Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

28 M. Depaepe
of the Leuven Catholic University in regions such as West Flanders, which at the
time was (and still is) an important recruitment area for the (State) University of
Ghent (De Clerck, 1975, 1985). This position was to a large extent shared by the
freethinking circles of the Free University of Brussels (Gerlo, 1989, pp. 183–184).
In Antwerp, where the Socialist mayor argued for a pluralistic and democratic community
university (Craeybeckx, 1962, 1969), the situation was somewhat different.
Back in the 1950s there had been strong hopes for the installation of a new state
university, partially as a counterweight for the centuries-long presence of the Jesuits
in higher education (Lenders, 2002, pp. 182–183).
One who examines the history of the development of university education over
the last 50 years will quickly come to the conclusion that, in large measure (for
well-founded research is still lacking) it did not directly proceed as the proponents
and the opponents of the ‘spreading of the candidatures’ had hoped or feared.
This university expansion ultimately occurred in two phases. The first phase began
in 1965 with the creation of candidature campuses in Kortrijk (KULAK) and in
Antwerp (RUCA). The second began in 1971 with an analogous formation in
Diepenbeek (LUC) and then in Brussels (UFSAL). A superstructure was also created
in Antwerp (UIA). University expansion worked out differently than expected.
In any event, it brought social problems to the surface in Flanders that, due to the
enthusiasm of the 1960s, had not been recognized despite the fact that the spectacular
growth of the number of students from the first decade on greatly exceeded
the initial estimates of the ‘expansion’ (Pelleriaux, 1999, p. 3). This increase had
less to do with the creation of additional campuses and more to do with the power
of attraction of existing universities. It is not the moment to say more about this
here.
Instead of going deeper into this matter, let us turn to the current presentation of
the problem. If we may believe the newspaper commentators (see e.g. De Morgen,
03.01.09 & De Standaard 09.09.09), the general public is now wondering whether
the enormous expansion of students has not led to a levelling – or even to a decline
in quality – of university education. In addition, there are also doubts about the
social effects of the democratization of higher education. Allegedly, this democratization
seems to have missed its ultimate target, since children of the less educated
currently participate two to four times less in higher education than children of the
more highly educated. It appears obvious that such a claim, framed by alluring headlines,
is fraught with a historicity. However, this is not what I am really interested
in here. Rather, my concerns relate to the lack of a multidisciplinary approach to
such issues alongside the failure to appreciate, or to appreciate sufficiently, their
educational/historical dimension. Due to the fact that sociologists (and this is certainly
not to reproach them) have provided the scientific building blocks for this
broadly conducted social debate, the generation of statistical data has become the
primary methodological tool with which prevailing conceptions are tested for their
validity. Indeed, this is particularly pertinent to issues concerning the democratization
of higher education because, to my knowledge, there has been no really solid
longitudinal research on the phenomenon of levelling. For that matter, where could
one obtain a supra-historical standard with which to compare the knowledge levels
of various generations of students?