Colloq at noon: 22. Januar 2025: "Top university. Top education? The construction of educational excellence in the marketing communication of world-class universities (and those aspiring to become one)" by Stefan Beljean

Lecture by Dr. Stefan Beljean, Universität Kassel, INCHER, Kassel

In recent decades, international university rankings have come to define the criteria of success that a growing number of universities strive to excel on. But university rankings have been shown to focus heavily on research and transfer, at the expense of universities’ third central mission: education. Thus, although universities in different parts of the world may increasingly converge on pursuing the same markers of research excellence, their understanding of excellence in teaching and education may not converge to the same extent. Against this background, we compare how leading universities located in different regions of the world define and promote the quality of their education in their marketing communication. To this end, we analyze claims about educational quality or excellence in the student marketing communication of German and Russian top universities and compare them to those put forth by world-leading American research universities. We find that certain markers of academic excellence – such as faculty reputation or accolades - are invoked by universities in all three countries, but our findings also point to several clear cross-national differences. For example, many leading American Universities present their education as a “transformative” experience, and advertise not just qualities of their institution, but also the quality and diversity of their students. Leading German Universities, in contrast, focus much of their marketing communication on their international orientation, or advertise the interdisciplinary nature and research-orientation of their educational programs. Lastly, the marketing communication of leading Russian Universities is marked by a strong emphasis on the labor-market value of the education they offer. We explain these cross-national differences with reference to the position of each countries’ higher education system in the world polity, as well as socio-cultural differences in the expectations associated with higher education.

Dr. Stefan Beljean is senior researcher in the research area of "Academic Change" at INCHER. After studying sociology and philosophy at the University of Konstanz, Stefan earned his PhD at the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. After positions at the Science Center for Social Research Berlin and the University of Heidelberg (Max Weber Institute for Sociology), he has started working at INCHER in Kassel in March 2024. In the research area of “Academic Change” he will work on a research project on the rise of higher education marketing.

The INCHER lectures in winter semester 2024 are hybrid events.
If you wish to participate via Zoom please register at koch[at]incher.uni-kassel[dot]de

Venue: INCHER, University of Kassel, meeting room 4102, Mönchebergstraße 17
34125 Kassel