A Review of the Debate from a North American Perspective

The Bologna Process is an intergovernmental initiative that aims to create a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010. The broad objectives of the Bologna Process are to remove the obstacles to student mobility across Europe, to enhance the attractiveness of European higher education worldwide, to establish a common structure of higher education systems across Europe, and for this common structure to be based on two cycles, undergraduate and graduate. Forty-five nations, all but one of the Council of Europe, have now signed the Bologna Declaration. There are also supra-national political bodies involved, the most significant being the European Commission. The Commission has seen the Bologna Process as an essential part of the Lisbon Srategy, sparking debates over conflicting agendas; should Bologna emphasize its international competitiveness or social inclusiveness? Part of this debate concerns how much these reforms are responding to global trends or to specific political agents, but it also calls into question what is meant by a ‘European dimension ’ to higher education, and the influence of ‘Anglo-American ’ educational values. Ultimately, the significance of the Bologna Process reaches well beyond the borders of Europe, and not only because of compertitio