Institutional self-evalution and accreditation as quality assurance process in education: theorical and practical implications

Abstract

The paper discuses transformation of the evaluation process into an accreditation process of quality assurance for the higher educational institutions. The paper explain the multiple actions and meanings related with each conception of evaluation employed, situating them in cultural, history an non neutral ethical, political's interests, that correspond to different epistemological paradigms. We will focus in the concept of evaluation as a medullar source for the accreditation processes, showing the manipulation of the concept of quality. We will underline the polisemic dimension of the referred concepts, understanding the logic of production from which they emergence, and the translation to the pedagogical field in the last decades with the name of 'educational quality'.