"Rationalized Myths" in European Higher Education

This article is about the so-called Bologna process and the historically unprecedented diffusion of an abstract model for the restructuring and harmonization of higher education studies and degrees across Europe it has fuelled. This process is interpreted here as a particular example of much larger processes of world-level interconnection and standardization in education. The article therefore draws on insights and conceptual tools produced by certain strands of world-systems analysis. In particular, it links up with theoretical perspectives shaped by sociological neo-institutionalism, a strand of research that is rooted in both the sociology of organizations and the sociology of knowledge. More so than other research traditions, this strand has investigated and translated into elaborate models what might be called the "social construction of world culture." Using analytical concepts such as "diffusion," "imagined model," and "rationalized myth," and drawing on research findings evincing the growing importance of international organizations—governmental as much as nongovernmental—the article argues for a conceptually based explanation for the emergence and the dynamics of the Bologna process.