Incorporating the notion of recontextualisation in academic literacies research: the case of a South African vocational web design and development course

This article describes a small scale ethnographically oriented research study seeking to contribute to understanding student academic literacy practices in a South African vocational, web design and development course. In this course digital multimodal assessments are the main means whereby students demonstrate their learning. The findings of the study provide insights into the contextualised ways in which student academic literacy practices are shaped by academic and professional contexts where digital and multimodal practices are privileged. The academic literacies perspective used in this study, while useful for exploring the nature of student academic literacy practices, has not paid enough attention to theorising how literacy practices are shaped by broader contextual influences. To address this limitation the paper speculates about how the Bernsteinian concept of knowledge recontextualisation might be used alongside an academic literacies frame. The inclusion of an empirical focus on recontextualisation can provide an opportunity to explore how knowledge construction and transformation processes in the academic and professional domains result in the privileging of particular academic literacy practices.     

Towards shaping the field: theorising the knowledge in a formal course for academic developers

In recent years there have been calls both for building the knowledge base of academic development (AD) and for systematic induction of newcomers to the field if AD is to advance as a professional and an academic field. Despite the importance and complexity of AD, induction of novice academic developers remains mostly informal and predominantly focuses on the practices of the field. We argue that more-experienced academic developers have an obligation to provide formal and systematic routes into the field and its knowledge base than is currently the case. One way of doing this is through offering a formal course for growing the next generation of academic developers. Such a course could equip newcomers with a more solid and shared knowledge base, thus contributing to shaping the epistemic spine of AD. In this paper, using Maton's Legitimation Code Theory, we offer an analysis of an existing course aimed at equipping novices with the theoretical and practical knowledge to enable them to solve some of the problems in higher education. From this analysis have emerged general principles that could inform the selection, sequencing and pacing of knowledge in a formal course for academic developers.     

The transformation of academic ideals: an Australian analysis

This article explores the role that universities play in shaping the relationship between academics and their work. Drawing on Miller and Rose's interpretation of our present era as being characterised by ‘Advanced Liberal’ governance, this article demonstrates how discourses seeking to govern academic labour enrol ideals about the academic and subjectify academic staff within strategies to govern their conduct. Entrepreneurial conceptions of ‘good’ academic conduct are valorised through such initiatives as performance evaluation, interdisciplinary research programmes and Graduate Certificates of university teaching and skills development. Drawing on the past literature and an analysis of three Australian public universities, this article proposes three ideals through which academics are enrolled into strategies to govern their conduct: ‘the career academic’, ‘the tribal academic’ and ‘the celebrity academic’. The centrality of an entrepreneurial sense of self within academic ideals contributes to the production of insidious effects within academic practices. The subjectification of academics, as entrepreneurial knowledge managers, may potentially produce strain within academics who fail to close the psychological distance between their self-perceptions and academic ideals. This article proposes that future investigations of the development of academic ideals and values should engage with an analysis of modes of self-government. The utility of self-government is explored in an analysis of the dynamic production of academic ideals within policies and programmes aimed at governing the behaviour of academic staff.     

Conceptualising knowledge for access in the sciences: academic development from a social realist perspective

Whilst arguing from a social realist perspective that knowledge matters in academic development (AD) curricula, this paper addresses the question of what knowledge types and practices are necessary for enabling epistemological access. It presents a single, in-depth, qualitative case study in which the curriculum of a science AD course is characterised using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Analysis of the course curriculum reveals legitimation of four main categories of knowledge types along a continuum of stronger to weaker epistemic relations: disciplinary knowledge, scientific literacies knowledge, general academic practices knowledge and everyday knowledge. These categories are ‘mapped’ onto an LCT(Semantics) (how meaning relates to both context and empirical referents) topological plane to reveal a curriculum that operates in three distinct but interrelated spaces by facing towards both the field of science and the practice of academia. It is argued that this empirically derived differentiated curriculum framework offers a conceptual means for considering the notion of access to ‘powerful’ knowledge in a range of AD and mainstream contexts.     

Practices of conformity and resistance in the marketisation of the academy: Bourdieu,professionalism and academic capitalism

The paper reports on an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with staff from four Australian universities. These universities are shown to be undergoing significant social change as processes of marketisation impact on the everyday practices of academic workers. The universities are analysed as sites of contestation between the new professional managers and the established academic profession over the control of the conditions of work, the production of expert knowledge and the worksite itself. The theory of academic capitalism is examined, and the relevance of Bourdieu’s work for the analysis of a university sector in a context of marketisation is assessed. Bourdieu’s interlinked concepts of capital, habitus and the field are employed to investigate the nature of the contestation, revealing a dynamic process in which academics innovatively respond to threats to reduce their autonomy, to increased levels of surveillance and other constraints on practice. In addition, the study illustrates the processes through which actors within the sector, through acts of both conformity and resistance, contribute collectively to the growth of academic capitalism in the neoliberal university.     

Examining the public face of academic development

Language is an important way of presenting an identity, either individual or group. This paper explores the language used in the presentation of the identity of academic development. The study is based on an analysis of websites from academic development centres in the UK and Australia and outlines the public ways in which academic developers present their work and the meanings that are attached to this presentation. It uses frame theory to analyse the language of academic development websites in order to explore some of the assumptions underpinning the public face of academic development. It explores the ways in which language is used to frame and persuade in order to establish the credibility of academic development as an expert and scholarly field.     

The research-teaching nexus in nurse and teacher education: contributions of an ecological approach to academic identities in professional fields

In developing graduates for the knowledge society lecturers in higher education may seek to strengthen links between research and teaching. Much of the previous work on the research-teaching nexus is within traditional universities and subject disciplines. In aiming to deepen understanding of the research and teaching nexus this paper focuses on the academic identities of higher education lecturers working in newer higher education institutions and in the professional fields of nursing and of teacher education. A qualitative study, informed by professional identity construction as an ecological concept, was conducted. The findings align with previous studies concerning similarities between lecturers in nurse and teacher education, but they contrast with previous studies concerning differences between these two groups of lecturers. Similarities include the priority given by professional educators to their responsibility for preparing new clinical practitioners; the research-led model as the lecturers’ main approach to the research-teaching nexus; and their difficulties in coping with current demands in academic work. Differences between the two groups of lecturers include the way that ‘practitioner identity’ is positioned within their current academic identities and the way that they position initial education within the wider professional field. These differences indicate different kinds of connections between teaching and research. The paper proposes an ecological approach to understanding the research-teaching nexus.     

Reconceptualising academic work as professional practice: implications for academic development

Despite increasing research and scholarship in the area of academic development in recent years, it remains an under-theorised field of endeavour. The paper proposes that academic developers take a view on what constitutes academic work and see it as a form of professional practice. It discusses the features of practice theory that illuminate professional practice and identifies three foci for the application of these ideas within academic development: practice development, fostering learning-conducive work and deliberately locating activity within practice. It also suggests that academic development be viewed as a practice and points to features within its own traditions on which to build.     

Social comparison and cognitive performance: A descriptive approach in an academic context

Eighty pupils of different academic levels (i.e. strong vs weak) were asked to make estimations about the different subjects taught at school. Gathered post-experimentally, the data allow specification of the relation to intelligence in which each school subject stands for the two different types of subjects. Evaluations of the significations accorded to performances in the different disciplines were also obtained. In accordance with expectations, analysis of these estimations reveals that pupils in a failure situation have an “original” conception of the field of academic comparison. However, the data obtained show that this originality (i.e. this social differentiation) stays within the dominant value system which sets the confines of the field of academic comparison. Taken in conjunction with more experimental results reported elsewhere, these estimations suggest that the cognitive attitude adopted by subjects towards an object of knowledge (here academic) can, in certain conditions, be formed independently of the social significations associated with this object but not independently of the nature of the social insertion which subjects undergo at the time of this interaction.     

European academic labor markets in transition

Even if convergences are to be observed among the orientations adopted by higher education policies in European countries, they still are characterized by strong national features. One of the most striking national patterns of each system is its academic labor market, salaries, status, recruitment procedures, workloads, career patterns, promotion rules, being very different from one country to another. Nevertheless, specific national academic labor markets are experiencing a common evolution that can be summed up by the emergence of more regulated internal labor markets. At the same time, the qualification of the academic production (knowledge) as a public good is questioned and academic activities rely less on individual autonomy than before. Two main transformations can be mentioned: the development of individual assessment and incentive devices in universities and the increasing role of higher education institutions in the issues previously in the domain of the academic profession. The paper relies on a limited number of cases and on empirical studies recently carried out in France and Germany. The evolution engaged in the two countries will be reviewed in order to show that they lead, in different ways, to more regulated ‘‘internal labor markets’’. It will also be argued that this is a general trend. In the last section, the implications linked to this evolution and the questions raised, the role of the academic profession, and the transformation of the status of scientific and pedagogical activities will be discussed.     

Re-integrating academic development and academic language and learning: a call to reason

This paper argues for the re-integration of academic development (AD) and a academic language and learning (ALL) practitioners in Australian higher education. This argument is made as universities aim to develop internationally recognised, inter-disciplinary and standards-based curricula against the backdrop of international comparative education (e.g., Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the Australian Qualifications Framework and a quality emphasis on English language standards (e.g., Tertiary Education Quality and Assessment Agency). Drawing on Rowland's argument that professional life in the academy has become fragmented across five fault lines ([2002]. Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: The challenge for academic development. Higher Education Quarterly, 56(1), 52–64), I propose a sixth: the pedagogical fault line between language and learning which I argue is institutionally manifest in the historical bifurcation of AD and ALL practitioners in the academy. This paper traces the historical separation of these two fields of practice in Australian higher education in order to disturb the present distinction and show how it is more an accident of history than the result of sound pedagogical decision-making. The paper argues that in the current educational context, it is timely to consider a re-integration of these two aspects of the academic field. It is suggested that such a move will create research and teaching connections that develop synergies in educational development that are able to work with language and learning simultaneously.     

Government research evaluations and academic freedom: a UK and Australian comparison

Performance management systems have been an inevitable consequence of the development of government research evaluations (GREs) of university research, and have also inevitably affected the working life of academics. The aim of this paper is to track the development of GREs over the past 25 years, by critically evaluating their adoption in the UK and Australian higher education sector and their contribution to the commodification of academic labour, and to highlight the resultant tensions between GREs and academic freedom. The paper employs a literature-based analysis, relying on publicly available policy documents and academic studies over the period 1985–2010. GREs are a global phenomenon emanating from new public management reforms and while assessments of university research have been welcomed, they have attracted critique based on their design, the manner in which they have been applied, and the unintended consequences of their implementation on academic freedom in particular. Consistent with international research on the impact of GREs, Australian research assessments appear to be undoing the academic freedom that is central to successful research. Further empirical research on the impact of GREs on academics is urgently needed.     

Pains and gains of working in Chinese universities: an academic returnee's journey

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, an increasing number of overseas Chinese PhD graduates have returned to China to develop their career. For these academic returnees, one of the challenges is to (re)construct an academic identity in a familiar context that is also strange because they have been absent for a few years. In this autobiographical paper, the researcher describes and reflects upon the pains and gains experienced when re-entering and working in Chinese universities as a PhD returnee, revealing the process of his academic identity (re)construction when adjusting to different academic assessment policies. This writing offers an individual perspective on the challenges to returnees’ academic identity (re)construction and argues for the need to set up in-between spaces for inter/cross-disciplinary academic discourse between returnees and local scholars at Chinese universities. This paper aims to contribute to pedagogic debate on the development of more open research practices in Chinese universities.     

Learning the methods and the skills of global product realization in an academic virtual enterprise

This paper reports on and draws conclusions about the international course called European Global Product Realization. It was organized to provide university students with knowledge about distributed product development in virtual enterprises. The philosophy of the course is discussed together with its structure, contents, organization, infrastructure, deliverables and the experiences. Necessitated by globalization, the principles of operation of virtual enterprises were used in organizing the course. The knowledge accumulated in global product realization by the participating companies and academic sections provided the basis for the course and for the student projects. The organizers put the students of three European universities into the position of evolving young professionals who act as both knowledge producers and knowledge consumers. The design and engineering students took part in academic lectures and industrial case studies in a virtual classroom and practised collaborative product development in the emulated virtual enterprise. The academic virtual enterprise framework has been confirmed to be a solution for opening the conventional educational institutions. Our future work will concentrate on how to exploit disciplinary and operational research as the engine behind academic learning and teaching.     

Educational administration and history Part 2: academic journals and the contribution of JEAH

In this article, we examine the role of academic journals in the development of the field. In particular we focus on JEAH as an illustrative example of an academic journal that has, from the outset, reflected and portrayed intellectual developments in educational administration and history. We argue that academic journals, in effect, are one of the most visible and ostensibly powerful forms of knowledge production that can be a highly political and contested process. Moreover, attempts over the past few decades to utilise qualitative or quantitative measures to weigh and measure the (apparent) status and impact of academic journals serve to invoke ratings wars that can only rebound to the disadvantage of scholarship in discipline of education and the field of educational administration and history.     

Refining measurements of social and academic integration: lessons from a German University of Applied Sciences

A variety of studies have shown that social and academic integration are important indicators of future student success and satisfaction. They are therefore an important field of action for higher education development programmes. However, specifications of the theoretical models and empirical representations vary widely between researchers and countries. We reviewed the most important German and international questionnaires and studies on the topic. On the basis of this review as well as theoretical reflections, we developed a questionnaire which was successfully tested for validity.

     

A sustainability education academic development framework (SEAD)

Academic development is one means of reorientating education within higher education (HE) to include sustainability principles. This paper identifies the requirements of academic development programmes that will provide educators with the skills to engage students in the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development. In order to determine what an ideal academic development programme for sustainability education might look like, a theoretical framework for sustainable education and academic development (SEAD framework) was constructed. This was based on an analysis of the literature in the areas of sustainability education, academic development and organisational change in HE. The aim of this paper was to present and analyse the theoretical SEAD framework against three international academic development programmes in sustainability education for HE, which utilised different approaches and delivery modes. From this analysis, it is possible to determine the elements of academic development that would most likely result in a change in educational development and delivery.     

Exploring the mediating role of graduate attributes in relation to academic self-directedness in open distance learning

The objective of this study is to add to the extant literature on graduate attributes by examining the mediating role of global/moral citizenship and lifelong learning attributes in the relation between students' scholarship attributes and their academic self-directedness in a higher-education open distance learning (ODL) environment. The Graduate Skills and Attributes Scale and Adult Learner Self-directedness Scale were administered to a stratified proportional random sample of N?=?1102 undergraduate ODL students in the economic and management sciences field. Data analyses consisted of an analysis of correlations and two simple mediational models. The results revealed significant direct and indirect effects between the variables. The academic self-directedness of the participants was positively influenced by their scholarship, global/moral citizenship and lifelong learning attributes. The influence of scholarship attributes on academic self-directedness is significantly mediated through global/moral citizenship and lifelong learning attributes. These findings contribute new knowledge that informs the design of teaching and learning activities aimed at enhancing the academic self-directedness of students pursuing educational studies in an ODL environment.     

Examining the relationship between grit and academic achievement within K‐12 and higher education: A systematic review

In recent years, grit has drawn increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners. As an important noncognitive indicator, grit has been used to understand individual success and performance in various fields. However, past empirical research has shown inconsistent findings on the relationship between grit and academic achievement. This study aims to review and synthesize past empirical findings on the relationship between grit and academic achievement. Forty‐four relevant articles involving a total of 60,133 participants met the inclusion criteria and were synthesized in this meta‐analysis. Our findings suggest that (a) overall grit level and its two facets (consistency of interest and perseverance of effort) are positively associated with academic achievement; (b) the association between grit and academic achievement is moderated by grade level; and (c) perseverance of effort shows the largest effect size on students’ academic achievement when compared with overall grit level and consistency of interest.     

Popular knowledge and academic knowledge in the Brasilian peasants' struggle for land

This article discusses the inter-relationship between popular knowledge and academic knowledge in the context of mathematics education. The author, based on her field research with groups from the Brazilian Landless People's Movement, analysed the political dimensions of an education project which seeks to investigate the traditions, practices and mathematical concepts of a subordinated social group. She then goes on to analyse the pedagogical work which was developed in order for the group to be able to interpret and decode its knowledge; to acquire the knowledge produced by academic mathematics; and to establish comparisons between its knowledge and academic knowledge, thus being able to analyse the power relations involved in the use of both these kinds of knowledge.