Democratization and gender representation in the Romania higher education

The concept of democratization launched for the first time in the UK (Dearing Report ( =1997) is actually an alternative to the binary system and to the massification of higher education, and seeks a balance between quality and quantity, between fairness and performance. By widening the term, this was also open to other dimensions, such as the role and place of women in academia. The presence of women at managerial level, professors' perceptions about the current state of Romanian higher education starting from the current practices of universities, the influence of the national legal framework over the quality of higher education, the ratio teacher - student, etc. are all aspects which are part of the democratization of higher education. The purpose of this article is to analyze from a liberal perspective the democratization of the Romanian higher education system. From an empirical standpoint, the next step is to present and comment the data which resulted from two quantitative research projects conducted in Romanian universities, research that highlights the complex phenomenon of institutional and academic democratization.