Mikael Börjesson

The shape of the literary career: an analysis of publishing trajectories

Abstract In this article we present the results of an analysis of the publishing trajectories of the 1048 writers included in three debut cohorts (1940, 1955 and 1970). We define a publishing trajectory as the chronological series of published book-length works with basic bibliographical data for each work. A general comparison of the three cohort populations is presented, and the 1940 and 1955 cohort is compared in terms of gender and different trajectory profiles. We then provide a closer analysis of the 1955 cohort, which investigates the relation between literary success—seen in terms of either a long career span or a prolific career—and, first, publishers’ size and location; second, reception in the New York Times Book Review . In a final section we then outline a typology of author profiles for the 1955 cohort based on the trajectory variables.

The global space of international students in 2010

ABSTRACT International students have become an increasingly important research object – not only on the basis of the overall expansion and importance of international students in higher education and in national economic policies, but also since they constitute a strategic research object for understanding the global landscape of higher education. By using correspondence analysis on a data set on countries of destination and regions of origin, the global space of international students is depicted. The analysis reveals a structure with three main poles, a Pacific pole, a Central European one and a French/Iberian one. The three poles correspond to three different logics of recruitment: a market logic, a proximity logic and a colonial logic. The three poles and logics are also related to linguistic structures. The Pacific/Market pole is dominated by English, while the Central European pole has German and Slavic languages as a common denominator, and the French and Iberian pole has French, Spanish and Portuguese in common with their former colonies. It is argued that the Pacific/Market pole is the dominating pole in the space due to the high concentration of resources of different sorts, including economic, political, educational, scientific and not least, linguistic assets.

Access and stratification in Nordic higher education. A review of cross-cutting research themes and issues*

ABSTRACT The purpose of this review is to investigate cross-cutting research themes and issues related to access and stratification in Nordic higher education (H.E.) (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden). We synthesise how recent changes in H.E. policy, practise, and appropriations have influenced educational opportunities along social class, gender and age. In this review we highlight results and conclusions shared by various recent Nordic studies. The emphasis is on the common trends and patterns related to social stratification in access.

A Reversed Order : Expansion and Differentiation of Social Sciences and Humanities in Sweden 1945–2015

Swedish social sciences and humanities have expanded dramatically since 1945. The augmentation has been especially strong in the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1990s, coinciding with transitions from eli ...

Ballatore, Magali: Erasmus et la mobilité des jeunes européens: entre mythes et réaliteés

The Erasmus programme is described by the European Union as a success story. Since it was launched in 1987, more than 2.2 million students have participated in the exchange programme and studied in a foreign European country for more than three months. For the period 2007 2013, the EU is investing 3.1 million Euros in the programme, making it the major pillar of the general Lifelong Learning Programme. The main objectives of the programme for supporting student mobility are ‘to enable students to benefit educationally, linguistically and culturally from the experience of learning in other European countries’, and to ‘contribute to the development of a pool of well-qualified, open-minded and internationally experienced young people as future professionals’. Sociologist Magali Ballatore has made the Erasmus programme the object of her thesis, recently published as Erasmus et la mobilité des jeunes Européens (Erasmus and the Mobility of Young Europeans). Her aim is to critically examine different aspects of the Erasmus programme to what extent does the programme match its rhetoric of being ‘enriching’ and ‘popular’? by setting the programme in a larger context of changes in higher education and migration and in relation to fundamental social, political and economic transformations in European societies. The inquiry is designed as an international comparison on the basis of case studies. Italy, France and Great Britain are chosen in order to represent one Mediterranean country, one Central European country, and one North European country. In each country, one university is investigated (University of Turin, University of Provence, and University of Bristol are the institutions included) by a survey and a series of interviews, conducted at different points in time. The survey has been distributed to and answered by both Erasmus students and sedentary students. In the initial description of the Erasmus programme, the three national systems of higher education and their relation to the labour market, it becomes clear that there are large and important differences between the countries. For example, Great Britain receives far more Erasmus students