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The Legitimacy Crisis And Its Reconstruction Of Local Undergraduate Colleges In The Era Of Post-massification Of Higher Education

Posted on:2018-02-22Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:H M YangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1367330566451383Subject:Higher Education
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Legitimacy is usually used to express a state being recognized and accepted due to the judgment or believes in conformity with certain rules.As the fundamental issues of organization and institution research of higher education,legitimacy has been an important theoretical tool to analyze the crises of local colleges in China.Based on the relevant analysis framework of organizational legitimacy theory,this paper analyzes the expressions and essence of organizational legitimacy crisis of local undergraduate colleges,investigate historically and actually the root causes of organizational legitimacy crisis of local undergraduate colleges,and carries out the case study of organizational legitimacy reconstruction practice of local undergraduate colleges,so as to answer the problems such as “what are the expressions and essence of legitimacy crisis of local undergraduate colleges in post-massification era? ”“What are its roots? ”“How to rebuild the legitimacy to deal with the crisis? ”By the statistical analysis,historical analysis,case studies,and theoretical discussion of this paper,there are main findings as follows.First,the sign of post-massification era is the legitimacy in the times of massification being challenged and developed as a specific crisis of legitimacy.This study combines with the recent higher education changes in America,Japan and other western developed countries,analyzes the intrinsic meaning and essence of post-massification,and believes that post-massification of higher education cannot simply be defined as the growth stagnation of higher education gross enrollment rate or student scale index;Post-massification has already been no longer belong to the massification stage,due to the general development of higher education cannot be explained by old patterns of massification.In such a stage losing the old goals and exploring the new development goals,various confusion and reflection on higher education become the theme of the times.Therefore,post-massification era can be defined as the times of distinct contradictions arising after the rapid development of higher education.The sign of post-massification era is “the crisis of legitimacy”.The essence of the crisis is the needs of a new development mode of higher education tomeet social and economic transformation.Higher education institutions need to respond to that change and reconstruct their organizational legitimacy.Second,the essence of the crisis faced by local undergraduate colleges in our country is still the crisis of legitimacy.This paper studies the current difficulties in local undergraduate colleges,considers that the "platform" period of higher education scale-development,i.e.post-massification era,has already come in China.By a research of the expressions of legitimacy crisis of local undergraduate colleges during this period,we could find that the deteriorating college living environment and recognition crisis is also existing in the development of local undergraduate colleges.Local undergraduate colleges as academic institutions are questioned in identity,status and running performance constantly,which shows that the essence of the crisis they confronted is still the crisis of legitimacy,namely the social trust crisis or recognition crisis to the values and running-modes of local undergraduate colleges.This crisis is firstly the crisis brought by the subject changes of legitimacy evaluation,i.e.legitimacy construction under public accountability;It is secondly the crisis brought by the changes of legitimate content,which is as a result of the changes of quality view under the new economic and social trends.Different evaluation subjects,as the representative of government or market power,provide different levels of external pressure for the reform of local undergraduate colleges.Third,according to Scott's classification of legitimacy,the paper researches the main characteristics of regulative,normative and cognitive legitimacy of local undergraduate colleges during the periods of institutional initialization and institutional reforming.It also combines with the current economic and social transformation in China,elaborates the roots of legitimation crisis of local undergraduate colleges as:the administrative regulation system from top to bottom,the immature development of academic norms and culture,academic logic dominated by political and market logic,the idea of school running impacted by the pragmatism and short-term utilitarianism.Fourth,in the view of transformation as the action of legitimacy reconstruction,this paper selects some local undergraduate colleges in the transformation as the typical cases,surveys their members' evaluation and recognition for the transformationobjectives and strategies of local undergraduate colleges,and sums up the main problems during the transformation and development of local undergraduate colleges.It believes that the current action of legitimacy reconstruction of local undergraduate colleges still takes the policies and decisions of governments as the main legitimacy source,so the market pressure is not decisive factor for the action of legitimacy reconstruction;Local undergraduate colleges tend to play their autonomous rights in the blank areas of policies.To resolve this crisis,governments and colleges should both make changes and adjustments.Finally,by the reflection of the organizational legitimacy crisis and the reconstruction action of local undergraduate colleges,this paper suggests that legitimacy reconstruction should follow three rules,i.e."Self belief" as the consensus has been the fundamental to achieve the legitimacy of higher education institutions;The genetic and environmental conflicts and integration represent the crises and opportunities of legitimacy;The efficiency of institutionalization strategy depends on the effectiveness of cultural-cognitive strategy.The route of the reconstruction of organizational legitimacy of local undergraduate colleges should be: Governance Reconstruction — Academic Restoring — Self Reinvention — Future Creation.Local undergraduate colleges should restore their academic order,cultivate "Self belief",adapt to local economic and social needs actively so as to achieve the conformity of the reality and the name.
Keywords/Search Tags:local undergraduate college, post-massification, legitimacy, legitimacy crisis, legitimacy reconstruction, organizational transformation
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