Metaphysics and methods in moral enquiry and education: Some old philosophical wine for new theoretical bottles

If we reject sentimentalist accounts of the nature of moral motivation and education, then we may regard some form of reason as intrinsic to any genuine moral response. The large question for moral education is therefore that of the nature of such reason—perhaps more especially of its status as knowledge. In this regard, there is evidence of some recent drift in both ethics and theory of moral educational theory towards more instrumental pro-social skill acquisition conceptions of moral reason as more methodologically amenable to the empirical research methods of contemporary social science. This article sets out to show that the work of three great philosophers—all of whom have continued to exercise significant influence on modern and contemporary moral educational theorising and research—points in various ways to more epistemically robust conceptions of moral reason as meaningful personally formative knowledge that is not so readily amenable to natural or social scientific understanding and explanation.     

Decolonising Design Education through Playful Learning in a Tertiary Communication Design Programme in South Africa

This article introduces playful learning as part of the decolonising project at institutes of higher learning in South Africa with specific reference to the discipline of communication design. Not only does the article interrogate the content of design education, specifically design for development, but more specifically the way that design for social innovation is taught. The article begins with a contextualisation of the decolonisation debate both locally and internationally, which is followed by a brief historical overview of formal design education. Design education’s trajectory informs the contemporary conception of design as a form of rhetoric. Design and play are then interfaced theoretically, and pragmatically through a case study to explore how deeper learning was made possible by play in a curriculum‐based project. Ultimately, the article aims to highlight the value of playful learning in design higher education to nurture alternate modes of design thinking that favour localised practice, intersubjective relationships between designers and their stakeholders and the enabling of students’ self‐realisation through real world experience.     

Exploring the heterogeneity of class in higher education: social and cultural differentiation in Danish university programmes

This paper examines the relationship between social background, choice of university programme and academic culture among Danish university students. Statistically and sociologically, university students are often treated as a homogeneous group, but the ever-increasing number of students in higher education demands a closer examination of the hidden heterogeneity in the students’ social origin and educational strategies. Using a mixed-method approach (register data and ethnographic observations and interviews) the paper focuses on the students’ class origins and on different cultural practices in three Danish university programmes. It is shown that the Danish university field is characterized by a significant variation in social selectivity from programme to programme, and it is argued that these different social profiles correspond with distinctively different cultural practices in the programmes. Correspondingly, the students have distinctively different strategies towards education and future work life.     

Instrumentalism amongst students: a cross-national comparison of the significance of subject choice

Both educational policies and academic literature assume that students take an instrumental approach to their studies at university. However, despite wide-ranging discussions in the academic literature about contemporary arrangements and practices in higher education, empirical examinations of these conditions are notably scarce. This article reports on a comparative qualitative study into undergraduate students’ accounts of studying business or sociology at universities in Britain and Singapore. Drawing on Eric Fromm’s distinction between learning as ‘having’ and ‘being’, the article demonstrates that – regardless of national context – those studying business displayed many elements of passive, instrumentalised, or ‘having’ orientations to learning, whilst those studying sociology showed clear signs of the more active and less instrumental ‘being’ mode of learning. By examining subject allegiance across national borders, this article underscores the importance of recognising subject choice, alongside other important contextual factors, in moving towards a nuanced understanding of student dispositions.     

高职科研形势分析和实施“科研兴校”战略之必然

高职教育四大职能：＂培养人才、科学研究、社会服务、文化传承＂,人才培养是核心,科学研究是支撑,社会服务是需要,文化传承是根本,科研工作的重要地位日益明显。为了提高高职教育工作者的科研积极性,文章分析了高职当前科研工作形势,阐述了实施＂科研兴校＂战略的必然要求。     

Academic drift in Danish professional engineering education. Myth or reality? Opportunity or threat?

This article examines whether and, if so, to what extent academic drift can be said to have taken place in Danish professional engineering education. If the answer is affirmative, what were the driving forces behind it and what are the consequences – if any? First, a theoretical and conceptual framework for the discussion is introduced. This is followed by a case study of institutional change in higher education in Denmark, with a particular emphasis on two institutional examples, the two previously independent engineering colleges that recently merged with universities. The two examples are based on data gathered in interviews with teachers and management in these two engineering colleges (now both part of a university). In conclusion, based on the findings the questions posed in the title of this article are addressed and possible benefits and drawbacks of increased academisation of professional engineering education are discussed.     

The trouble with doctoral aspiration now

This article attends to the affective-political dimensions of doctoral aspiration. It considers why doctoral students continue to hope for an ‘academic good life’ in spite of the depressed and precarious features of the academic present. The article emerges from 2013 research with ten doctoral students in the Arts and Social Sciences, at a research-intensive university in Aotearoa New Zealand, and accomplishes two primary objectives. Firstly, it contributes to scholarship that considers how visual methodologies might inform accounts of contemporary doctoral education. And secondly, it extends queer theorizing of affect in higher education studies, with the goal of understanding how doctoral aspiration might be reimagined through an engagement with Lauren Berlant’s ‘Cruel Optimism’ (2011). I propose that Berlant’s analytic framework helps to explain why students retain attachments to even problematic objects, like PhDs. I conclude the article by tarrying with the question of what to do about doctoral aspiration now.     

Satisfaction with Higher Education: critical data for student development

Higher education is a mainstay in the development and support of the economic, social and cultural development of the global society. Throughout history, academic institutions have sought to respond to the demands of endlessly changing and evolving environmental conditions. However, in the 21st century, a number of significant factors are changing the higher education landscape and challenging higher education institutions (HEIs) to interpret the vital needs of contemporary society to stimulate and enhance student development. Student development is an all-embracing concept that involves research focusing on students from recruitment to placement. Assuming that meeting student needs and stimulating and enhancing their development are crucial challenges for higher education institutions worldwide, the article focuses on a national study in Portugal designed to measure students’ expectations and satisfaction with their experience. On the basis of a nationwide survey, it examines these in the various types of higher education institutions in Portugal.     

参与学术创业对工科博士生教育的影响探析

在知识经济时代,越来越多的工科博士生参与大学的学术创业活动,作为科研训练的一种重要方式,学术创业对工科博士教育产生了重要影响。基于对16名工科博士生深度访谈材料的扎根分析,本研究发现,参与学术创业,促进了工科博士生科研能力的提升,非学术技能的习得,广阔的学术观和多元职业观的形成。为回应学术创业对工科博士教育的影响,建议培养单位形成多元培养观,优选和拓展学术创业项目,提升工科博士生的科研能力和学术创业能力。     

融合信息化的铁道专业学生创新能力培养探索 ——以四川省智能建造与管理创新大赛为例

信息化技术在各行业中扮演着越来越重要的角色,已日渐成为社会发展的趋势之一.智能建造与管理创新大赛作为一类适合交通土建类尤其是铁道专业学生参加的高水平竞赛,不仅能全面培养学生的创新思维和科研能力,培养团队精神,同时还能增强大学生灵活应用信息化技术于铁道工程行业中,不断提高人才培养质量.基于四川省大学生智能建造与管理创新大...     

研究生教育:从美法德经验论我国的问题与出路

美国、法国与德国的研究生教育历史悠久,很多办学经验是值得借鉴的,秉承培养科研人才的办学宗旨使得这些国家的研究生具有较高的含金量.我国目前的教育状况已经在一定程度上脱离了这个宗旨,部分学生的硕士或博士学位获得目的并不是为了从事科研事业,并且学位论文的质量也非常令人堪忧.研究生教育中存在诸多问题:学位变成敲门砖;教育中存在马太效应;教育过程严进宽出;教育模式一成不变;课程设置与社会需求不对称;科研精神不断弱化.为了改变这种现状,就需要不断完善研究生的教育制度,在净化科研队伍的过程中保证研究生的质量,使得传统的科研精神得以传承     

基于CDIO理念的半导体器件设计课程教学研究

CDIO理念是麻省理工学院和瑞典皇家工学院等国际知名大学依托产品研发全过程创立的工程教育理念。基于CDIO工程教育理念,以半导体器件设计的教学活动为载体,开展教师和学生共同参与、学业考核贯穿整个教学过程的课程教学与实践活动,培养和提升学生工程实践能力。     

大学科研费用是否计入高等教育成本问题的探讨

对大学科研费用能否计入高等教育成本的问题,学术界一直存在争论。本文从大学之间科研费用的非均衡性、大学科研自身的投入-产出系统、大学科研与教学之间的关系等三个角度出发,分析了大学科研费用不计入高等教育成本的理由。     

The invisibility of academic reading as social practice and its implications for equity in higher education: a scoping study

ABSTRACT

While the importance of academic language and literacies in students’ meaningful participation in higher education has been well-explored, studies have focused on writing rather than reading. There has been a significant silence in the literature around what constitutes reading in higher education, the sociocultural complexities of reader engagement with text, and contemporary understandings of situated experiences regarding reading practices in the disciplines, especially for traditionally under-represented student groups. Scholarly interest in academic literacies, and reading in particular, has significant implications for the equity and widening participation agenda. To this end this article critically engages with research examining reading in tertiary education and describes a scoping study of scholarly work at the intersection of three domains: academic literacies, reading studies, and widening participation and equity in higher education. In asking questions of these three overlapping fields of inquiry, we map trends in existing academic literature, and argue for a research agenda that examines the experiences, perceptions and enactments of academic reading in the context of South African and Australian efforts to widen participation to higher education.     

Estranged students in higher education: navigating social and economic capitals

ABSTRACT

Family is widely regarded as a cornerstone of student support. When family support exist as an essential form of social capital making, rupture of family ties places students in a disadvantageous position. This paper focuses on estranged students’ accounts of their experiences of higher education, highlighting how capital dynamics shape their academic trajectories. Based on interviews with 21 estranged students, our research uncovers different dimensions of estranged students’ struggles and successes as they move through academia. This paper explores the social imagination that surrounds the university student, or ‘student experience’, as resting upon family support. The authors propose that widening participation policies and practices need to be more attuned to the realities that mark estranged students’ experiences, as they are not only impacted by the scarcity of either economic or social capital, but also by the instability of interrelated capitals that contribute to precarious and volatile experiences.     

我国高等教育创新承载之舟--浅议运行环境

高等教育创新要有一个良好的运行环境，它包括宽松的政府环境、和谐的社会环境、坚实的基础教育环境、民主的学术环境。高等教育只有依托这些载体才能真正发挥其创新的作用。     

Social Work in Higher Education: Internships in Opportunity Programs

ABSTRACT

Field education is essential to the development of professional social workers. Despite the significant overlap in social work’s and higher education’s missions and values, there is a scarcity of social work internships specifically in higher education settings. The placement of social work interns in institutions of higher education provides a setting where they can develop new knowledge and skills and increase their capacity to support college students toward academic success. This conceptual article discusses the role of social work in higher education and provides a model social work internship in an opportunity program, including its creation, development, challenges, outcomes, and future direction.     

Absence of the academic from higher education policy

This article argues that the individual academic is all but absent from the assumptive worlds of policymakers in UK higher education. It is taken for granted in research on academic identity that those who work in higher education as teachers and researchers refer to themselves as, and indeed are referred to by others as, ‘academics’. Evidence is drawn from a study of policymakers in the UK to demonstrate that the word ‘academic’ is not a part of the lexicon of higher education policymaking. Moreover, the concept of the academic is cast into shade by an overwhelming emphasis on ‘the student experience’, and, from another direction, by a location of professional academic accountability at the level of the higher education institution rather than the individual. The article concludes with an exploration of what work this absence of the academic in policy does in disrupting the possibilities for engagement between the worlds of academia and policymaking and in perpetuating the discourses of marketisation and new management in higher education. It also suggests understanding the assumptive worlds of policymakers is a crucial counterbalance to a growing body of literature on academic responses to change, some of which has tended towards the self‐referential.     

工程硕士校企联合培养新模式探索——以北京航空航天大学飞行器动力专业为例

社会实习实践是提升研究生学术水平、创新能力、综合素质和社会适应力的重要手段.针对工程硕士校企联合培养中"学生不理解、导师不积极、合作单位培养计划不明确、评估与评价方法不健全"等问题,立足于北京航空航天大学的特色,深入思考并积极实践,提出了"早、合、新、凝"工程硕士研究生的创新培养思路与方法,构建了"高校+企业+课题联合...     

当代美国教师教育课程思想的三种价值取向分析

学术取向、专业取向、社会(公正)取向共同构成了20世纪80年代以来美国教师教育课程思想的三大价值取向。专业取向教师教育课程思想以教育学科为中心,相信教育科学研究和教学知识基础的作用,在教育研究和专业评判的基础上,致力于建立专业教师队伍。学术取向教师教育课程思想以通识教育、任教科目为中心,通过教师掌握其知识结构,并把其注入教师教育课程中,完善教师的知识体系,促使教师形成良好的教育判断力。社会取向教师教育课程思想是在美国面对日益多元化的教学环境下,把教师当做转化型知识分子,赋权增能,以社会重建、改造为中心,实现教育和社会公平。三大价值取向的思想体现出了融合与多元模式的思想特征和发展趋势,构成了当代美国教师教育课程思想的基本图景。