Imitations in Higher Education as a Social Problem

Abstract

The review article summarizes the results of foreign and Russian studies of imitations in higher education and the understanding of their causes and consequences. The first section is devoted to the results of the analysis of university management imitations caused by the bureaucratization of the higher education management system and critical gaps between its strategic objectives and resource deficits. The second section examines the research strategies of the scientific and pedagogical community, which have a forced imitation character. The third section deals with the generalization of the experience of studying students’ imitation practices in a wide range – from academic fraud to the consumption of educational symbols. The end-to-end lines of analysis of the research results of the problem are imitations in the educational and scientific activities of universities, as well as in the “zones” of interaction of educational communities, in which they are mutually conditioned.

Keywords

• sociology of higher education
• imitations in higher education
• imitation strategies of behavior and activity
• academic simulacra
• academic fraud
• bureaucratization
• educational communities
• interaction of educational communities
• university management