Higher education as student self-formation

The chapter argues that higher education is a process of reflexive student self-formation, and the provision of opportunities and resources for self-formation is the most important single contribution made by higher education institutions. In higher education people develop themselves consciously by working on themselves in relation to their personal evolution, goals and projects, primarily but not only through immersion in knowledge. The essential elements of higher education as self-formation are the autonomy of the learner, reflexive agency, the will to learn, and the engagement in knowledge. Immersion in knowledge distinguishes self-formation in higher education from reflexive self-making in other domains. Though not all students undergo full self-formation, self-formation constitutes an empirically researchable phenomenon as well as a norm to be achieved. In theorising higher education as self-formation the chapter assumes an open ontology with heterogeneity of structure and agency, and reviews (1) social theory, primarily Archer and Foucault, on agency freedom, autonomy and reflexivity; (2) empirically-based work on autonomy, proactivity and reflexivity in psychology, primarily in Vygotsky and in self-determination theory and social cognitive theory; (3) reflexive learning in Confucian self-cultivation and the educational practices of Bildung and American pragmatism; (4) selected research on student development and immersion in knowledges. The conclusion compares the self-formation and employability approaches, and reflects on whether higher education should introduce into student self-formation particular notions of social relations.