ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 analyses Danish higher education with a focus on selected aspects of the important changes in European and national policies. The analysis focuses particularly on how these changes have affected students’ battles for belonging and recognition. It shows how discourses on equality and economy have developed and challenged each other in relation to ideals of the welfare state and the implementation of new public management and neoliberal policies. The close connection between education and financial planning as part of a modernization programme is linked to international policies and discourses framing the role of the state in a globalized and competitive world. Here, the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Bologna Declaration have played a major role. The chapter also analyses how this has resulted in important educational reforms focusing on progress and competition. In conclusion, it is argued that universities have an ambivalent view of who belongs in higher education and that this is a question of navigating contradictory discourses. A result of all these factors is that students will clearly often experience uncertainty, doubt and stress when they must increasingly relate to the question of whether they are good enough, fast enough and employable enough.
