Continuing Education and the Redrawing of Boundaries

Continuing education, broadly defined to include both vocational and non-vocational kinds of provision, is having an increasing impact within higher education. Its further expansion is now part of government strategy. This expansion will not be achieved without difficulties, and it poses considerable and varied challenges to those who work in higher education. In this paper, we focus on the effects that continuing education is having on established boundaries within higher education — boundaries between different sectors and types of provision, between different subjects and ways of teaching, and between higher education staff and their different skills. As the provision of continuing education increases, existing boundaries will change, become more permeable or be broken down altogether while new divisions and distinctions are created and built up.     

Dewey,democracy, and interdisciplinary learning: a Scottish perspective

Interest in progressive education ideas has often been accompanied by advocacy for greater use of interdisciplinary and holistic learning approaches, as these are considered beneficial in conceptual, curriculum, and pedagogical terms. The paper reviews the possibilities for progress on this basis and contextualises the paper around three concurrent watershed moments in Scottish education: the end of the five-year programme implementation phase of a Curriculum for Excellence; the half-century anniversary of comprehensive schooling (1965–2015); and the centennial anniversary of the publication of Democracy in Education by John Dewey. Following a brief outlining of the Scottish policy context, the paper analyses the influence of Dewey on conceptions of curriculum integration and interdisciplinary learning and their connections with curriculum planning, effective pedagogical practices, and whole school reforms. Analysis describes the areas of conceptual clarity required and reviews how exactly versions of interdisciplinary learning might operate in practice. It is argued that the learner-led ideals championed by Dewey can still provide guidance and traction to help ensure that policy and practice gains are more than modest and variable. However, progress is likely to be greatest if school organisational changes accompany alterations to the curriculum and pedagogical culture in schools.     

Faculty role orientation and perceived teaching effectiveness: The case of an intervening variable

This study was designed to explore the relationship between faculty role orientations and student perceptions of teaching effectiveness in community colleges. Survey questionnaires were completed by 260 faculty members and 12,396 students at five Pennsylvania community college campuses. Using a conceptual framework drawn from symbolic interaction theory, it was hypothesized that faculty members holding a student-centered role orientation will be perceived as more effective teachers than those holding a subject-matter orientation. Results indicate that whereas there is an association between a student-centered role orientation and perceived teaching effectiveness, the relationship is due to an intervening variable—the expected course grade. An examination of the causal chain of relationships among these variables is presented.This is a revision of a paper presented at the 1975 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (see South, Morrison and Hill, 1975).     

A study of international students' perspectives on cross-cultural adaptation

The aim of this study was to discover and describe how international students experience and adapt to their new academic, social, cultural and linguistic environment. Questionnaires were given to 12 post-graduate students and interviews conducted on the basis of the responses. It might be expected, given the range of culture shock literature which often presumes the stressful and even pathological nature of cross-cultural transitions, that international students from cultures very different to that found in New Zealand would report high levels of frustration, stress and even depression. While most reported on obstacles to integration as being loneliness, mismatch of culture, frustration with the lack of deep integration with New Zealanders as well as irritation with aspects of their host culture, there was not a high level of stress reported. The greatest block to adaptation was lack of intercultural communicative competence.     

Faculty roles and role preferences in ten fields of professional study

Teaching faculty in ten entry-level professional fields reported varying amounts of time devoted to teaching, research, consulting, and professional practice but did not differ in time devoted to administration. The faculty member's own role view was most closely related to time use, but for time spent in teaching and research, faculty age and institutional type (but not gender) were also significant predictors. Even after several general demographic characteristics and environmental variables that potentially differentiate professional from discipline-based faculty are taken into account, different professional fields may be characterized by group climates which influence or reinforce certain faculty roles.     

Higher education research as tribe, territory and/or community: a co-citation analysis

This article builds upon existing research which has been mapping and analysing the field of higher education research, and, in particular, on the analysis of the articles (n = 406) in 17 specialist higher education journals published in the English language outside of North America during the year 2000. It extends that analysis by examining the citations (n = 10,065) given in the articles, in particular the patterns of co-citation. This enables a clearer identification of the tribes or communities of practice that occupy the territory of higher education research. An attempt is be made to identify the key members of these tribes or communities, and to chart the key relationships within and between them.     

Silencing and freedom of speech in UK higher education

Freedom of speech in universities is currently an issue of widespread concern and debate. Recent empirical findings in the UK shed some light on whether speech is unduly restricted in the university, but it suffers from two limitations. First, the results appear contradictory. Some studies show that the issue of free speech is overblown by media reportage, whilst others track serious concerns about free speech arising from certain university policies. Second, the findings exclude important issues concerning restrictions to speech on campus that fall outside the traditional debate around violations to free speech rights. This is particularly the case when certain voices are excluded from important policy conversations, and in issues around diversifying the curriculum. This article overcomes these two limitations by developing a novel conceptual framework within which to situate current debates concerning speech-related matters in universities. It does so by developing a taxonomy around the concept of ‘silencing’. It then considers the current issue of speech matters in universities within this framework to determine whether, and to what extent, speech is indeed unduly restricted, and where this is a concern for free speech violations, and where it falls outside this issue.