teaching in europe: a comparison of university classroom experience in britain and germany

Abstract

Comparing educational experience, culture and academic practice within Europe can often be an interesting and rewarding exercise. The observations in this article are based on the author's experience of six and half years' teaching at two universities in Bavaria, the completion of a doctorate at the Free University Berlin, two degrees at the University of Edinburgh (one in history, the other in social sciences), and, most recently, two years' teaching in the Politics and Contemporary History Subject Group at the University of Salford in the United Kingdom. The aim is to reflect on the experience of teaching in two different European academic systems, with a view to making some comparisons as well as observations on the changes which have taken place in the UK higher education system over the last two decades.