Knowledge Navigators and Lifelong Learners: Producing graduates for the information society

In recent years, there has been considerable attention, at least at the policy level, to the need for graduates to be ‘lifelong learners’. Although this concept means different things in different cultural contexts, there is more or less general agreement that graduation really only marks the beginning of the graduate's need for continuing personal and professional learning, and, moreover, that it is the responsibility of universities and other institutions of higher education to equip their graduates with the skills and attitudes to help them to continue learning throughout their lives. The emergence of an information-rich ‘knowledge society’ has made this even more of an imperative. The rapid and pervasive spread of information and communication technologies, coupled with increasing globalisation, the democratisation of knowledge production—once assumed to be largely the preserve of universities—and what has been dubbed the ‘information explosion’ collectively mean that most citizens of advanced industrialised countries are, or will soon become, ‘knowledge workers’. Accordingly, many graduates, whether they work in educational or other contexts, are likely to be involved in ‘knowledge-intensive’ activities, for which they need to be prepared. But what does this mean in practice, and what are we to do about it? In 1990, the late Dr Ernest Boyer, in his book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, proposed a fourfold division of academic work into what he labelled the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of application ; the scholarship of integration ; and, finally, the scholarship of teaching . The paper suggests that each of these four aspects of scholarship has a direct counterpart outside the university, and that, accordingly, they might be taken as a way of considering the attributes of graduates as well as of academics. The paper suggests a necessary symmetry between the teaching and other scholarly work carried out within the university and the development of such abilities and predispositions in graduates from a variety of fields who might not otherwise consider themselves to be destined for ‘scholarly’ work.     

Reviving the ancient virtues in the scholarship of teaching,with a slight critical twist

This conceptual study argues that the scholarship of teaching is not just an evidence-based but also a virtues-based practice. To this end, it pursues two interrelated objectives. First, it seeks to show that the scholarship of teaching is supported by the intellectual virtues of ‘episteme’ (theoretical knowledge), ‘techne’ (productive knowledge) and ‘phronesis’ (practical knowledge). These three intellectual virtues stand in a particular relationship to one another and phronesis assumes a vital mediating function infusing the scholarship of teaching with the practical wisdom required in concrete situations. Phronesis, particularly a critically inspired phronesis, also enables the proper development and enactment of moral virtues, especially truthfulness, justice and courage, without which the standards associated with scholarship could not be upheld. It is further argued that the scholarship of teaching is usefully enriched by recognising two different versions of evidence-based practice: one is concerned with the evidence of instrumental effectiveness between strategies and outcomes; the other with evidence of the internal consistency between strategies and desired outcomes. It is proposed that analysing the scholarship of teaching through the lens of virtue helps appreciate what kind of a practice the scholarship of teaching is and the challenges involved in engaging with it well.     

A third approach beyond the false dichotomy between teacher- and student-centred approaches in the engineering classroom

ABSTRACT

Most of the contemporary critiques of university teaching are variants of a central argument that sets up a polarity between socalled ‘traditional’ teaching, often termed ‘teacher-centred’ and ‘transmissive’, and approaches that by contrast are considered ‘student-centred’, often also referred to with the phrase ‘active learning’. This editorial argues that it is important for engineering educators to be able to interrogate these calls for change, drawing on an informed sense of ‘evidence-based practice’ in education. Drawing on scholarship from higher education research, it is suggested that the polarity typical to these debates is actually a false dichotomy, and what is needed to foster high-quality student learning is a third approach to teaching that skillfully combines a focus on knowledge with pedagogical strategies that foster student engagement.     

History as performance: pupil perspectives on history in the age of ‘pressure to perform’

The development a standard-based curriculum in History can be related to the school reforms where ‘performance’ are crucial principles. The aim is to analyse pupils’ perspectives on the relation between their views on historical knowledge and the national test in History and grading. When the pupils in this study – directly after taking a national test in History – were asked to reason about what historical knowledge is, another subject emerged: a collective memory subject. History as ‘performance’ emerges clearly in connection with the pupils’ discourse on grades and History, which has an emphasis on ‘working’, ‘writing’, and ‘doing homework’ to get a better grade in History. The disciplinary knowledge content specified in the curricula does not correspond to pupils’ experiences of what the central historical knowledge is in national tests and grading. It is apparent that disciplinary knowledge content is ‘under pressure’ in the age of performance.     

Academics’ Strategies and Obstacles in Achieving Collaboration between Universities and SMEs

There is an ongoing debate both in the United States and Europe about the need to develop a broader view of scholarship and the different activities connected with it, including ‘service to the community’. This empirical study reveals that researchers who are engaged in collaboration with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) encounter many hindrances within the academic structure and obstacles due cultural differences that needs to be overcome. But it is also evident that they are creative and learn different strategies in accomplishing their goals and they also bring back useful experiences and knowledge from their cooperation into their research and teaching within the academic organization. We suggest that attention should be paid to the broader and more elaborate view of collaborative knowledge production that we present in the article if university structures are to provide better support for their academic staff to interact profitably with the community, and thereby create a ‘win-win situation’ for everyone involved.

     

Special educational needs: a public issue

This article explores the contribution of sociological scholarship to understanding and analysing the notions of ‘special educational needs’ and ‘disability’ and the ways in which the two notions have been reconfigured and theorised as ‘public issues’ rather than ‘personal troubles’. Barton's contribution is signified both in terms of his contribution to the evolution of the ‘sociological imagination’ – as a powerful theoretical tool for unravelling the highly political and contested nature of disability and special educational needs – and also in terms of his analysis of the emergence and development of sociological theorising in the field. The parochial obsession with deficit and medical‐oriented approaches to dealing with ‘difference’ and ‘need’ have been significantly challenged through the ‘sociological imagination’ aimed at pointing up the highly political and complex nature of disability and ‘special educational needs’. Times have changed and sociological theorising has evolved, but presumed ‘personal troubles’ are still not unequivocally conceptualised as being intertwined with, resting upon and emanating from ‘public issues’ embedded in the social, cultural and political edifice of educational, social and national communities. The ‘sociological imagination’ should be constantly invoked and deployed in order to expose and challenge the sophisticated ways in which individual pathology accounts and special educational imperatives re‐invent themselves through more inclusive linguistic veneers.     

Conceptions of ‘research’ and their gendered impact on research activity: a UK case study

ABSTRACT

The last twenty years have seen an increased emphasis around the world on the quality and quantity of research in response to national research assessments, international league tables, and changes in government funding. The prevailing attitude in higher education embeds research as the ‘gold standard’ in the context of academic activity. However, a key feature of this trend is significant gender differences in research activity. We argue that research productivity is related to identification as a researcher, and that identifying as ‘research-active’ or not would appear to depend upon how an individual academic subjectively defines ‘research’. This article brings together two hitherto separate bodies of work (1) the impact of gender on academic research careers, and (2) academic conceptions of research. Through a combination of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires, we investigate the extent to which interpretations of ‘research’ and ‘research activity’ differ by gender within an institution in the UK and the potential impact of these interpretations. Although the research found that there are many similarities in the interpretations of ‘research activity’ between genders, we found one important difference between male and female participants’ conceptions of research and its relationship to teaching. Significantly, our findings suggest that there is a need to expand our existing conceptualisations of ‘research’ to include ‘research as scholarship’ in order to address the obstacles that current understandings of ‘research’ have placed on some academics. Self-definition as a researcher underlies research activity. A narrow conception of ‘research’ may prevent individuals from identifying as ‘research-active’ and therefore engaging with research.     

The problematic relationship between knowing how and knowing that in secondary art education

This article explores and attempts to rectify current conceptual confusion found in secondary art education in the UK between procedural knowledge or ‘knowing how’ and declarative knowledge or ‘knowing that’. The paper argues that current practice confuses procedural knowledge with declarative knowledge. A corollary is that assessment evidence for ‘knowing how’, which is shown or demonstrated, is confused with assessment evidence for ‘knowing that’, which requires spoken or written forms of reporting. The confusion is replicated in the national examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education, taken by students at the age of 16. The article traces this confusion to three dualisms: the Cartesian dualisms of mind and body, an individual mind and the distributed mind of culture, and the more recent mind‐in‐brain hemisphere dualism. The article advocates a Wittgensteinian embodied, socio‐cultural view of mind as a way of solving the current conceptual confusion that prevails in art education in the UK.     

Science mapping the knowledge base on educational leadership and management in Africa, 1960–2018

ABSTRACT

This review of research employed science mapping to analyse the intellectual structure of the knowledge base on educational leadership and management in Africa. The review analysed 645 Scopus-indexed documents on EDLM in Africa published between 1960 and 2018. Meta data associated with these documents were analysed using the VOSviewer software. The complementary use of citation and co-citation analysis determined that 95% of the African literature in EDLM has been published since 2000. Geographical distribution of African scholarship was highly skewed with South African scholarship accounting for 74% of the corpus. Citations analyses also identified highly cited scholars and documents within this literature. Analysis of the intellectual structure of the African EDLM knowledge base identified four main Schools of Thought. Three of these were comprised primarily of Africa-based scholarship and determined to be 'distinctively African' in terms of topical foci. The ‘research front’ or most current topical trend in this literature concerns leadership for educational and social transformation. Recommendations are made for building capacity among African EDLM scholars as well as for next steps in advancing the literature.     

Deploying the post-colonial predicaments of researching on/with ‘Asia’ in education: a standpoint from a rich peripheral country

Against the current infatuation with Asia in Australian education, this article rearticulates the notion of ‘Asia literacy’ to explore new ways of researching on/with/through Asia. Drawing on the post-colonial critique of Western social science knowledge, I first demonstrate the problematic nature of Australian knowledge production on and with Asia in social science and education. And yet, I also highlight the contribution that Australian scholars have made to decolonizing knowledge work, with particular attention to their critique of internationalization of cultural studies in the 1990s. In so doing, I identify the particular epistemic standpoint of Australian scholarship, which has emerged out of its ambivalent location in the global politics of academic knowledge production. Then, I identify three types of engagement by Asian researchers with Western knowledge. Situating Australian education scholarship among them, I explore what ‘Asia literate’ education research might look like from the vantage point of Australia.     

Theorising decolonisation in the context of lifelong learning and transnational migration: anti-colonial and anti-racist perspectives

ABSTRACT

In the age of transnational migration, the practices and policies of lifelong learning in many immigrant-receiving countries continue to be impacted by the cultural and discursive politics of colonial legacies. Drawing on a wide range of anti-colonial and anti-racist scholarship, we argue for an approach to lifelong learning that aims to decolonise the ideological underpinnings of colonial relations of rule, especially in terms of its racialised privileging of ‘whiteness’ and Eurocentrism. In the context of lifelong learning, decolonisation would achieve four important purposes. First, it would illustrate the nexus between knowledge, power, and colonial narratives by interrogating how knowledge-making is a fundamental aspect of ‘coloniality’. Second, decolonisation would entail challenging the hegemony of western knowledge, education, and credentials and upholding a ‘multiculturalism of knowledge’ that is inclusive and responsive to the cultural needs and values of transnational migrants. Third, decolonisation would lead to the need for planning and designing learning curricula as well as institutionalised pedagogy based on non-western knowledge systems and epistemic diversity. The final emphasis is on the urgency to decolonise our minds as lifelong learners, practitioners and policy-makers in order to challenge the passivity, colonisation, and marginalisation of learners both in classrooms and workplaces.     

Academics' Strategies and Obstacles in Achieving Collaboration between Universities and SMEs

There is an ongoing debate both in the United States and Europe about the need to develop a broader view of scholarship and the different activities connected with it, including ‘service to the community’. This empirical study reveals that researchers who are engaged in collaboration with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) encounter many hindrances within the academic structure and obstacles due cultural differences that needs to be overcome. But it is also evident that they are creative and learn different strategies in accomplishing their goals and they also bring back useful experiences and knowledge from their cooperation into their research and teaching within the academic organization. We suggest that attention should be paid to the broader and more elaborate view of collaborative knowledge production that we present in the article if university structures are to provide better support for their academic staff to interact profitably with the community, and thereby create a ‘win–win situation’ for everyone involved.     

Becoming world-wise: an educational perspective on the rhetorical curriculum

In this paper I discuss some aspects of recent scholarship on rhetoric and the curriculum, making a distinction between approaches that use insight from rhetoric to analyse formal and informal curricula and approaches that develop programmatic suggestions for the conduct of education. In the paper I deploy an educational perspective which I distinguish from a perspective that sees education mainly as a process of the socialization of individuals into existing social, cultural and political ways of doing and being. I focus on three aspects of the discussion: the conceptions of education that are being used in the discussion and, more specifically, the way in which the rhetorical approach is connected to the ideas of paideia and Bildung; the particular understanding of language in the rhetorical approach to the curriculum; and the question whether the rhetorical curriculum should be understood in terms of empowerment or in terms of emancipation. I argue for a more consistent and more radical adoption of insights from rhetorical scholarship in order to make the rhetorical curriculum more educational and more politically aware. I capture this with the idea of becoming ‘world-wise’ as an alternative for the idea that the rhetorical curriculum should contribute to making students ‘symbol-wise’.     

Points for Debate: God's Child

Considerable resources and intellectual attention have focused on seeking to raise the status of teaching in higher education over the last two decades. Initiatives at an institutional level have included the funding of pedagogic research, teaching awards and the creation of teaching professorships. In a broader context, the scholarship of teaching and learning movement has campaigned for a reconfigured and more inclusive understanding of scholarship. However, despite the good intentions of these initiatives, the effect been to lower still further the status of teaching, bifurcating universities between ‘teaching’ and ‘research’. It is argued that efforts should instead be directed at integrating academic practice as a more effective way of raising the status of teaching.     

Investigating networks of culture and knowledge: a critical discourse between UK Roma Gypsies,Indigenous Australians and education

Communities and families that substantially exist outside of mainstream society because of a different world view must cope with a range of difficulties in accessing formal education for their children. In the stronger economies however it should be expected that inclusive public systems of education, health, transport and housing are made available for all citizens regardless of background. This paper indicates that for UK Roma Gypsies and Indigenous Australians this is often not the case. Socio-cultural and economic factors that distinguish various communities set up major contradictions with systems of schooling that frustrate and alienate children and which distract from learning. Drawing on national and international scholarship, a number of epistemological principles are discussed that may assist both groups to participate in schooling, recognising that adoption of such principles will require significant educational change. The concepts of ‘discursive learning’ and ‘bricolage’ are advanced as a philosophical framework for researching and guiding policy and practice as the basis of more equitable and democratic schooling for all children.     

The Origins of Social Competence in a Pluralist Society∗

This paper explores the changing relationships between the UK government, its research councils and universities, focusing on the governing, funding and organisation of doctoral training. We use the Doctoral Training Centres (DTCs) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as a prism through which to study the shifting nature of university governance more broadly. Taking up ministerial policy ‘steers’ around research selectivity, knowledge exchange and collaboration, the national research councils position themselves as active partners to universities, working closely with their selected institutional ‘investments’.

Drawing on interviews with directors of these DTCs, we document the range of ways in which universities are responding to these dynamic and sometimes unpredictable governance practices. This paper also highlights the growing number of collaborations between universities that are emerging. We use recent work in science governance to argue that, through the Doctoral Training Centres, these ‘lively’ Research Council bureaucracies are reshaping the social sciences and universities more broadly.     

Counter conducts as affective practices in the classroom: the task of pedagogies of affirmative estrangement

This paper suggests that scholarship in critical pedagogy needs to consider two important issues: first, how students’ affective life (‘affect’ and ‘emotion’ are used as interchangeable terms here) is manifested through ‘counter-conduct practices’, namely, practices of resistance that challenge dominant or hegemonic social forces; and, second, how critical pedagogies may cultivate such practices in order to inspire estrangement from hegemonic forces. Seeking to bring together these two issues, the paper explores opportunities for critical pedagogies that may subvert or redirect the conducting role of hegemonic emotion norms and rules. It is particularly emphasized that estrangement from hegemonic norms and rules is essential in developing critical and affective commitments to social justice. The conclusion points out that what are called here ‘pedagogies of affirmative estrangement’ can make a valuable intervention in the scholarship on critical pedagogy by renewing conceptualizations of the politics of the self and emotion in the classroom.     

Towards accomplished practice in learning skills for science (LSS): the synergy between design and evaluation methodology in a reflective CPD programme

This study was carried out in the framework of continuous professional development (CPD) programmes following a CPD model aimed at promoting ‘accomplished practice’ involving: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and scholarship of teaching. Teachers were asked to bring evidence about their practice. The context was related to the ‘Learning Skills for Science’ (LSS) programme, which advocates the explicit incorporation of high‐order learning skills into science school curricula. The main goal of the study was to test the evidence‐based LSS CPD model by investigating the impact of its related CPD programmes on participating teachers. The impact relates to teachers’ perceptions about teaching learning skills, teachers’ LSS practice, and their professional influence in the educational system. As part of the evaluation method, we developed a criterion‐based diagnostic tool and a visual representation, designed to assess a teacher’s professional profile and progression according to dimensions of ‘accomplished practice’. The diagnostic tool can be adjusted and tailored to different CPD domains. Results indicated that requiring teachers to bring evidence from practice and students’ learning enabled us to follow teachers’ progress and succeeded to improve their performances towards accomplished LSS practice. The results exemplify a synergy between CPD designed activities and the ongoing evaluation of its impact.     

Probing the politics of comprehensive sexuality education: ‘Universality’ versus ‘Cultural Sensitivity’: a Dutch–Bangladeshi collaboration on adolescent sexuality education

As part of Western European development aid policy, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is increasingly promoted in resource-poor countries. This paper engages with CSE promotion in Bangladesh funded by the Dutch Government. It unpacks the ‘collaboration’ by looking at how a paradox is played out between the universal ideals underlying a broader transnational rights-approach and the intended cultural sensitivity by adapting CSE to the targeted context. Feminist scholarship on the ideological, moral and affective underpinnings of CSE is used to question this model’s implied universality and neutrality. The various negotiations, concerns and strategies of NGO-representatives as co-producers of sexuality knowledge in Bangladesh are focused upon. Analysis focuses on how a ‘speakable’, middle-class-oriented ‘proper’ sexuality is invented and managed through affect; how cultural insensitivity and secular normativity with respect to CSE are challenged in discussions concerned a rights-versus-health approach; and how a confident and knowledgeable adolescent or young person is imagined through the emancipatory project attributed to sexuality education. Rather than via equal collaboration, it is argued, adolescent sexuality education in these development aid settings is shaped by powerful transnational and local processes of Othering.