechnic University of Bucharest, adrian.curaj@uefiscsu.ro 3 Institute for World Economy, gheorghiu.radu.cristian@gmail.com
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In this paper we approach the perpetual reform in Western and Romanian higher education from the perspective of broader societal transformations, specifically from the standpoint of the theory of individualization. The first, introductory section offers a brief outline of individualization theory. The second section describes the impact of individualization on higher education and the fields responses massification and diversification. The third section sketches an alternative answer personalization.

INTRODUCTION Change in higher education (HE) seems to be a permanent preoccupation of governments around the world, which have invested over the past decades increasingly more money and administrative energy into reforms in this field. Major policy decisions are being made and changed on a regular basis, with little time left for policies to yield their expected results or prove they dont work. Higher education everywhere is in a perpetual transformation, which we approach below from the perspective of recent social theory. Among the many concepts employed to characterize postwar societies (e.g., post-industrial, knowledge, network, creative society), individualization is one of the most far-ranging. The theory of individualization has been at the core of the sociology of late or second modernity, as embodied in the risk or liquid society theorized by authors such as Beck, Giddens or Bauman. In short, individualization describes the changing nature of social interaction in the context of de-traditionalized modern societies in which class, church, or gender roles have become fragile categories and the responsibility for individual actualization has been relocated from the former structures to the individual [3,4,9]. Though some of these structures still provide guidance for individuals and sometimes generate strong commitment, they have lost much of their former power to determine personal life, which is perceived as essentially a matter of personal option. Since both the relative predictability of life paths and the ability to ascribe failure to outside forces have almost vanished, individuals are now compulsively involved in creat[ing], stag[ing], manag[ing] not only ones own biography but the bonds and networks surrounding it [4]. Far from being an environment without controls and restrictions, the world described by individualization theory is one in which regulations abound and exacerbate the complexity of personal lives. The many institutions of late-modern societies political, educational, financial, welfare demand from

individuals constant decision-making for which they provide innumerable and intricate rules and standards. However, unlike traditional or early-modern societies, which operated by constraining restrictions and prohibitions, postwar societies offer incentives to action For modern social advantages one has to do something, to make an active effort to assert oneself and not only once, but day after day. [4] INDIVIDUALIZATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION The theory of individualization is not only a theory of individual behavior but equally a theory of institutional change [3]. It posits heterogeneous societies of individuals engaged in an endless quest for selfdefinition mediated by institutions which invite constant decisions in the ongoing effort at personal actualization. In this picture, institutions change and evolve so as to enlarge the range of options available, facilitate and guide choice, and enhance flexibility. How has higher education responded to the individualization of late-modern societies? We suggest that this response has so far consisted primarily of two overarching processes: massification and diversification. The first is, by and large, an accomplished project. The second has been unfolding in Western higher education systems but seems to have reached an impasse.. Massification and diversification Individualization is older than the past 50-60 years [9], but what is characteristic of individualization in the postwar society is its democratization [4]. The latter has naturally generated a thrust for the democratization of higher education as well. In early-modern, elite HE systems, university education was strongly associated with personal accomplishment, so postwar university systems were under tremendous pressure to provide as many individuals as possible with the range of instruments and opportunities for self-actualization offered by academic education. As a result, in most

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postwar European HE systems the student populations doubled, for a while, within intervals of less than a decade [12]. The massification of higher education over the past half-century generated a wide gamut of problems for HE systems and higher education institutions (HEIs). It soon became clear that massification could not, by itself, be a solution to the problems of individualized societies. Instead of augmenting autonomy along the lines suggested by individualization theory, massification was treated rather as a form of advanced minimal literacy for all. One of the most important reasons for the failure of massification to solve social problems was the fact that the radical increase in student numbers did not trigger a corresponding change in the ways and contexts in which knowledge was produced and consumed. Systems expanded by increasing the number of institutions and their enrollment but without changing either their fundamental structure or the disciplinary organization of knowledge at their core. The new, massified HE was not only expected to satisfy the demands of larger and more heterogeneous groups. The changing nature of work in the West, destructured by the volatility and uncertainties of global markets, also demanded increasing flexibility. Since massification by itself could not solve these problems, a new impetus for HE targeted increasing systemic diversity. In order to remain relevant, HEIs had to provide different kinds of services for different kinds of beneficiaries in different ways. Two diversification regimes, which succeeded each other, emerged. First, in the 1960s and 1970s, European countries sought to differentiate horizontally among HEIs. Binary or bifurcated systems were created in order to provide the technical skills in demand in postwar economies (through vocationalization), but also to solve the problem of the large enrollments (through cost-effective education). In many countries, these systems were eventually either abandoned or partly re-integrated, whether suddenly, as in Australia, or more gradually as in Britain, or less formally through de-differentiation (The Netherlands). There were several reasons for the weakening of binary HE systems, but two stand out. Binary systems were victims of isomorphic forces [10]. Their separate but equal philosophy, which distinguished among vocationally-oriented and academically-oriented HEIs, was in fact hiding a reputational and financial hierarchy. As a result, vocational HEIs tended to academise [8] in order to attract more funds and students, e.g., by offering a wider array of courses, introducing advanced programs, or undertaking more research. But the (formal and informal) re-integration of academic systems was also caused by their failure to solve the fundamental problem for which differentiation had been undertaken: providing more personal autonomy and greater flexibility under conditions of increasing uncertainty. Bifurcated systems were tightly regulated, with little intra-sectoral diversification in the university sector and (except for the fact that they served different professional constituencies) little functional diversification in the vocational one. The soft manpower-planning approach in the vocational sector failed to generate genuine flexibility. The second regime of diversification, which emerged in the late 1980s and is ongoing, shifted towards vertical differentiation with the rise of the evaluative state [11], which took it upon itself to align universities to national priorities and to build in HEIs a capacity for swift response to governmental priorities and market needs. By putting in place a complex system of evaluation and oversight mechanisms, governments instituted formal or informal hierarchies in the field of HE (such as rankings of institutions or programs), sometimes directly tied to funding. However, by the beginning of the millennium it was recognized in Europe that vertical differentiation was also failing to deliver. Instead, it had strengthened isomorphic forces by turning top-ranking, highreputation institutions into models emulated by other players in the academic market, thus reinforcing mission drift, diminishing the quality of services, and weakening institutional adaptability. A sign of this recognition is the recent emergence of pan-European projects seeking to rehabilitate diversification. U-Map, for instance, aims to develop a system of classification for European universities which focuses on horizontal diversity across many dimensions. U-Multirank undertakes to design a complex global ranking system which should minimize league tables adverse effect on diversity [14]. Romania as a case study The failure of the massification and diversification processes to deliver the expected results was hampered by standardization, which generated in fact sectoral and systemic homogenization. Also, regulation at systemic and institutional level was preferred to offering incentives to individuals and smaller institutional structures in HE to change practices in relevant ways. In its higher education reforms over the past 20 years, Romania has by and large followed these European trends and is now confronting familiar difficulties. University education in this country experienced a very rapid expansion in size (number of students, institutions, and programs) in the early 1990s as a result of the communist eras restrictive HE policies. The expansion occurred chaotically for a while, as the HE market was qualitatively under-regulated [7]. Soon, the states response was to revert to standardization not by exploring the avenues opened by expansion, but by reverting to old patterns. The expansion continued after the first law on accreditation of 1993, which standardized the field in terms of the structure and substance of study programs, personnel policy, organizational structure etc., with a focus on inputs and processes. HE providers had to conform to the model set by the countrys traditional HEIs.

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Despite partly successful efforts at increasing institutional autonomy in the late nineties, especially in financial and personnel policy, higher education remained strongly standardized in its educational services and organizational structure. Experiments with horizontal differentiation, such as the introduction of lower-level certificates and institutions, were quickly abandoned after the generalization of the three-cycle Bologna system. The overhaul of the accreditation system through the introduction, in response to the evaluative trend prevalent in Europe, of a quality assurance system around the middle of the past decade failed to generate significant changes. It reinforced the standardization of study programs and, by imposing a unique set of quality criteria and indicators across the system, provided incentives for mission drift: all universities embarked on a quest to affirm their research-orientedness. The most recent changes, brought about by the 2011 law on education, once again followed European trends with some delay. The law introduced, for the first time after 1990, a clear system of horizontal differentiation of HEIs (education-intensive, education-and-research, and research-intensive) as well as a vertical differentiation of study programs. Funding will be tied both to institutional class and to program rank. Though many details concerning the classification, ranking and funding systems remain undefined, it seems reasonable in the light of European experience to assume that the new model of differentiation will maintain isomorphic tendencies by providing incentives for universities to emulate the leaders and to game the rankings. New standardizing mechanisms (e.g., the National Qualifications Framework in HE) will be introduced. PERSONALIZATION: A POSIBLE SOLUTION The failure of massification and diversification to create national HE systems alert to the personal needs of individual participants and to the unpredictable demands of markets stems, as noted, from governments unwillingness to let go of controlling practices and give institutions room to experiment. This failure can also be attributed to the tendency to regulate the field prescriptively at system and institutional level (where governments typically claim legitimacy for such action) and to neglect spurring changes at lower levels, closer to the places knowledge is handled (where governments are held back by academic freedom). One solution to the problem of individualization is to shift some of the focus of HE reform from institutional differentiation (still important, of course) to program diversification. Individualization, ICT and personalization As suggested in the first, introductory section, individualization has been responsible for an expansion of individuals freedom of choice and of the range of choices. It has encouraged non-standard lifestyles and life-courses. By turning self-achievement into a constant, open-ended personal preoccupation, it has made individuals alert and self-reflexive purveyors of biographies. The member of a typical late-modern society has thus been described as a non-linear individual, with neither the time nor the space to reflect. He is a combinard. He puts together networks, constructs alliances, makes deals. [4] Such behavioral patterns have been both encouraged and enhanced by ICT. The democratization of infocomm has extended networked individualism [6], a condition in which individual identities are constructed at the intersection of many parallel, partly overlapping flows of which one is a part in daily life. Maintaining an identity involves therefore the constant management of a portfolio of personal interactions, which take place in worlds with partly different and sometimes even conflicting logics. Virtual interaction has expanded the range of individuals involvement in such worlds, while simultaneously blurring the lines between instrumental and non-instrumental, specialized and support networks [5]. This has also led to a blurring of the boundaries between the previously distinct lifedomains of work, leisure, and personal development. Such a blurring is by now common in the economic sphere, where the accelerating pace of technical progress demands creativity and flexibility. It is evident in the disappearing distinction between consumers and producers of content and the emergence of the new class of prosumers, as illustrated by YouTube or the blogosphere. In the fast-moving technological sector, it is apparent in the personalization or privatization of economic activity. Todays patent-generating technology firms and copyright-generating new media firms have very private, personal and intense characteristics. They are [no longer] paternalistic as they were in the bygone days many of the employees are freelance and subcontractors and hence eminently individualized. These are not [charismatic] leaders of men, but risk-takers and innovators. [4] Not only have societies recently experienced, as predicted by individualization theory, a colonization of public spaces by private expression, they have also increasingly individualized the private sphere. Customization has provided persons with access to services tailored to their temporary options. ICT have added one-to-one patterns to traditional one-to-many delivery. The increased customization is a networked or global customization [5,6]. Besides one-to-many and one-to-one patterns, the world is increasingly structured by many-to-many delivery as well. Program diversification and personalization Such developments seem to be particularly relevant for HE because they suggest that, in an infocommenhanced individualized society, there is a gap between higher learning and actual life courses. Todays individuals need and expect to have additional degrees

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of freedom and responsibility, enabling them to learn from/by doing and to be supported in their experimental activities by plural communities. Tensions arise between such individual habits and expectations and the current offer in HE: 1. Higher learning no longer occupies one characteristic period of individual lives (late teens and twenties), but is accessed later, periodically, often in parallel with other major pursuits (work, family). 2. Though students are still seen as consumers of education, in their daily lives more and more behave as prosumers creators and consumers of content. 3. While HE is usually organized as if it constituted a distinct domain in the life of the person who educates herself, the lines between work, leisure, and personal development have blurred. 4. Individuals are expected to change job and even profession several times, yet HE focuses on professional competences and skills required by job markets today. 5. The coherence and consistency of an individual biography is increasingly a subjective matter, but HE prescribes standard paths to individual achievement. 6. More persons advertise themselves for private and public ends through transparent portfolios of activities and interests (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter as head- and job-hunting tools), while university programs ignore the benefits of networked reputation. 7. HE is still mostly based on traditional one-tomany delivery, while individuals experience increasingly customized interactions in their lives. This list of tensions suggests that the traditional study-program structure of academic education is no longer the single adequate format. Recent research confirms this impression in showing that studying no longer commands most of the attention of undergrads. Recent surveys in Romania show that students report an average of 28 hours of study each week [1], as opposed to the 40h needed to cover the credits. Nor is this the case only in Romania: US students used to spend 40h a week studying in 1960, but only 27h now [2]. This points at least to a major gap between program design and the way individuals understand studying. Our proposal is that HE reform should focus on developments at a finer level of granularity, closer to the individual and to where knowledge is handled. Reform should concentrate less on institutional or system design, where there are strong incentives for governments to act prescriptively and for institutions to behave mimetically. Rather, study programs should be stimulated to be more responsive to the common realities of extra-academic life. One objective would be to provide more room for experimentation with a variety of program formats to achieve a higher level of personalization, among others through: Customization: aim at sufficient flexibility and generality in the provided skills to allow participants to redefine repeatedly their educational paths and plans. Contextualization: enable participants to define and access units of knowledge that are merely contextually and temporarily relevant to them. Modularity: rely more on small, self-contained units of instruction that may act as building blocks for dynamic combinations. Embeddedness: the knowledge and skills to be acquired and the participants could be integrated into communities of practice, which would extend beyond the members of one class of students. Inter-disciplinarity: programs organized around problem-solving rather than traditional disciplines. Recognition of experience: formal validation of prior experience acquired in non-formal or informal contexts. Multiple exit/re-entry: many points of exit from and return to formal education. Multiple delivery: alternative, individualized delivery methods for similar educational contents. De-standardization: in length, intensity, goals, participants, and type of certificate or diploma awarded. In postwar Europe as well as post-communist Romania change in the HE sector targeted primarily massification and institutional differentiation. We have argued that in societies where persons are predisposed to exercise more options, experience transitions, integrate work and leisure, and immerse in plural communities, program diversification would be the better option. The objective of personalization is not to achieve total customization of educational services, but to enable diverse, evolving, re-combinable programs to provide a more auspicious environment for the exercise of individual choice and responsibility in education. Neither is the goal to completely replace traditional programs: traditional, default, predictable programs will often be preferred to options that involve a lot of timeconsuming and risky choices. Finally, such an approach to reform would, most likely, eventually result not only in more intra-institutional diversity (as HEIs develop an internal variety of programs), but also in additional inter-institutional diversity. References
1. ARACIS (2010), Barometrul Calitii 2010, Bucurei. 2. Arum, R. & Roksa, J. (2011), Academically Adrift, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 3. Beck, U. (2000), Risk Society Revisited, in: B. Adam (ed.), The Risk Society and Beyond, Sage, London, 211-28. 4. Beck, U. & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002), Individualization, Sage, London. 5. Castells, M. (2010), Rise of the Network Society, Wiley, Oxford. 6. Castells, M. (2001), The Internet Galaxy, OUP, Oxford. 7. Eismon, T.O. et al. (1995), Higher education reform in Romania, Higher Education, 30(2), 135-52. 8. Goedegebuure, L.(1992) Grapes, Grain and Grey Cats, European Journal of Education, 27(1/2), 57-68. 9. Howard, C. (2007), Contested Individualization, Palgrave, NY. 10. Miroiu, A. & Andreescu, L. (2010), Goals and Instruments of Diversification in HE, Quality Assurance Review, 2(2), 89-101. 11. Neave, G. (1998), The Evaluative State Reconsidered, European Journal of Education, 33(3), 265-84. 12. Trow, M. (2006) Reflections on Transition from Elite to Mass to Universal Access, in: P. Altbach & J. Forest (eds.), International Handbook of Higher Education, Springer, Dordrecht, 248-80. 13. U-Map (2010), The European Classification of Higher Education Institutions, CHEPS, Enschede.

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14. U-Multirank (2010), Interim Progress Report, Enschede.