Strategic instrument or social institution: Rationalized myths of the university in stakeholder perceptions of higher education reform in Poland

Abstract European universities have come under reform pressures to make them instruments of social and economic development, compromising their earlier status as socially buffered institutions. The aim of this paper was to investigate the hypothesis that tensions and inconsistencies in recent higher education reforms in Poland trace back to a fundamental conflict between institutional and instrumental visions of the university. Findings suggest an intersection of “rationalized myths” that locks the university sector in a “corset” experienced by stakeholders more like a return to the Soviet past than the way of a better future. Seen through the lens of second-order systems theory, these findings problematize the assumption that the historically grounded institution of the university can be re-oriented as an instrument for achieving state priorities with a mere balance of carrots and state-of-the-art sticks.