Responding to the challenges arising from flight and migration:The case of an higher education institution
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Universitäre Umgangsweisen mit den Herausforderungen von Flucht und Migration. Eine Fallanalyse
This paper presents an analytic framework for the organisational dynamics in educational institutions focusing on categories such as the historic and social context, potentials and resources as well as the scope of action. Adopting the perspective of higher education research and development, the framework introduces three levels of analysis: the macro-level of the higher education institution, the meso-level of the faculty with its study programmes, and the micro-level of the learning environment. First, the paper describes the theoretical background for the analytic framework. Second, the framework is used to analyse the current development of programmes and courses designed to provide solutions for challenges posed by flight and migration. The University of Hamburg serves as an example to reflect upon emerging spaces and opportunities for learning. At the macro-level, the analysis reveals a process of opening the higher education institution for refugee students. At the meso-level, it shows how the current challenges turn into a common subject for dialogue within the faculty, while at the micro-level the challenges are reflected in the topics and design of selected courses. Overall, the organisational dynamics are characterised by the finding that the expertise and engagement across different stakeholder groups and institutional boundaries contribute to the emerging spaces and opportunities for learning. At the same time, the analysis suggests that there are limits to activating potentials and the scope of action. As our analysis can only provide a snapshot of the current processes, further research is needed to investigate the sustainability of the identified dynamics.