Pedagogic democracy versus pedagogic supremacy: migrant academics’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the underexplored area of othering of migrant academics within their teaching context. Nine personal narratives of migrant academics’ teaching were analysed qualitatively for indications of pedagogical othering. Migrant academics indicated the need to align their own pedagogic values and practices with that of their host institutions they work in as they felt their own values and practices were considered less desirable. We argue, from a Gramsci’s hegemonic perspective, that the pedagogic adaptation by migrant academics aimed at improving student learning is not problematic in itself, but more problematic is the inequality of opportunity for migrant academics to contribute to pedagogical decisions which can meaningfully influence the departmental culture. Lack of pedagogic democracy where the ‘home’ academic environment has a monopoly of knowledge and a hegemonic position regarding learning and teaching can compromise the student-learning experience by limiting articulation of alternative pedagogical perspectives by the migrant international academics.     

Community engagement is … : revisiting Boyer’s model of scholarship

ABSTRACT

Criticisms have been levelled at academics at a time when funding of universities is increasingly tied to private and corporate purposes and when academics are held accountable through a hierarchy of functions. Claims are also made that academics work within narrow specializations and are removed from real-world experience and problems. Boyer’s model of scholarship offers four categories of scholarship that remain relevant to understanding and guiding the work of academics, including how they engage with communities. To explore the nature of academics’ work, we draw on data provided by a group of academics who participated in a research project using both sociological elicitation and visual arts-based research methodologies. The participants were asked to explore what various aspects of current academic work mean for them by providing an image and text, akin to creating a postcard. In this article, we focus on responses they provided to the prompt ‘Community engagement is?…?’ The postcards show how community engagement can be interpreted in diverse ways and that, along with teaching and research, community engagement are all integrated, mutually reinforcing drivers and outcomes of academic work.     

Comparative education in Greece,as a European ‘semi-periphery’

ABSTRACT

Comparative education was established in Greek universities in the 1980s, with the creation of pedagogical departments and two laboratories, and the publication of a journal. There was an early emphasis on education policy analysis, in terms of assumptions about the ‘semi-peripherality’ of Greece within Europe. Later, the emphasis shifted to what was also called ‘modernisation’ – framed by entry to the European Economic Community. There was an emphasis on education policies in other European countries, and the educational policy of Europe, in contrast with Greece which had not yet absorbed what was becoming ‘a European discourse’. There was a continuing motif – reflections on methodology – but the changing concepts of modernisation, the more or less permanent anxiety about reforming Greek education, and the theme of education within the European Union dominated academic work in comparative education in Greece – even after 2010 and the major new economic crisis. An optimistic view is that comparative education will continue to develop in the Greek university through teaching and research. There is, however, a question to be asked about the silences within Greek comparative education.     

‘Radically different learning’: implementing sustainability pedagogy in a university peer mentor program

Framed in Michele Foucault's theories of discipline and technologies of the self, this paper explores the possibilities for teaching and researching across disciplinary boundaries within the academy. In Foucault's studies of systems of thought, he conceptualized practices – like sexuality – to be instances of what is possible to be, think, and do within a historical moment. In the ethnographic study reported on in this paper, we examined perceptions and practices of discipline-based academics seeking to work across traditional scholarly boundaries as instances of what was possible to be, think, and do in transdisciplinary teaching and research in higher education. Connecting transdisciplinary knowledge production with possibilities for critically engaging with sustainability as a social movement and imperative, we identify questions about and the promise of higher education as a place where this work can be done.     

Academics Hard at Work: the place of teaching and professional development related to teaching

Abstract

Recent studies of academic work have identified increasing pressures on universities and academics throughout the world. These pressures relate to such factors as diminishing resources available to the higher education sector, widening diversity of the student clientele, moves for increased accountability and tensions between the research and teaching goals of academic work. Among the pressures being placed on the teaching component of academic work are the need for increased accountability of teaching performance and the need to update professional competence related to teaching. This paper reports a study of a selected group of academics — relatively junior staff who have participated in significant professional development activities related to their teaching. The data provided by the interviews with these academics allow a glimpse at their academic lives and how they fit teaching and professional development related to teaching into their working lives. The study highlights how these academics structure their work around their teaching commitments and how, although they make time available for professional development related to their teaching, this is done in response to the activities offered rather than as a proactive component of their career planning.     

Improving Performance Indicators in Higher Education: The academics' perspective

Performance Indicators (PIs) are playing an increasingly important role in many western governments' approach to the management of higher education (HE) institutions, and this includes Australia. However, the introduction of PIs by these governments in the HE sector has been far from smooth. The literature on the limitations of PIs, particularly in research and teaching, are plentiful. This paper argues that an effective way to improve the application of PIs is to obtain input from university academics. It starts with a survey of the attitudes of Australian academics from four representative universities towards the application of PIs in their institutions. Although this was found to be generally negative, the academics did point out some strengths in the current PI system. Reasons for their dissatisfaction with the indicators were also covered, such as the inability of the current indicators to capture the dimensions of academic work, and privileging research over teaching. Furthermore, the academics provided numerous suggestions for improving the application of PIs in HE.     

Teaching is … opening up spaces to explore academic work in fluid and volatile times

Universities are built upon the collaborative work of academic staff and students, yet the nature of this work has been undergoing profound and rapid change. Pressures within Australia’s higher education sector have led to a fracturing of traditional academic roles and growing feelings of disconnection. While there have been many narrative, ethnographic and autoethnographic explorations of academic work, few studies have employed visual arts-informed methodologies to interrogate the ways in which academics represent their teaching, research and community engagement work. In this article we outline findings about academics’ views of their teaching work. These findings surfaced from an arts-informed participatory research project, that sought to open up a space for (re)presentations of academic work. With a focus on teaching, three through lines emerged during the analysis: voicing absences and resistances; initiating layers of reflexive moments and expressing complexity through collage. We argue that the academics’ responses allow us to trace the emotional terrain of contemporary academic work. They also open up ways to unpack, express and make visible academics’ complex thoughts, feelings and ideas about teaching practices.     

Constructing academic identity in the changing Russian higher education context: preliminary perspectives

ABSTRACT

Currently, Russian academics are facing significant demands because of a new, urgent requirement to pursue their research in accordance with international standards. Until recently, these academics were used to working within a familiar community and communicating their research via the Russian language, but now, they are expected to move beyond that and function on a global level, which can challenge their academic identities. A qualitative study was carried out in a research-intensive Russian university. The aim was to explore academics’ experiences and perceptions of the dynamic changes in their academic work with a particular focus on the limitations and pressures they meet in their career path towards global research. The data were collected by means of reflective journals during a course on English for academic purposes. Thematic analysis was employed for data analysis. The results showed that global trends turned out to be unachievable for Russian academics due to the lack of specific knowledge, attributes and skills required to do research globally. This might be the first study from Russia contributing to the literature on academic identity construction. The article provides insights into the experiences and perceptions of Russian academics and offers a research agenda for further investigation to bridge identity shifts in academia. In terms of practical purposes, the results will be used as a source of preliminary data within a broader research project aimed at supporting Russian academics in their research in an international English-speaking academic context.     

Learning in Dialogue: An Exploration of Talk in an English Classroom

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the role of talk within the English classroom. Classroom talk (in its various forms) is not simply a method for sharing fixed systems of knowledge or information; it is the most useful mechanism for giving learners the space to develop new meanings and new ways of thinking about their surroundings. As soon as learners are offered the space to make meaning through talk – in productive dialogue with those around – they are provided, not only with an opportunity to explore their ideas, but also with a chance to actively represent and reflect on their place within the wider world. For this essay, I draw on my experiences of teaching a small class of 14- and 15-year-olds and their work on An Inspector Calls.     

‘Teaching excellence’ in higher education: a comparative study of English and Australian academics’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

In the current higher education (HE) environment, indicators of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) are increasingly under the spotlight. The literature offers a wide range of models and perspectives, but also highlights the need for greater (comparative) scrutiny of the perceptions of those at the centre – staff teaching across the disciplines in different countries. This article aims to contribute to ongoing debates by investigating and comparing the views of 120 academic staff teaching in one of two countries – England and Australia – in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of their definitions and understandings. The findings from this two-stage enquiry using online questionnaires and interviews indicate broad commonalities in the ways in which academics define TE, centred on facilitative, interactive pedagogy related to individual professional aspirations; they also reveal widely shared reservations about the term’s legitimacy and institutional/marketised (ab)use. As such, the findings offer policy-makers and institutions useful insights at a time when TE definitions and metrics are growing global pre-occupations.

Abbreviations: teaching excellence (TE); higher education (HE)     

Case studies in history education: thinking action research through an epistemological framework

ABSTRACT

Key studies in history education (from France and the USA) are discussed and compared in order to explore their methodological issues in terms of the types of knowledge they can generate about teaching and learning. An epistemological framework that relates the history of historians as an inquiry to that of the classroom provides the criteria for this comparative analysis, which is inscribed in Abbott’s epistemologico-institutional social sciences analysis through the identification of two basic debates that structure history education research, namely subject-matter knowledge vs pedagogical practices, and teaching and learning rules of methods vs habits of thinking. This analysis points out the conditions for the development of a formative school history inquiry (to have students work on their own explanations, to put into play their set of beliefs about history), which determine the modalities of a specific action research. These modalities are detailed by the example of an action research on the case of the teaching of the French Revolution in the last grade of primary school: the sharing of pedagogical (by the professor) and academic (by the researchers) decisions, the collective production of data throughout the process.     

The Ethical Function of Research and Teaching

Abstract

It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approach their research and teaching with a proper understanding of the ultimate ethical purpose or telos of their defining activities and products,which is the practical aim of promoting human flourishing. Minimally, academics should aim at understanding, and a key component of understanding is to understand the ideal ethical purpose of what is being researched and taught. For instance, sadistic Nazi medical researchers and teachers—Mengeles of sorts—in addition to having reprehensible commitments,would be significantly ignorant about their own intellectual concerns by virtue of their abject (belief-expressing) commitments. I will show that insights drawn from extreme cases such as this one apply across disciplines and in less extreme cases.     

Science as experience,exploration, and experiments: elementary teachers’ notions of ‘doing science’

ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on science teaching suggests that elementary teachers lack relevant prior experiences with science. This study begins to reframe the deficit approach to research in science teaching by privileging the experiences elementary teachers have had with science – both in and out of schools – throughout their lives. Our work uses identity as a lens to examine the complexities of elementary teachers’ narrative accounts of their experiences with science over the course of their lives. Our findings identify components of teachers’ science-related experiences in order to lay the groundwork for making connections between teachers’ personal experiences and professional practice. This work demonstrates that teachers’ storied lives are important for educational researchers and teacher educators, as they reveal elements of teaching knowledge that may be productive and resourceful for refining teachers’ science practice.     

Transforming academia and theorizing spaces for Latinx in higher education: voces perdidas and voces de poder

Abstract

The concepts of voces perdias and voces de poder are used as a symbolic representations and reflections of oppression and power in academia. Seventy-four percent of scholarship across the world is published in English. The author argues the importance of publishing in Spanish as form of liberatory practice to provide a voice for Spanish-speaking communities who currently do not have access (to the power of academia and of information), and whose lived experiences are not acknowledged or captured in this medium, and who have by-and-large been marginalized and forgotten in research. In attempt to help improve our understandings of Latinos/as in society – and provide access, give a voice, and reflect on their lived experiences – we must publish in Spanish and teach about the voces perdidas that have been erased from the educational curriculum, and the voces de poder who have dominated and silenced the voces perdidas.     

Struggling to handle teaching and research: a study on academic work at select universities in the Chinese Mainland

In order to raise the international reputation and quality of higher education in China, the Ministry of Education initiated new university employment reform, which pressed academics to produce more research. Recent employment reform has aggravated the conflict between teaching and research. This study uses mixed methods to investigate how academics perceived the employment reform and how they employed various strategies to handle teaching and research. Our study indicates a trend of deprofessionalization in academic work and an increasing tension between teaching and research. Handling teaching and research required a strong and conscientious effort on the part of academics. Concerted efforts should be made to offer a more supportive environment for academics to balance teaching and research.     

Understanding innovative teaching practice in higher education: a framework for reflection

ABSTRACT

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. Now more than ever, academics are advised that engaging in educational innovation for the purposes of improved student learning is supported, valued, and rewarded. However, embracing innovative teaching practice requires academics to develop new skills and understandings, take on extra work, risk failure and invite disapproval from staff and students. Ultimately, focusing upon educational innovation rather than discipline research can be a risky career move if it is not undertaken strategically. This paper provides insight into the characteristics of two innovative academics from the discipline of science and explores the dimensions of innovation as it pertains to teaching and learning. A framework emerged from an analysis of their experience which identifies different types of educational innovators in higher education, discriminating between three individuals with regards to the level at which they seek to influence practice.     

Beyond evaluative studies: perceptions of teaching qualifications from probationary lecturers in the UK

Probation is little used as a frame of reference in academic development literature. Frequently, the focus is on evaluating teaching qualifications for new lecturers. Less often investigated is the issue of situating such a course within the overall experience of new academics, to consider the role that teaching qualifications have within wider probationary processes in the UK. This qualitative study sought the views of new academics on various influences shaping their socialisation. Insights from this work can feed usefully into policy and practices for academic developers, and three key themes – equity, impact and congruence – are elaborated in this article.     

Up in the air: an examination of the work–life balance of fly-in–fly-out academics

There is a dearth of research on the work–life balance experiences of academics who undertake short-term international teaching assignments. Academics who teach offshore are also accountable for onshore activities including lecturing, research, supervision of higher degree students, mentoring, publishing and administrative obligations inter alia. These responsibilities pose further challenges to work and life. Within the context of a qualitative design, 11 academics were interviewed in depth regarding their short-term international teaching experiences. Specific issues relating to family separation, excessive work hours, poor assignment planning and lack of organisational recognition were identified. Findings have important implications for academics, and university policy and practice.     

Ethno-cultural diversity education in Canada,the USA and India: the experience of the Tibetan diaspora

Abstract

This paper contrasts approaches to supporting ethno-cultural diversity in education in Canada, the USA and India through the lens of the experiences of the Tibetan diaspora. All three countries self-identify as linguistic and ethnically diverse states that value multiculturalism. These shared values make them insightful comparative cases to consider the role of public education vis-a-vis its impact on ethno-cultural diversity within pluralistic societies. The case used to conduct the comparison is that of the Tibetan diaspora, an ethno-cultural migrant minority found in each country. Three prevailing ethno-cultural diversity orientations are identified – integration, achievement and sustainability – to describe prevalent approaches in Canada, the USA and India, respectively. The paper concludes with implications of the skewed orientations in each context, proposing a more balanced use of all three orientations for more robust and comprehensive supports for ethno-cultural diversity in education.