Flexibility over Stability? An Exploration of Curriculum Flexibility across Undergraduate Programmes in European Studies, International Relations, and Political Science

It is often argued that a more flexible study programme enables students to get the most out of their learning. For instance, curriculum flexibility is often promoted as the higher education formula for students to develop soft skills and self-knowledge that are much requested on today’s job market. In addition, making students co-designers of their study programme would nurture an inclusive learning environment that caters to the various needs and interests of the heterogeneous student body. This flexibility, however, comes with a pedagogical and an administrative price. In terms of learning, students suffer increased anxiety around choosing ‘the right’ electives in a meritocratic environment and they may not reach their full intellectual potential by avoiding academically more challenging courses. In terms of management and organisation, universities may run into staff problems because of the labour-intensive practice of designing and instructing specialised courses, and budgetary costs by hiring study counsellors and additional teaching staff to instruct all the electives. These implications make it ever more relevant to understand why universities introduce electives, specialisation courses, and free minors in study programmes. In our paper we marry theoretical and empirical lines of inquiry in curriculum design through a quantitative comparative case study. We have coded a total of 225 undergraduate programmes in European Studies, International Relations, and Political Science affiliated with the key membership organisations UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies) and ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research), representing universities in Anglophone and European countries). The purpose of our analysis is to find which socio-economic circumstances as suggested by the literature correlate with curriculum flexibility as a first step in explaining this phenomenon. Therefore, the exploratory research question follows: What explains the structural curriculum flexibility across undergraduate programmes in European Studies, International Relations, and Political Science? Our statistical analysis reveals that high-ranking universities have relatively more electives than lower ranking universities. This may be partly explained by the assumption that curriculum flexibility is a marketing tool to attract additional students. Universities with a relatively strong reputation and brand image are likely to enjoy large financial resources that enables instructing a larger number of electives. This raises questions regarding the desirability and feasibility of more flexible curricula across higher education.