Student Involvement in University Governance in Italy and Chile: A Comparative Document Analysis.

Student voice, over the years, has been progressively recognised as a relevant aspect in the quality assurance process for higher education institutions. Although a considerable scientific literature has highlighted the influence of student voice in addressing more responsive and engaging pedagogies, scant is the evidence that students are really involved in the quality assurance process (especially at institutional level). Given the student inclusion in the mainstream quality assurance and enhancement processes, the present paper, through a document analysis, focuses on the student involvement at institutional level comparing and contrasting two different higher education systems (and therefore, their quality assurance governance): Italy and Chile. Results propelled the need to redefine the role of students in the Italian and Chilean quality assurance systems, as well as in the governance of the accreditation processes. Recommendations for practice and future research are provided in the conclusions.