Co-designing a civics curriculum: young people,democratic deficit and political renewal in the EU

Contemporary discussion of the ‘crisis in democracy’ displays a tendency to see young people as the problem because they are ‘apolitical’, ‘apathetic’ and ‘disengaged’, or point to deficiencies in institutions deemed responsible for civic education. This discussion normally comes as a prelude to calls for more civics education. This article points to a renewal of politics at the hands of young people relying on new media, and draws on evidence like survey research, case studies and action research projects. This political renewal is occurring largely in response to the assumption of political elites that a ‘politics-as-usual’ will suffice to address the major political challenges of our time. Against the assumption that teachers, curriculum experts and policy-makers already know what kinds of knowledge and skills students need to become good citizens, we make a case for co-designing a contemporary citizenship curriculum with young people to be used for the professional development of policy-makers. We argue that such an intervention is likely to have a salutary educational effect on policy-makers, influence how they see young people’s political engagement and how they set policy agendas. The article also canvasses the protocols such a project might observe.     

Access and retention in French higher education: student drop-out as a form of regulation

Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory and using Durkheim’s concepts of ‘social fact’ and ‘regulation’, this article examines the place held by public universities within the French higher education (HE) system, breaking with the purely bureaucratic vision prevailing in France today. By setting aside some of the main received ideas about the effects and meanings of student selection and drop-out, the article suggests that public universities play an essential role in regulating the successive flows of first-generation students through French HE. It is precisely because public universities are non-selective that they are able to play this role. Finally, the distribution of HE choices and students’ dropping out are both considered as products of a structural and institutional process of regulation.     

British and French Evaluation of International Higher Education Issues: an identical political reality?1

In both Britain and France, evaluation has been seen as one element of national strategies to internationalise higher education (HE), with the spread of evaluation indicating policy convergence. However, there are dangers in describing the cross‐national adoption of evaluation as an instance of policy transfer in higher education. This article compares two evaluation agencies, the French Comité National de l’Évaluation des Établissements Publics à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel (CNE) and the British Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), which have both been seen as guarantors of the quality of domestic HE, and concomitantly as elements in international HE promotion. It indicates considerable differences in the evaluation reports produced by each agency, and links these to the context in which they were produced: the institutional relationships between each agency, higher education institutions, and the state; and the general context of ‘evaluation’ in each country's public sphere. The article thus challenges analyses which have seen the proliferation of evaluation across national contexts as evidence of ‘policy transfer’ or of ‘homogenisation’. Instead, it shows how differences in an ostensibly similar ‘product’, the ‘quality reports’ produced by each agency, reflect the institutional context of evaluation and its role in public policy writ large.     

Beyond employer engagement and skills supply: building conditions for partnership working and skills co-production in the English context

Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed – ‘employer engagement’ and ‘skills supply’ – in which education providers have striven to gain employer involvement in their programmes and meet their skills needs. The effectiveness of these twin orthodoxies has been limited by the ‘New Low Skills Equilibrium’ (NLSE) involving a symbiosis of weaknesses on both the education and employer sides. The article draws on findings of a two-year research and development programme in East London which explored the process of education-employer partnership working to support inclusive growth in key economic sectors. The research suggested that this aim was best supported by processes of ‘co-production’ that actively involved both partners in attempting to address features of the NLSE. The research also pointed to constraining factors. The article concludes by identifying the conditions required for the realisation of co-production approaches that include the development of new collaborative structures – High Progression and Skills Networks (HPSNs) – involving a wide range of social partners at the local and regional levels.     

Hybrid configurations of leadership in higher education employer engagement

Recent literature has emphasised the distributed nature of leadership in higher education (HE) and the multitude of actors and factors that contribute towards organisational outcomes. Gronn suggests, however, that rather than using such evidence to provide broad, normative accounts of leadership practice, greater attention should be directed to mapping the ‘hybrid configurations’ through which leadership practice emerges. This article responds to this call through an analysis of employer engagement activities in UK HE. Using a qualitative case study approach, it illustrates the complex, interdependent and contested nature of leadership practice in cross-boundary environments. The article concludes by suggesting how a hybrid perspective may enhance leadership theory and practice in tertiary education.     

From Alternative Education to The Mainstream: approaches in Canada and Germany to Preparing Learners to Live in a Changing World

There has been a shift in the core idea of schooling in both Germany and Canada: While schools have traditionally focused on cognitive development, they now increasingly focus on ‘engaged learners’ and use integrated settings to support their cognitive, metacognitive and social-emotional development. In line with the theme ‘Learning to Be’, we argue that beliefs about the purpose of schooling are shifting from a narrow, knowledge-based approach to understanding that students need knowledge, skills and attitudes to succeed in their private, public and professional lives as adults. To this end, pedagogical concepts developed in alternative education are increasingly being implemented by mainstream schools. This article examines this significant development in Germany and Canada. We analyse current examples from mainstream schools, highlighting how they use alternative pedagogical concepts to transform the ways in which students come to know themselves as learners. In both countries, this process has been simultaneously bottom-up, driven by early-adopter schools, and top-down, driven by public awards or broad public initiatives.     

International HE in the UK: leveraging the policy-institution-expert nexus in uncertain times

ABSTRACT

Long-established paradigms around intensifying internationalism and ‘borderless-ness’ in the UK higher education (HE) sector are being challenged and disrupted by the nationalist drift of global political and socioeconomic forces. The UK’s international HE space is fragmented with neither a coordinated national policy nor a central agency overseeing sector-wide activity. Instead, national stakeholders interact in a ‘policymaking-sector expert nexus’ that itself engages internationally. UK institutions create structures to support ‘global engagement’ to help them to transcend national policy concerns and weather global ‘storms’, and to shape policy proactively. However, growing national policy divergence and competing policy priorities mean that enhanced coordination through a sector-level body must precede, and facilitate, the development of any UK-wide international HE strategy. A strategy will face the challenge of embracing institutional autonomy and mission diversity, recognising and value the full spectrum of international HE activities, and providing sufficient funding to leverage the implementation of institutional strategies.     

Collaboration and contestation in further and higher education partnerships in England: a Bourdieusian field analysis

Internationally, ‘College for All’ policies are creating new forms of vocational higher education (HE), and shifting relationships between HE and further education (FE) institutions. In this paper, we consider the way in which this is being implemented in England, drawing on a detailed qualitative case study of a regional HE–FE partnership to widen participation. We focus on the complex mix of collaboration and contestation that arose within it, and how these affected socially differentiated groups of students following high- and low-status routes through its provision. We outline Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’ as a framework for our analysis and interpretation, including its theoretical ambiguities regarding the definition and scale of fields. Through hermeneutic dialogue between data and theory, we tentatively suggest that such partnerships represent bridges between HE and FE. These bridges are strong between higher-status institutions, but highly contested between lower-status institutions competing closely for distinction. We conclude that the trajectories and outcomes for socially disadvantaged students require attention and collective action to address the inequalities they face, and that our theoretical approach may have wider international relevance beyond the English case.     

The curious promise of educationalising technological unemployment: What can places of learning really do about the future of work?

Abstract

University education is full of promise. Indeed universities have the capacity to create and shape, through staff and students, all kinds of enthralling ‘worlds’ and ‘new possibilities of life’. Yet students are encouraged increasingly to view universities as simply a means to an end, where neoliberal education delivers flexible skills to directly serve a certain type of capitalism. Additionally, the universal challenge of technological unemployment, alongside numerous other social issues, has become educationalised and portrayed in HE policy, as an issue to be solved by universities. The idea that more education can resolve the problem of technological unemployment is a political construction which has largely failed to deliver its promise. In this article, we look at educationalisation in hand with technologisation and we draw on a Critical Discourse Analysis of HE policies, to demonstrate the problems arising from taken for granted visions of neoliberal social development related to education, technology, and employment. To disrupt the tired visions of ‘techno-fixes’ and ‘edu-fixes’ we identify in these texts, we call for a radical re-imagining of HE policy. Instead of attributing responsibility for social change to abstract notions of education, market and technology, a new shared vision is needed where more agency is explicitly attributed to the researchers, teachers, and students who are the genuine human future of work.     

Responding to misrecognition from a (post)/colonial university

This article addresses the challenge of reclaiming higher education (HE) as a public good for building effective democracies. We use Bernstein’s model of pedagogic rights and Fraser’s model of social justice to develop a normative framework for discussing how universities in unequal societies might mitigate social injustice. Referring to recent student protests in South Africa, we show the extent of student anger and frustration at the misrecognition they experience due to the reproduction of colonial hierarchies at postcolonial universities. The article is an attempt to respond to students’ calls about ‘black pain’, ‘black debt’ and for the ‘decolonisation’ of South African universities. In particular, we focus on theories of recognition and how these are being played out in the current South African HE context. Our aim is not to critique student politics, but to understand the position and heed the cry of the subaltern student. We deliberate on what an adequate response, framed within a model of pedagogic rights, might be from those who teach in and manage universities. We note some impediments to implementing this response and conclude by asserting the importance of working with a politics of recognition and representation as well as redistribution.     

Facilitating experiential learning of study skills in sports students

In recent years the student population in the UK has grown considerably, and students are entering higher education with a more diverse range of qualifications and skills. This is particularly the case in post‐1992 universities with a widening participation agenda, as these institutions have a larger share of students from non‐traditional backgrounds. Universities therefore need to consider ways in which they can encourage achievement and success amongst a diverse population of students, many of whom enter higher education without the skills needed to study effectively. Within this article the authors consider the use of experiential learning tasks to facilitate the development of study skills, as it has been suggested that such tasks aid student learning and the acquisition of skills.

The authors outline a Level 1 module, delivered to a large cohort of students at a post‐1992 university in the United Kingdom, and designed to facilitate the development of study skills in a way that is consistent with Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. Their small‐scale and provisional examination of the first iteration of this module suggests that they have produced an initiative that encourages student engagement and facilitates learning in each of the four stages of Kolb’s cycle. However, wider investigation is required to ascertain the effectiveness of the initiative in allowing student access to some of the key aims of higher education.     

The role of HE in professional development: some reflections on a foundation degree for teaching assistants

Rapid change in higher education (HE) has lead to a reappraisal and debate about the role and ‘mission’ of the university and the university teacher. In the diversification of the HE sector, it is possible to see a shift away from the ‘advancement of knowledge’ as the primary purpose of the HE sector as a whole. This article focuses on a particular dimension of this change referred to as the ‘vocationalisation’ of HE and evident in the growing role of work-based learning (WBL) in the academy. In particular, foundation degrees provide a context for examining the role of WBL and the university in professional development. Analysis of interviews with 19 students on, or progressing from a foundation degree for teaching assistants reveals how they construct their learning and the relationship between work-based and academic learning. The author concludes that notions of ‘equivalence’ between work-based and academic learning are flawed and fail to recognise HE's distinctive contribution to professional learning, and argues for recognition of the distinctive contributions that both WBL and ‘academic’ learning make to professional development.     

Higher education students’ experiences of a short-term international programme: Exploring cultural competency and professional development

Background: Globalisation trends such as increased migration to and within European countries have led to even greater cultural diversity in European societies. Cultural diversity increases the demand of cultural competency amongst professionals entering their work field. In particular, healthcare professionals need knowledge and skills to equip them to work with clients from different cultural backgrounds. Within higher education (HE), the professional development of cultural competency should ideally feature in undergraduate education and is often promoted as a by-product of a study abroad period. However, recognising that logistical and financial barriers often exist for extended study abroad, one alternative approach could be participation, at home or abroad, in a short-term international programme set within students’ own HE institutions.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore HE students’ experiences of participating in international ‘short-term mobility week’ programmes at three European universities.

Methods: Each university involved in the research offered short-term programmes for healthcare professions students at their own institution, where both local students and students from abroad could participate. Participants were healthcare students in the programme at one of the three universities. Data were collected through focus group interviews (4–8 students per group; n = 25). The data were transcribed and then analysed qualitatively, using a content comparison method.

Results: The analysis identified six categories, which reflected students’ journeys within the short-term international experiences.

Conclusions: The analysis suggested that, for these students, engagement in a short-term mobility week programme provided valuable opportunities for encounters with others, which contributed to personal and professional development, greater confidence in the students’ own professional identities, as well as an increasing sense of cultural awareness.     

The Role of Universities in the ‘Cultural Health’ of their Regions: universities' and regions' understandings of cultural engagement

As Arbo and Benneworth (2007) have alerted us, higher education institutions are now expected not only to conduct education and research, but also to play an active role in the development of their economic, social and cultural surroundings. They call this the ‘regional mission’ of HEIs. This paper is concerned with cultural engagement. Research on universities’ cultural engagement in their regions and the impact of that engagement is still in its infancy, partly because there are different understandings of ‘culture’ and of what ‘engagement’ entails. In this paper, qualitative data from the reports of mixed teams of academics and regional administrators involved in a large international project designed to improve universities’ regional engagement are analysed and discussed. The on-going study — PASCAL Universities' Regional Engagement (PURE) — investigates the role of HEIs in their regions across in a variety of fields such as the economy, community development, the environment and others. This article analyses the data from the study to identify the different perspectives universities and regions have of cultural engagement. The aim here is to demonstrate the value of PURE in facilitating the development of mutual understanding both between universities through a common language and between universities and their regions in respect of mutual expectations. For example, particularly difficult to de-construct is universities’ engagement with disadvantaged communities (Doyle, 2007) but Powell's (2009) work suggests that universities might engage more broadly and effectively ‘through better knowledge sharing and co-creation with business and community partners’ to become ‘real drivers of creative change in developing socially inclusive projects’. Others have written about the educational role of universities in developing a ‘lifelong learning culture’ in their region (European Universities’ Charter on Lifelong Learning, 2008).     

Making the transition from further to higher education: the impact of a preparatory module on retention,progression and performance

Articulation across the further education/higher education (FE/HE) interface is of vital importance in addressing the government's widening participation agenda. Many institutions are grappling with how best to prepare students to make this transition particularly when they are direct entrants and join ongoing cohorts of students who are already familiar with the HE environment. At one new Scottish university, the generic module ‘Next steps at university’ aims to prepare students for life at university and to help them acquire the necessary key skills for coping with HE delivery and assessment regimes. This paper presents an overview of the basis on which the ‘Next steps’ module curriculum was designed with respect to content, delivery methods and assessment then analyses the performance and progression outcomes for 103 students who successfully completed the module. These outcomes are set within the context of institutional figures and the beneficial impact of ‘Next steps’ is explored in quantitative terms with respect to progression, retention and performance statistics.     

Shift happens; moving from the ivory tower to the mushroom factory

ABSTRACT

The values of higher education (HE) are undergoing a disruptive shift. How the rising cost of higher education is being shared between the student and society is driving many of the changes within HE. External pressures on institutions of higher education include reduced public funding, wider student participation and increased competition. These external pressures are influencing the current environment within HE. Academic capitalism encourages institutions to focus on efficiencies and outcomes. Administrators are increasing in numbers and in influence. Students in HE have more choice and are viewed as customers instead of apprentice learners. These collective changes are influencing faculty employment, working conditions, and teaching practices. Institutions are turning to a tiered faculty system. Academic work is being unbundled as paraprofessionals develop and deliver classes. Tenure’s influence is dwindling and an increasing number of faculty are hired as contingent employees. This article will address the external pressures and changing expectations of universities in Australia, the UK and US, and how changing values are influencing faculty, staff utilization and teaching practices.     

Justice through higher education: Revisiting White Paper 3 of 1997

Interrogating the White Paper 3 of 1997 which upholds academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability, I make the case for justice through higher education using public accountability. I argue that the higher education system in South Africa is capable of fulfilling such a role in the context of extreme injustices but not without a critical engagement of the extent and causes of these injustices and an understanding of their implications for academic curricula, practices and deeply embedded conceptions of knowledge. A redefinition of higher education institutions' public accountability in terms of responsibility to their ‘institutional locale’ or community (the populations whose needs they should be meeting) can be an effective ‘proactive tool’ with which higher education can redress social injustices. This requires an interrogation of the social, political and economic conditions of possibility that either inhibit or aid educational desire and attainment. An investigation of this nature entails a rigorous reappraisal of all three of the key principles within which higher education systems operate—academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability—if they are to guard against the continued perpetuation of epistemic and social injustices.     

From ‘no’ to ‘yes’: postcolonial perspectives on resistance to neoliberal higher education

Various scholars have suggested ways to resist neoliberal conditions in higher education (HE). In analysing current neoliberal policies and practices in HE, I suggest that postcolonial theories of resistance can enhance our ability as faculty and administrators to understand and ‘resist’ these policies and practices. In this article, I review four modes of postcolonial resistance as described by David Jeffress (2008), mobilizing a critique of resistance as writing and cultural practice and challenging the reactionary nature of subversion and opposition. I argue that we need to place emphasis on transformational resistance, or the creation of new ways of being, knowing and doing in HE in order to transform the academy.     

Encouraging the development of higher-level study skills using an experiential learning framework

Teachers have only recently considered how study skills support in higher education (HE) can be delivered in a way that encourages experiential learning. This paper aims to substantiate, or otherwise, the idea that a carefully developed initiative can encourage the experiential learning of study skills. In addition, it considers whether such an approach might also allow student access to some of the higher-level study skills required for successful university study. Focus group data were used to evaluate a module delivered to sports students at a post-1992 university in the UK. This data suggested that the module facilitated learning in each stage of Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Moreover, there was evidence that the module encouraged students to undertake an ‘epistemological shift’ in which they moved from seeing knowledge as a set of uncontested facts to seeing it as something that they are expected to question and contribute to themselves.     

The End of the Beginning – or as Far as We Go?

Predicting whether higher education systems will lead to wider and more equitable participation calls for multiple perspectives going outside the European and Anglophone worlds, and beyond looking education also to other sub‐systems of society and government. This reminds us to consider need as well as supply and demand, the importance of place and regions, and the new salience of ‘engagement’, as well as the vital importance of different cultural contexts for what they determine and allow for universalising higher education systems. More or less deep‐reaching curriculum changes may occur. Seven different possible models for the future of HE are proposed, concluding with a prognosis as to what scenario is likely to prevail.