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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Bologna Process in Finland

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The aim of this chapter is to analyse how the Bologna Process influences Finnish higher education by examining what changes are related to or caused by it. The study focuses first on the social field of national higher education policy-making, and second on the study of higher education institutions examined from the perspective of academic basic units. The study is based on critical analysis of national policy documents and on a qualitative case study conducted at the University of Jyvaskyla in the spring term of 2004. The qualitative case study was based on thematic focus group interviews. The themes of the interview can be found in the Appendix 1. In order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomena taking place in higher education the choice of academic departments was influenced by studies of academic cultures (see Becher and Trowler 2001). A more detailed methodological discussion will be offered in section 5. The idea of a