2. "Small is beautiful": an investigation of literacy practices of MA thesis writing in two different national locations in Europe Carole Sedgwick CALPIU conference 2012

3. Bologna Accord (June 1999) Common system of ‘easily readable and comparable degrees’ 2 main cycles: undergraduate and graduate common system of credits European co-operation in quality assurance

4. MA English studies thesis Hungary Italy

5. New Literacy Studies Literacy practices : ‘… not just what people do with literacy, but what they make of what they do, the values they place on it and the ideologies that surround it.’ (Baynham, 1995: 1)

6. Research questions 1. What are the literacy practices of writing an MA thesis on the two English studies programmes? 2. What similarities and differences in practices can be identified across the two programmes?

7. Research questions 3. How do these practices relate to the social contexts of the programmes? 4. How do academic literacy practices on these two programmes relate to notions of ‘readable and comparable’ degrees?

8. Qualitative inquiry: ethnographic perpective ‘Real world’ settings Purposive sampling: ‘rich’ data, multiple sources, multiple perspectives Participant rather than researcher directed

9. Data collection Interviews: students, supervisors and assessors Documentation: graded theses + drafts, written feedback, course descriptions, criteria for assessment Observation: field notes

10. English literature Eva’s thesisSelf-Identity and Memory in Wordsworth’s Poetry: The lifelong revision of The Prelude Elek’s thesisMetafiction in Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy Adriana’s thesis Mildmay Fane’s Masque Raguaillo D’Oceano (1640): A study

11. Variation in practices Theoretical Topic-based Ideological

12. Social Contexts Local : relationships, courses, research, institutional regulations Global : real and imagined, known, partially- known, ‘international’/Anglophone publication National: identities, political, economic, social histories

13. ‘Readable’ and ‘comparable’ degrees Top-down approaches: European qualifications framework Cumulative Empirical research Transferable skills and competences Communicated transparently

14. Lack of co-operation with the reforms Adopting the system, not changing the culture, Westernization of systems externally imposed by administrators (Kovtun and Stick (2009), Tomusk (2008), Wex (2007) Conflict between national interpretations and Bologna Requirements (Westerjden, 2003) and second ENQA survey (2008)

15. ‘Readable’ and ‘comparable’ degrees Bottom-up approaches Transnational collaboration: joint degrees, projects, exchanges Local research repositories

16. Conclusion To focus on the text alone: ‘is like coming upon the scene of a party after it is over and everyone has gone home, being left to imagine from the remnants what the party must have been like’ (Brandt 1990, cited in Prior, 1998:28)

17. Conclusion ‘Small is beautiful’ Carole Sedgwick Email: c.sedgwick@roehampton.ac.uk