ABSTRACT
Academic cultures are described in this chapter. The cultures and the identities have constituted the continuity of universities for centuries. People who perceive themselves as part of the academic community identify values, norms, and patterns in learning, education, and co-operation with the environment. Academic cultures grow out of the utopia of freedom of learning and teaching, where autotelic values of truth and improving the world are supposed to create communities and engage and motivate people. However, universities, like any other organizations, are created by people. So they are not free from conflicts, power struggles, bureaucratic tendencies, and organizational pathologies. They are therefore increasingly subject to a process of supervision, control, and management that is the antithesis of academic freedom and autonomy. The danger of overextending controlling systems is to move towards cultures of control, leading to a dystopia of power and hindering freedom of thought and creativity. The instrumentalization of university activity also threatens the decline of critical values, leading to servility towards political or economic power.
