Polska debata publiczna i odczarowanie akademii – o zmianach w społecznej percepcji uniwersytetu w ostatnich trzech dekadach (część I)
Polish public debate and academy disenchantment —about changes in public perception of the university in the last three decades (Part I)

Summary/Abstract: Polish university has been recently a subject of much public controversy. The debate concerning the 2011 reforms of the higher education and science sector still continues—changing the way, in which both the academics and the general public think and speak about the university. The purpose of this paper is the analysis of the critical media discourses concerning the academic world during the last three post-1989 decades. The analysis is based on prior research and uses institutional theory of organization as an interpretative framework. Within this framework the current situation of the higher education and science sector can be interpreted as a legitimation crisis, brought about by the interlocking changes in demographics, the mode of financing, the relationships between universities, the state and other social actors, as well as the relationships of actors participating in the sector. The summary effect of this changes is the transfer of universities from the sphere of organizations that base their legitimacy on authority to the technical sphere—operating on the basis of rational calculation concerning the utility of their products and services. This change is at odds with the humanist discourse on the university, but it also has many historic precedents and expresses the growing importance of academic activities in both educational and knowledge-creation dimension.

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