**1. Introduction**

The idea of school, massified in the last decades by the democratization of societies, is starting to be questioned in its mission as a 'social mobility elevator' and constrained by the dictates of economic development. As Paulo Freire stated four decades ago, the school, considered here in its broadest sense, cannot be seen detached from the sociohistorical, economic and political context at the time it is analysed [1].

The university, as we know it today, is an institution, if not in crisis, then in change. The twenty-first century, in particular, has brought remarkable global changes that have been questioning previous models of the university such as Kant's, who understood the mission of the university/faculties as the development of the various branches of knowledge outside the control of the political power with

supreme authority and total freedom of thought to Humboldt's more extreme vision, which proposed professors total freedom to research and teach what they researched and students freedom to learn and research, to chart their learning paths and decide the timing of their final examinations [2]. Another characteristic of the Humboldtian University (and of the German system) was that students could change universities whenever they wanted and that professors had to change, necessarily, to progress in their careers. This aspect assumes a centrality in the current dominant thinking about the university that considers teachers' and students' mobility as central [3].

Over the centuries, the university has been endowed with respectability, trust and prestige, ensuring for centuries that those who attended it had a high social status and a guarantee of well-paid professions. This relevance attributed to university kept it, for a long time, protected from true scrutiny of its nature, its functioning and its mission as if it was a single reality regardless of the historical moment or its geographical location [4]. The report on the condition of knowledge in the most developed societies commissioned by the Council of Universities to the government of Quebec and which resulted in the work of Lyotard 'The Post-Modern Condition' showed that the university assumed, throughout history, multiple forms, varied functions and different missions and that it was in modernity that it experienced its maximum brilliance [5]. The end of modernity determined the end of the university as we knew it and determined the urgency of the university to rethink itself.

Another of the central themes that mark the discussion of the university's mission today dates back to the eighteenth century, from the proposal of Adam Smith, who advocates a conception of the university committed to the usefulness of knowledge for the progress of society. This affirms the importance of the organization of the institution and of knowledge centered on social needs. It theorizes a school that the middle classes can access and where teachers are paid according to performance. The evolution of this trend, under Bentham's influence, led to the emergence in the nineteenth century of the University of London as a secular institution, concerned with the development of professional skills and its openness to less-favoured social classes. Along the same lines followed the foundation of the 'Grandes Écoles' in the eighteenth century France, whose design was aimed at the high-level training of state officials but, in this case, under the central administration of the state. It resulted in a highly prestigious system that is still in existence, strongly elitist, with an essentially technical-professional focus. The excellence of liberal education aimed at the training of a cosmopolitan citizen is found in the guidelines identified in the archetypical model of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities, as those that embody the ideal of training the cultural and political elites [6].

All these ways of conceiving and organizing universities persist today and are a factor of internal tensions in each institution in which teachers are led/forced to assume the discourse of the researcher, the public servant, the economic agent and the guardian of the great civilizational values. The university, as a place of production, legitimization and dissemination of knowledge, has entered into upheaval, making it imperative, but almost impossible, to redefine the status and mission of the university in this contemporary world. Probably because in recent times there has been a tendency towards a certain Americanization of the university in the sense of the generalized imposition of the regime of the logic of money in place of the notion of natural identity as the instance, which determines all forms of investment in social life [7] with a significant loss of the function of the production of national culture. Once this function of legitimating a political and social organization has been lost, the university has adopted a business model and is governed by principles of accountability, effectiveness and efficiency, functionalization and de-professionalization of teachers [8–11]. Readings point out the fact that along with the corporatization of universities, there has been the emergence of the

#### *University Teachers' Conceptions of What University Is: Implications for the Future of Higher… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100813*

concept of excellence, which has become central, but absolutely empty of content (the technobureaucratic notion of excellence) [8]. Jesuíno considers that the current neoliberal turn, in which the 'markets' take centre stage, is leading universities to the configuration of companies very directed toward the cult of efficiency (doing more with less) and to consider knowledge not as an end in itself, but as a means (an instrument susceptible of economic added value) [6].

The entrepreneurial culture that could bring greater freedom and autonomy ended up resulting in greater control and verticalization. The effect on universities has determined the change of organization from horizontal models to vertical models (often resulting from legislative changes at the level of the legal regime of the institutions), which has caused perplexity among teaching staff and even leaders and also some resistance due to the impact on the institutional organization (grouping and concentration/fusion of traditional departments and institutes in the name of a certain concept of efficiency reinforced by the imposition of internal and external evaluation mechanisms) and on the redirection of research (from basic to applied). The studies conducted by Fulton in several British universities showed collective ambivalence about the desirability of the changes [12], oscillating between identification with the managerial objectives considered reasonable and identification with traditional and more sceptical academic values [13]. In this context Barnett identifies two lines of thought. The first, more conservative and marked by an ideal of higher education more separated from society, considers the existence of intellectual spaces which in themselves justify the university. The second, more marked by postmodern persuasion and the idea that the university has only instrumental ends and is more concerned with its form than its substance. Both positions are limited for the contemporary situation of universities, making it necessary to take a broader look at the complexity of a university inexorably intertwined with society in general and with new universal challenges [14].

Another milestone in the context of changes in higher education is the Bologna Declaration of 1999, currently signed by 47 European countries. The document proposes the creation of a European Higher Education Area that is internationally competitive by introducing mechanisms for greater compatibility and comparability of higher education systems in order to promote the mobility and employability of citizens. Despite its very general initial objectives for a long-term period involving the change of many political actors, much has been achieved in the context of the European space and even beyond [15–19]. The increasing success of mobility programmes, transparency and recognition of foreign programmes and degrees has been progressively linked to broader economic imperatives in the framework of higher education [20] deepened in the agenda of the Lisbon Strategy (European Council, 2000), which aimed at a knowledge-based economy to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamic region in the world [21]. This ambition resulted in extensive funding for research, professionalization and lifelong learning [22] and increasingly to the gradual interweaving of supranational and intergovernmental processes in Europe [17, 23].

Although the initial objective focused on research, development and innovation [22], Bologna also ended up having an impact on teaching and learning models. Today the structure of three study cycles, credit recognition, mobility of teachers, students and staff, national qualifications frameworks, recognition of qualifications, quality assurance and the social dimension of the European Higher Education Area are common [24, 25]. It can thus be considered that the main architectural elements of the declaration have been implemented in most European countries, translated into national legislation and regulation, despite the different policy trajectories followed by countries to achieve the objectives that depend on national idiosyncrasies, different starting points, different speeds of implementation,

different national policy agendas and different perceptions of change agents [4]. In a globalized context, major changes in Europe have inevitably aroused the attention of other regions. The European higher education space has become the standard competitor of the USA as a result of the new degree structure, reinforced by the introduction of quality assurance systems, with a positive impact on the perceived recognition of the quality of European higher education with effects on attracting international students. Several studies report changes in the organization of higher education systems along similar lines to those proposed by the Bologna reform in various regions of the world, determining greater transparency of qualifications in the USA, quality assurance concerns in Asia and greater mobility in Africa [26, 27].

As a result of these policies, higher education has changed remarkably quickly. The widespread shift from elite education to mass education has been accompanied by phenomena such as globalization, the commodification of higher education (knowledge services for potential customers), the close relationship with society, the agendas of inclusion (participation, access and equal opportunities), the digital technology revolution, the potential for internationalization, rankings and state-sponsored quality assessment mechanisms that have increased competition between institutions. In the globalized knowledge society (or knowledge economy), two particular trends are worth highlighting—internationalization and multidisciplinary approaches. The knowledge society requires skilled leaders (and manpower) able to face the many new challenges facing businesses, governments and societies worldwide, which require innovative approaches and solutions. Higher education institutions are no longer able to train graduates to address all current and emerging challenges from a single disciplinary source, so the pressure is increasing on the need for interdisciplinary approaches both at the research level and in preparation for the future (as yet unclear) jobs and leadership positions. This need also requires integrated efforts from researchers from various areas of expertise and various backgrounds, which introduces new levels of complexity at both research and training levels [4]. In a 'supercomplex world' [28], nothing can be understood with certainty or security or taken for granted as we are continually challenged conceptually by the contestation of the structures by which we are guided. Supercomplexity involves a fragility resulting from social change and technological transformation and, even more relevant, a greater uncertainty in the way we understand the world, how we understand ourselves and how we feel safe to act in that world, and it is expected that in such a liquid and diffuse framework change becomes even more difficult. Added to this difficulty is a university that is facing a critical time of building a new identity and that seeks to correspond to the wishes of the community, to the interests of its financial backers and to the designs of its actors.

As the university is a context traditionally very resistant to change [29], it becomes fundamental to involve all institutional actors in the discussion of what the university is and what it is for so that change becomes possible. It is in this context, and from the need to know the discourse of the actors, in this case university teachers, that we present this study which intends to contribute to a deeper knowledge about the way they conceptualize the university at present, the perceived changes and the way they experience them.
