Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

Vol. 32, No. 1, February 2011, 15
28

The idea of quality in higher education: a conceptual approach

Ourania Filippakou*
School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
The paper suggests that the idea of quality in higher education is ideologically
constructed and conducted. In a spiral of mutual reinforcements, quality regimes
naturalise experience, while the theories of that practice legitimise the naturalness
of quality. I shall suggest that quality regimes provide too narrow readings of
higher education. The central concepts, which I propose to use
discourse and
power
emphasise the connectedness of ideology and quality in higher education.
In particular, I suggest that the ideological character of the idea of quality in
higher education is evident in discourses
which themselves are interlinked in
networks. These discourses and networks are backed up by power and this helps
to sustain their ideological character. Thus, this paper attempts two things: to
outline a conceptual framework concerning the ideological character of the idea
of quality in higher education and to draw attention to the organisation of that
ideological formation.
Keywords: discourse; ideology; higher education; quality assurance; quality
enhancement

Introduction
Regardless of all the additional obligations the contemporary university is supposed
to fulfil, teaching and research remain at the core of its activities. While there is
nothing particularly new about this assertion, what is new, however, is that nowadays
universities are also focused on the quality of these activities, indeed they are
required to have this focus. Of course, quality as an idea was always a concern for
higher education (Green, 1994), but not to its current extent or approached in the
same ways. Nowadays, the need to ensure quality has become a central practice in
universities. But this shift has not come alone, for it comes with profound
epistemological and social consequences. Quality regimes influence intimately the
manner in which we construct and organise higher education.
This paper will take a conceptual approach to understanding the idea of quality
in higher education, with a focus on the quality of teaching and learning. It will
address the question of the present quality regime and the ideological frames that
have given it its shape and purposes. The argument is that due to the effect of
ideology, the existing quality system provides a single, monolithic view of higher
education. Such a view is partial: it provides too narrow a reading of higher
education and results in exclusion and disaffection.
The central concepts that will be used to explore the idea of quality in higher
education are discourse and ideology. In particular, it is argued that the idea of
*Email: ourania.filippakou@nottingham.ac.uk
ISSN 0159-6306 print/ISSN 1469-3739 online
# 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2011.537068
http://www.informaworld.com

16 O. Filippakou
quality in higher education becomes an ideological construct that is evident in
discourses, which themselves are inter-woven within networks. These discourses and
their supportive networks are reinforced by power, which helps to sustain both their
ideological character and their influence in higher education.
Therefore, the purpose of this article is to begin the development of a conceptual
framework through which the idea of quality in higher education can be better
understood. Although the argument of the paper is essentially conceptual,
occasionally illustrative reference will be made to practice in English higher
education, and to make the discussion somewhat more concrete part of a key text
produced by the systems Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) will be analysed. Other
empirical data are drawn from interviews with 12 institutional quality managers,
including academics with managerial posts, employed by four English universities

two post-1992 universities (ex polytechnics) and two pre-1992 universities, as well as
nine interviews with key players in the quality policy making including the Chief
Executives of the two national quality bodies. Semi-structured interviews were used
to elicit the views of people with a range of responsibilities for the quality processes
of their universities and with national responsibilities. The interviews were conducted
between July 2004 and September 2007.
The interview data are used mainly to illustrate the argument of the paper and
can be seen as examples of how institutions have been responding to the QAA in
England and the ways in which quality is being perceived in different institutional
contexts. As Gillham (2000, p. 11) suggests, qualitative methods, including
interviewing, enable researchers to view the case from inside out: to see it from
the perspective of those involved. Using examples from the experience of
practitioners enabled me to move between descriptive and analytical languages.1
The examples drawn from the empirical part of the research enabled me, on the one
hand, to ground my argument by bringing examples, while, on the other hand, the
empirical data helped me to enhance the concepts being used and, therefore, to
develop an analytical language on quality.
Ideology and discourse
This section of the article will develop an understanding of the relations between
ideology, discourse and the idea of quality. Speaking of a relationship raises the
question as to whether or not there is a conceptual connection between them, and,
although the short answer is yes, it is far from a straightforward connection.
A major problem in trying to appreciate this linkage is the difficulty of defining
ideology. The next few paragraphs, therefore, will focus on the concept of ideology
in order to analyse its components and shed light on how it may shape discourses.
Ideology
Ideology is an ambiguous concept and rich in interpretation with both positive and
negative meanings (Thomson, 1990, p. 5). A common interpretation is that ideology
represents social interests and provides individuals with a partial view of the world
(cf. Habermas, 1978). However, it could be said that it is impossible to avoid
partiality. Everyone has her or his own way to read reality, while it is difficult to talk
about objective interests (arguably interests can never be objective). But if we accept

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

17

this approach then everything becomes ideological, and ideology becomes an empty
concept. Ideology is not just a partial understanding of reality but also reveals how
power differences are reflected in its presence (McLellan, 1986). Ideology has the
power to dominate individuals understanding
and this understanding may even
make them act against their own interests (Eagleton, 1991).
Because of the elusiveness of the concept of ideology, Eagleton (1991) suggests
that it is better to see ideology as exercising a particular set of effects on discourses
rather than try to define it. Thus, although it is difficult to find a straightforward
definition, ideology will have a particular impact that will show us when it is present.
However, the question is, if we assume that the idea of quality in higher education is
ideological, then, in what ways are these effects evident?
As mentioned earlier, these effects are related to power, and more precisely social
struggles for power. David McLellan has written that ideology is rather an aspect of
every system of signs and symbols in so far as they are implicated in an asymmetrical
distribution of power and resources (1986, p. 83). In light of this view, it might be
suggested that when ideology is present, there are power conflicts between social
interests, which result in an unequal distribution of power within a discourse.
Interestingly, social interests, power and institutional struggles are key issues in the
debate on quality in higher education.
In 1992, when analysing the idea of quality in higher education, Ronald Barnett
argued that [t]he debate over quality in higher education should be seen for what it
is: a power struggle where the use of terms reflects a jockeying for position in the
attempt to impose definitions of higher education (1992, p. 6). Taken together the
two statements from McLellan and Barnett establish the relationship between power,
ideology and the idea of quality in higher education. Ideology, reinforced by power,
comes from a struggle between parties representing different social interests. At the
same time, power struggles, including the unequal distribution of power between
different parties, are also evident in the debate on quality in higher education. For
example, quality agencies through assessment have considerable power, and use this
to influence the ways in which learning in higher education is understood.
Quality regimes in higher education, one might say, influence the ways in which
the meaning of higher education is interpreted, and perhaps defined, by limiting
other interested parties power to influence the debate. Although there are many
voices on higher education (Barnett, 1992; Clark, 1983)
and all these voices may
have their own perceptions as to what is quality in higher education
quality systems
project specific representations on what higher education might be. Not surprisingly,
in the literature the idea of quality in higher education often connotes a regime of
control (Barnett, 1992; Hodson & Thomas, 2003; Hoecht, 2006; Milliken &
Colohan, 2004; Morley, 2003). This control can be explicit or implicit, conscious
or unconscious. Fairclough (1989) goes so far as to suggest that naturalness
in
other words, implicit and unconscious control
indicates the effectiveness of
ideology. When something seems natural, it stops being questioned.
Thus some questions arise: whose voice(s) and whose values and judgments on
quality are represented in quality regimes? Can it be said that the idea of quality in
higher education represents the voice of one group of interests? Or is it more complex
than that? The sections that follow will attempt to describe the ideological formation
of the idea of quality in higher education through its construction in a network of
discourses. The claim is that ideology projects a systematic set of values, which has

18 O. Filippakou
the power to give particular meaning(s) to quality. Thus it is through the creation of
discourses that our idea of quality in higher education is constructed.

Discourse
Although the concept of discourse is often associated with the work of Michel
Foucault (1972), the interpretation of discourse adopted in this paper follows a
definition developed by Kress and van Leeuwen:
Discourses are socially constructed knowledge (of some aspect) of reality. By socially
constructed we mean that they have been developed in specific social contexts, and in
ways which are appropriate to the interests of social actors in these contexts, whether
they are broad contexts (Western Europe) or not (a particular family), explicitly
institutionalized contexts (newspapers) or not (dinner-table conversations), and so on.
(2001, p. 4)

Two points can be made. First, discourses are context based and second, they are
constructed and perpetuated through diverse channels. As in the case of the idea of
quality in higher education, there are multiple discourses of quality, constructed and
perpetuated in different contexts through diverse channels such as national quality
agencies, journals, conferences, informal conversations between colleagues, and even
between students and tutors. Some discourses of quality are dominant, representing
the interests of powerful groups within the wider social framework, or perhaps
accepted as common sense or natural by the majority of the social collectivity.
While others may be subservient, even if articulate, alternative perspectives. Here two
questions arise. How is our knowledge of a specific topic being constructed by a
discourse (of quality)? How does one discourse dominate and becomes unchallengeable as commonsense?
As Said (1978, p. 93) makes clear in his book Orientalism, if a topic is successfully
dominated by a discourse, it provides an integrated and plausible account of that
topic, which does not allow space for thought. The social will have turned into the
natural. In these circumstances it is impossible to conceive of alternatives modes of
thought
there is no space for analysis or to imagine other modes of thinking.
However, discourses rarely operate in isolation. There are always other modes of
talking about a specific topic. What, therefore, determines the relative openness of
the interaction between discourses? In other words, how are discourses organised to
shape our thinking and behaviour?
Kress and van Leeuwen suggest that ideology determines how discourses are
structured in response to the larger social structures:
Practically as well as theoretically we need a means to account for changes in discursive
practices . . . [W]e take the position that such changes have a number of motivations, of
which larger-scale social, economic, political and technological practices and changes in
practice are one. For us, ideology is a useful and necessary mediating term: mediating in
the sense of accounting for arrangements of discourses (and accounting indirectly for
changes in discourses as well as in discursive practices) and mediating in the sense of
accounting for relations between articulation/realization (where discourse and mode are
both articulatory phenomena) and other social practices, organization and events.
(2001, p. 34)

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

19

Ideologies, therefore, organise discourses by acting as mediators that classify,

categorise and indicate the preferred interaction of particular discourses always in
response to larger-scale practices. For example, a text on quality from the point of
view of a quality assurance agency in a marketised higher education system is likely
to be substantially different text from one written from the point of view of a quality
assurance agency in a system in which markets are non-existent. The text can impose
a prior and systematic set of values on higher education. For instance, in texts
produced by the QAA in the UK, students employability is a major concern, a
concern that comes from a certain ideology; of ways of thinking about the
relationship between higher education and the economy, of utility in relation to
education, demonstrating some would argue the dominance of a neo-liberal ideology
(cf. Clarke, 2004; Olsen & Peters, 2005). Our understanding of quality as an idea,
therefore, can be constructed by a view that regards the economic utility of higher
education as an unquestioned necessity. Therefore, ideology literally can give
meaning to the concept of quality; it can construct modes of thinking and, in effect,
naturalise a systematic set of values.
Given this view, that there is always a range of discourses available for the
construction of our knowledge on any topic, it follows that the idea of quality in
higher education can be seen as a network of discourses. This conceptualisation now
needs to be analysed while at the same time incorporating the concept of ideology
into the discussion.
Conceptualising quality as a network of discourses
In the current discussion, two dominant discourses of quality can be identified: the
discourse of quality assurance and the discourse of quality enhancement. As their
labels indicate, the former focuses on the assurance of quality, the latter on the
enhancement of quality. These two discourses can be seen as parent discourses.
Between the discourses of quality assurance and quality enhancement there are not
strict boundaries, and their relationship is instable. Ideology has an important role in
the articulation and configuration of the two discourses. The two discourses
influence the manner in which the idea of quality in higher education is interpreted
in society. Furthermore, the relationships between the two discourses determine their
respective shapes. Besides demarcating the idea of quality in higher education, the
discourses of quality assurance and quality enhancement influence what it may mean
to be a good academic or a good student, a lecturer in higher education, or a
manager. These discourses penetrate all areas of higher education: what programme,
for example, is suitable for a specific field of knowledge or how a student should
understand her role as a student.
At the same time there are other secondary discourses, which are associated with
either one or both of the two main discourses (see Figure 1). For instance, assessment
and accountability can be seen as secondary discourses within the discourse of
quality assurance. These discourses might be linked or not. The linkages can be
conceptual, practical or both. For example, there is conceptual linkage between
quality assurance and audit, while there is a practical linkage between quality
assurance and accountability, which is dependent upon external evaluations.
It has to be noted, however, that because the boundaries between them are fuzzy,
discourses are invariably in flux. There are complex interrelationships, tensions,

20 O. Filippakou

Assessment

Accountability

Improvement
Academic
development

Fitness for purpose

Managerialism

QUALITY in HE
Efficiency
Student satisfaction
Markets/consumers

Figure 1.

Teaching &
learning

Scholarship of
teaching &
learning

Institutional
research
Self-study

Quality as a network of discourses: a representation.

contradictions, fragmentations, ambivalences and even anarchy within and between

the discourses, and furthermore, there is a dynamic relationship between them.
Context and time are two important ingredients that shape those relationships. The
relationships between the two parent discourses, the discourses of quality assurance
and quality enhancement, can also be understood in a similar way. Moreover,
the relationships between quality assurance and quality enhancement determine not
only their own shape but also the relationships between the secondary discourses. In
this sense, the idea of quality in higher education can be seen as a network of
fluctuating discourses in which relationships between them shift over time.

Ideological discourses
Every discourse in the quality network is potentially ideological. The question is:
how can we know when ideology is present? Eagletons suggestion that it may help to
see ideology as a set of effects within discourses rather than try to define it, provides
a way forward:
ideology is a matter of discourse rather than a matter of language . . . It represents the
points where power impacts upon certain utterances and inscribes itself tacitly within
them. (1991, p. 223)

Drawing upon Eagletons work, this article has suggested that ideology can be seen
as a set of effects not only within but also between discourses, because of their
interrelations. At this point, therefore, the questions that arise are: How can we
identify those effects? How do we know they are ideologically determined?
A discourse can be open or closed (cf. Eagleton, 1991, 1996; Fairclough, 1993),
which is defined by two things: by the narrowness of its focus and by its interaction
with other discourses (cf. Kress, 1990). The narrower the focus of a discourse the
more closed it is, and the more isolated it becomes. So narrowness and isolation are
interrelated, and both of them contribute to whether a discourse is open or closed.
But what determines the extent to which discourses are open or closed? The answer is
ideology, and there are five elements to indicate its presence: partiality, unequal
distribution of power, social struggles, naturalness and loss of voice. For example, let
us assume that access to higher education is a discourse of quality and in order to
assure or enhance quality, the student body should be diverse in terms of gender,

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

21

race, ethnicity, age, economic and educational background, and so on. If, however,
the discourse of access starts to be interpreted as the way of understanding the idea
of quality, diversity then becomes ideological, as this is in reality only one way of
interpreting what is quality in higher education and how it can be assured or
enhanced.
However, discourses within the quality network are not independent but interact
with one another, so, if the discourse of access were contiguous with the discourse of
multiculturalism, they would start to overlap and develop a common core (a node).
Over time the node can assume power not only within the particular discourses to
which diversity and multiculturalism belong but also more generally within the
quality network. This raises the interesting issue of how particular aspects of a
discourse, perhaps in conjunction with related aspects, succeed in establishing
dominance within a discourse. Here, however, an important observation should be
noted: interconnected discourses are not necessarily open discourses, because they
represent interaction between discourses that embrace a similar set of values. These
closed discourses, however, are not necessarily isolated from one another, which can
mean they can retain a measure of ideological openness. Figure 2 illustrates these
possible relationships between discourse and ideology.
Discourse
Open

Heavy

Light

Closed

Figure 2.

Relationships between discourse and ideology.

An open discourse can only be ideologically light because it allows space for many
readings of reality and, therefore, theoretically, it is impossible for an open discourse
to be ideologically heavy. If we recall the five indicators of ideology: partiality,
asymmetrical distribution of power, social struggles, naturalness and loss of voice
then we can see that not all these indicators can be present at the same
time in a discourse which is characterised by openness. And this is the main difference
between ideological heaviness and lightness: heaviness prevails when all these five
indicators are present at the same time, while some of these indicators will be absent in
an ideologically light discourse. Of course, in practice what one expects are degrees of
openness and lightness, which makes for potentially complex discourses.
Closed discourses do not allow space for variation; they are narrow and resistant
to anything new or different. Thus in closed discourses there are a limited number of
readings of reality. It may be ideologically light but, nonetheless, there are limited
interpretations of what quality might be. For example, we see that currently in the
UK there is an attempt by the QAA to engage with other interest groups such as
students or employers. In that sense, it might be said that the power difference
between the interested parties is less apparent than it used to be in the early days of
the QAA when the state attempted to monopolise the debate and direct policy
(Tapper, 2007, pp. 167
186). So, what is the difference between open and closed
ideologically light discourses? The difference is that in an open and ideologically
flexible discourse there is a wide range of discourses, while in an ideologically light
but closed discourse the understandings of what is possible are limited. So we may

22 O. Filippakou
see, for example, students and employers taking a more active role in the debate, but
still the interpretations of what quality might be remain limited. In spite of
increasing openness, it remains difficult to escape the interpretation that the quality
of teaching and learning is mainly to do with the transmission of skills, while higher
education is understood as a means of promoting economic development.

Power and the presence of ideology2

This article has claimed that there are five elements to indicate the presence of
ideology in the structuring of a discourse: partiality, unequal distribution of power,
social struggles, naturalness and loss of voice. Every discourse in the quality network
is, therefore, potentially ideological. The rest of the article will examine aspects of the
quality discourse in England that are indicative of the presence of these variables. In
particular, there is a need to develop further the influence of power and particularly
its effects within discourses.
One of the effects of ideology, one might say, is the suppression of voice.
Although quality can be read in many different ways, ideology has the power to
suppress voices and thus narrow how we understand it. Ideological discourses are
inclined to be closed discourses, and closure can result in suppression through
repetition. The dominant voices slowly overwhelm the expression of other voices and
thus the same (dominant) voices tend to be heard. So, closure results in repetition,
while repetition sustains ideology. Ideology has power to frame a discourse and
repetition has power to naturalise ideology. For instance, when in the 1990s the
quality assurance regime was greatly expanded in UK higher education there was a
lot of resistance by the academic community, particularly in the pre-1992 universities.
Nowadays, not only is there less criticism of quality mechanisms but also academics
have started internalising its values (Henkel, 2000). Although it also has to be said
that the focus of quality control has moved from departmental inspections to
institutional audit with a range of financial incentives on offer to encourage
universities to take seriously their responsibilities for ensuring quality. But the
quality regime still persists.
We find that quality mechanisms in the British higher education system have
started to become a natural part of university life:
in early 1990s lots of people said oh this is awful were not doing it you know its just we,
dont need to do it . . . I suppose any system, once you introduce a new system, people
find it difficult at first and then you get used to it, it becomes natural and it just becomes
part of what you do so. (Senior assistant registrar in an pre-1992 university)

A manager in another pre-1992 university suggested that the quality culture is more
natural for younger academics:
younger and or less experienced members of staff they developed as an academic in a
slightly different culture, in a culture for example in which they have to take core
workshops and now they have to take a postgraduate certificate. (Middle-ranking
quality manager in an pre-1992 university)

The power of naturalness can be seen in the way that the new universities (mainly
former polytechnics) see the QAA in comparison to the pre-1992 universities. Before

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

23

the abolition of the binary line in 1992, the Council for National Academic Awards
(CNAA) had a similar role to that of the QAA. Therefore, the QAA seems more
natural to these institutions rather than to the pre-1992 universities. Reflecting this,
one interviewee observed:
I suppose theres always been some overarching body thats looked at, you know,
because for us being a new modern university we had the old CNAA . . . I think there
will always be somebody there to monitor us and watch over us, whether its the QAA or
whether its a new form of QAA or whatever. (Middle-range quality manager in a post1992 university)

This repetition of experience, however, is more problematic than it may appear. The
danger is that the voices themselves become voiceless. They lose their power as
voices, while the discourse itself dominates the other discourses. Repetition results in
reproduction; reproduction perpetuates the current regime of the discourse and the
discourse influences the other discourses in the quality network. So, one may say that
in an ideological discourse, it is not only that voices can lose their power but also
repetition becomes an obstacle for change, and impedes both the development of the
discourse itself as well as the quality network.
There are power struggles between the state and higher education institutions as
well as both between institutions and within institutions (Clark, 2009; Deem, 2004).
One interviewee argued:
academics should have stood up and said that they werent going to cooperate with it
. . . and people from new universities wanted really wanted to put the boot in to the old
universities. (Professor of Philosophy/Head of School in an pre-1992 university)

There have also been expressions of conflicting interests between quality managers
and academics:
The danger of that is of course is that if you are not careful, some people have used the
QAA, and they have, as a lever to make managerial changes in their own institutions. Its
a political weapon thats used, particularly by people who are in roles which you could
consider wield the quality batten, sometimes senior registrars, sometimes the deputy
vice chancellors, sometimes the people like me were the kind of head of quality role. So
its always open to abuse the Quality Assurance Agency, because it can be about, youd
better do this because otherwise well fail the inspections on you. (Head of a post-1992
universitys Quality Office)

A registrar in a pre-1992 university seems to share the same views but he thinks that
this has mainly happened in the post-1992 universities:
As soon as it [the QAA] got on to subject review and as soon as John Randall in that
rather gun-ho adversary mode, then I think it lost any possibility of legitimacy at least in
the older universities and in the new universities it more overtly became a tool of
managerialist control. (Registrar of an pre-1992 university)
There has always been a tension, between managers and teachers. Im both a teacher
and a manager here but I dont think with respect to me, youd find many in that
position. From the outside it seems to me that some universities in this country are over
managed, because managers dont like academic autonomy, but the best institutions,
I go back to the example of Warwick again, are those where for the most part, academic

24 O. Filippakou
autonomy allows the academics to get on with the core duties of teaching and research.
(Professor in a Humanities School and a senior manager)

Quality processes shape the dimensions of power; but those power dimensions are
liable to be both external (imposed from without) and internal (imposed from
within). But it is important to remember that, although the quality regime impacts
upon different individual and institutional interests in contrasting ways, it does not
follow that there is automatically a conflicting perspective on how to respond to that
regime. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that when the QAA operated the
methodology of departmental inspections, overwhelmingly opposition came from the
pre-1992 universities. It was a bureaucratic control that had little to offer them,
whereas for the post-1992 universities a satisfactory inspection gave them official
respectability with all that meant in terms of self-esteem and potential appeal to
prospective students.

The quality agenda: the ideological and political direction

Quality assurance can be seen as a proxy for state intervention, as one of the policy
avenues that enables the state to gain closer control of the development of the higher
education system (Salter & Tapper, 1994, pp. 208
210; Tapper, 2007, pp. 167
186).
One of the interviewees, a Professor of History and former senior manager, suggested
the state wanted to give a particular direction to universities that linked it to the
needs of the British economy (see also Brennan & Shah, 2000; Howie, 2002; Lynch,
2006; Olssen & Peters, 2005):
[W]hat the Funding Council, the English Funding Council really wanted out of audit
and teaching quality assessment was to get more universities to comply with its view of
what a university should be. And its view of what a university should be was as a part of
the British economy, manufacturing economy. So it was to see that universities should
reposition themselves as components of the British economy.
Ill give you an example of this, transferable skills. In the early days of teaching
quality assessment, there was an obsession with transferable skills. Why teach history
for its transferable skills. Was what I called the rise of the skillologists. There was no
function, no emphasis sorry, no emphasis on studying the subject for its own sake. Im
an historian, I never defended the study of history, other than as a discipline in its own
right, it needs no further justification. But what the teaching quality assessment
methodology forced you to do, was to justify your subject in terms of the transferable
skills and subsequent job opportunities of your students, which is not why you study
history. So, I had historians ringing me up, getting ready for teaching quality assessment
and saying please help us justify our subject in terms of transferable skills. (Professor of
History and former senior manager)

For the quality assurance organisations, quality needs both a rationale and
justification. This relates to specific interpretations of the societal role of higher
education, while it exudes technological means for achieving the goals of higher
education. As Kress suggests, Assessment in all of its forms is the site and the process
of policing social practices around learning (2007, p. 30). In the QAA text that
follows, for example, we can see how the process of learning in higher education is
being interpreted and promoted by the QAA (see Figure 3).

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

25

The principles underpinning the national qualifications framework for higher education
qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: a position paper - July 2000
The key principles which underpin the framework are:
the framework is based on defined levels, generic qualification descriptors and consistency of
nomenclature and credit at those levels;
qualifications are defined in terms of their level and the relevant generic descriptor, and have
a minimum amount of credit at the level at which the qualification is awarded;
a qualification is awarded to mark the achievement of positively defined outcomes, not as
compensation for failure at a higher level, or by default;
each module (or other element of a programme) should be defined in terms of its intended
learning outcomes, its level and its credit volume.
The level of the module should be determined by relating the intended learning outcomes and
assessment criteria to the descriptors of characteristics of learning at each level;
differentiation between levels is not based on the nature of the learning or scholarship
involved, e.g. whether a programme is taught or research based;
progression in time during a sequence of study does not necessarily entail progression to a
higher level of learning;
the nomenclature of qualifications should be consistent and provide an accurate representation
of their nature;
all properly assessed and quality assured learning, wherever or however achieved, can receive
credit;
credit should be allocated on the basis of achievement, not time served.

Figure 3. QAA (2000). The principles underpinning the national qualifications framework for
higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: a position paper - July
2000.

The dominance of the technological discourse is apparent in the above text.

Defined levels
consistent
consistency
accurate representation of their
nature
properly assessed
quality assured
intended learning outcomes

descriptors of characteristics of learning, are all prescribed objectives that support,
in one way or another, the idea of explicitness in teaching. They determine the space
and boundaries of the teaching and learning experience. Moreover, by increasing the
degree of explicitness, the space of the teacher and learner is decreased (which in
effect impedes their ability to influence the pedagogical process). Thus, the space for
learners and teachers decreases as the degree of explicitness that underwrites the
learning process increases. It could be said that QAA language has become onedimensional, possibly helping to create one-dimensional consciousness (Marcuse,
1964, p. 207).
According to Kress (1990), the form in which texts for quality assurance are
produced
institutional rather than personal publications, reflecting consultation
and written in the language of a commonsense objectivity
conveys an aura of
authority. The question that needs to be raised is whether this is part of an
ideological struggle in which the state is engaged in a political process designed to
enhance its control over higher education. If the emergence of a quality regime is in
fact as much (if not more) about the unfolding of a political (as opposed to an
educational) agenda, then it is evident that, although the discourse to define the
meaning of quality and measure its presence will carry weight, it can be expected that
the outcomes will be determined by more than the ideological struggle. It will be
more a question of who has the political power and how they intend to use it.

26 O. Filippakou
Conclusions
This article has constructed the argument that if we want to understand national
quality procedures in higher education, it is essential to focus on how the idea of
quality in higher education is constructed. In order to reach that point, it has used a
framework in which quality is defined by multiple but stratified discourses that are
constructed and reproduced by dominant ideologies. Such discourses can be open or
closed and show varying degrees of ideological flexibility. The works of Eagleton and
McLellan were drawn upon to illustrate that there are five key elements that indicate
the presence of ideology in the construction and maintenance of a discourse of
quality: social struggles, unequal distribution of power, partiality, naturalness and
loss of voice. Empirical evidence (interviews and documentary analysis) was drawn
upon to illustrate the emergence of several of these variables within the contemporary quality regime that operates in England.
Dominant ideologies therefore shape national quality procedures, and they are
the basis for interpreting the idea of quality in higher education. No analysis of
institutional phenomena can afford to overlook the input of the national framework,
which to varying degrees define what can be done institutionally. This is where we
need to take a fresh look at higher education institutions as actors in this field. Even
if sometimes higher education institutions appear to be weak, their positions vis-a`-vis
the policy pressures of the state and national governments remain crucial, as do their
positions vis-a`-vis the broader societal processes. It is critical to look, however, not
exclusively at the states concrete actions such as legislation, enforcement of regimes
of quality or the long-term pervasive influence of its bureaucracy, but also at its role
as an institution that co-ordinates the process of change by performing various vital
policy functions: providing financial resources, offering ideological backing, making
available political capital and acting as a point of reference, contrast and comparison
that invariably defines the value and relevance of actions undertaken by other actors.
Looking at the evolution of the quality agenda from this angle might help us to
understand better the roles and functions of institutional practices with respect to the
idea of quality in higher education, ranging from the general question of its meaning
to the entirely practical ones of implementation.
One of the purposes of writing this article was to construct a framework, built on
illustrative empirical evidence, whereby the analysis of quality agendas as a topic for
research can move forward. The English experience needs to be placed within a
comparative context. The political construction of quality regimes
through the
interaction of state action and the pressure of policy networks
needs to be explored
in depth. These developments are necessary because the quality agenda now has a
global reach. The philosophical question of whether it is possible to create a legitimate
quality regime needs as much serious consideration as to how such a regime could be
implemented politically and what its social effects would be.

Notes
1. Bernstein (1977) talks about descriptive and analytic languages. Descriptive language (as its
name indicates) describes what is (rather) obvious to anyone, while the analytic language
offers an insight, an analysis of what is being described.

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

27

2. Unless stated otherwise, the quotes in this and the next section of the paper are from
interviews that I conducted for my doctoral thesis, The Legitimation of Quality in Higher
Education (Filippakou, 2009).

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