Performance-Based University Funding and the Drive towards 'Institutional Meritocracy' in Italy

Autor/inn/en	Mateos-González, José Luis; Boliver, Vikki
Titel	Performance-Based University Funding and the Drive towards 'Institutional Meritocracy' in Italy
Quelle	In: British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40 (2019) 2, S.145-158 (14 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Mateos-González, José Luis)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0142-5692
DOI	10.1080/01425692.2018.1497947
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Performance Based Assessment; Private Sector; Universities; Equal Education; Incentives; Competition; Merit Rating; Regional Characteristics; Socioeconomic Status; Social Capital; Institutional Characteristics; Educational Equity (Finance); Block Grants; Public Education; Rewards; Institutional Evaluation; Educational Finance; Educational Quality; Administrative Organization; Italy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Leistungsermittlung; Privater Sektor; University; Universität; Anreiz; Wettkampf; Analytische Arbeitsbewertung; Regionaler Faktor; Socio-economic status; Sozioökonomischer Status; Sozialkapital; Öffentliche Erziehung; Reward; Belohnung; Bildungsfonds; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Italien
Abstract	Many countries, including Italy, are increasingly managing their public higher education systems in accordance with the New Public Management principle that private-sector management practices improve efficiency and quality. A key mechanism has been the introduction of performance-based funding systems designed to reward 'high-performing' institutions and incentivise 'lesser-performing' institutions to improve. Instead of improving efficiency and quality across the board, however, we argue that performance-based funding systems naturalise longstanding structurally determined inequalities between institutions by recasting national higher education systems as competitive institutional meritocracies in which institutional inequalities are redefined as objective indicators of intrinsic 'merit' or worth. We illustrate how performance-based university funding systems naturalise pre-existing inequalities between universities drawing on the case of Italy, a country characterised by longstanding inequalities between its northern and southern regions which demonstrably impact on the apparent 'performance' of universities. The concept of institutional meritocracy captures the illusory nature of this performance game. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01