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SILVIA
FLOREA
Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu
Abstract
My paper considers English Studies from the viewpoint of
student enrolment and participation, trying to shed new
light on the causes and effects of over- and
under-enrolment. I argue that in the absence of coherent
educational policies in the last two decades, several
factors – declining academic status, radical demographic
shifts, and progressively massive reductions in governmental
financial support among them – have impinged on access and
affected rates of participation, leading in time to both
shortages in and burdens on universities. Under the
circumstances, English Studies institutions have been
staggering under the double pressure of ensuring academic
program quality and accommodating mass access. English
Studies departments have been seeking to re-negotiate their
social function while simultaneously being ‘streamlined’
under the two (related) pressures of economic and academic
restructuring devolving from the Bologna Process. My paper
also discusses over- and under-enrolment from the viewpoint
of the access and equity challenges they pose and argues
that, paradoxically, despite the massification of Higher
Education, English-language study programs show a propensity
for elite student access, that is, they increase
class divides and reduce lower-income student access to
Higher Education.
Keywords: English Studies, Higher
Education, over- and under-enrolment, massification, access,
widening participation, barriers, demographic shifts
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