This paper aims to compare the way in which neo-liberal trends are impacting upon the attitudes and values of staff and students in the United Kingdom and Germany. The research is based upon qualitative and quantitative data from a dozen university institutions in each country, where individual interviews were conducted with staff, and questionnaires were completed both by them and by their students. In both countries many current trends are not deeply accepted or internalised by staff. There are startling differences in student satisfaction, with the British students expressing much more positive attitudes than the Germans. However, the German staff care profoundly about teaching and about their human relationship with their students (though the students themselves are often unaware of this). The British academics feel much more hard-worked, underpaid and downwardly mobile in social terms than their German counterparts. Though in many respects the same kind of re-structuring is taking place in each system, there is only partial convergence in attitudes and values between the German and British respondents in this study.

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It is concluded that the supposed effects of academic capitalism may have been over-estimated and are mitigated by specific historical traditions, and by the varieties of capitalism that pertain in each system. (Beitrag aus: Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, Heft 4, 27. Jahrgang, 2005)