Students’ unions,consumerism and the neo-liberal university

This article explores the economic relationships between individual students’ unions and their wider institutions, and the ways in which they articulate with a pervasive consumerist agenda across the higher education sector. We draw on data from a UK-wide study to argue that students’ unions have an ambivalent relationship with consumerist discourses: on the one hand, they often reject the premise that the higher education student is best conceptualised as a consumer; yet, on the other, they frequently accept aspects of consumerism as a means of, for example, trying to protect their independence and autonomy. We explore whether this particular form of positioning with respect to consumerism is best conceptualised as a form of resistance, or whether it has become extremely difficult for students’ unions to take up any other position in a system that is driven by market logic.     

Connecting Urban Youth with their Environment: The Impact of an Urban Ecology Course on Student Content Knowledge, Environmental Attitudes and Responsible Behaviors

This study explores the impact of an urban ecology program on participating middle school students?? understanding of science and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. We gathered pre and post survey data from four classes and found significant gains in scientific knowledge, but no significant changes in student beliefs regarding the environment. We interviewed 12 students to better understand their beliefs. Although student responses showed they had learned discrete content knowledge, they lacked any ecological understanding of the environment and had mixed perceptions of the course??s relevance in their lives. Students reported doing pro-environmental behaviors, but overwhelmingly contributed such actions to influences other than the urban ecology course. Analyses indicated a disconnect between the course, the environment, and the impact on the students?? lives. Consequently, this suggests the importance of recognizing the implications of context, culture, and identity development of urban youth. Perhaps by providing explicit connections and skills in urban environmental programs through engaging students in environmental scientific investigations that stem from their own issues and questions can increase student engagement, motivation, and self-efficacy of environmental issues.     

The “right kind of telling”: knowledge building in the academic design studio

Studio-based instruction, as traditionally enacted in design disciplines such as architecture, product design, graphic design, and the like, consists of dedicated desk space for each student, extended time blocks allocated to studio classes, and classroom interactions characterized by independent and group work on design problems supplemented by frequent public and individual critiques. Although the surface features and pedagogy of the studio have been well-documented, relatively little attention has been paid to student and teacher participation structures through which design knowledge is co-produced among instructors and students within the studio. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of faculty?Cstudent interactions through which students learn to think and act as designers. To that end, we have collected and analyzed ethnographic data from five studio classrooms across three design disciplines (architecture, industrial design, and human?Ccomputer interaction). Our findings provide insight as to the ways that dialogue??the ??right kind of telling????and particular social practices in the studio support students as they learn to solve ill-structured design problems while being simultaneously inducted into practices that reflect the professional world of their discipline. In each of the studio classrooms, the instructors were able to create an environment where students and faculty practiced reflection-in-action and listening-in as a form of intentional participation, design knowledge was conveyed through modeling and meta-discussions, and focused assignments and in-progress critiques enhanced opportunities for the individual and group processes through which design knowledge was co-constructed in these studio classrooms.