With the eyes of others: an ethnography of an academic office

The author raises questions about ethnographic methodology through exploring the implications of using observations produced by his colleagues about his office as data for his research. This process blurred the boundaries between researcher, method and the object and subject of research. It meets some criteria for ethnography and not others, and does not evidence clear definitional boundaries for any sub-genre such as autoethnography or collaborative authoethnography. Besides raising definitional challenges and the blurring of roles in research, the study also illustrates how the methodology revealed tensions over collegial trust, boundaries and privacy. The author's colleagues exposed aspects of the author's identity that were opaque and even invisible to the author. The author accordingly raises questions about the locus of ethical concern. Thus, issues of roles, definition, trust, boundaries, privacy and method were entwined.     

Agile administrative choreographies for multimode education at the University of Pretoria

This paper responds in part to a special edition of this journal (39/2) on dual-mode provision. We were concerned that contact providers might drift into distance education provision through extending campus-based online learning without first thinking through the underpinning implications of its administrative systems, an issue that was not addressed in the special edition. Proceeding from a pragmatic and constructivist perspective, while adopting a transactional orientation drawing on systems theory and hermeneutics, this paper focuses on the challenge for administrative staff and systems of the changing nature of provision in terms of both the underpinning learning and business models. Based on experience and reflection, we conclude that the move into dual- and multimode provision is inevitable and that this requires agility on the part of both administrative staff and systems that is often overlooked in planning and review processes.     

Curiosity, interest and engagement in technology-pervasive learning environments: a new research agenda

This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today’s pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new media technology-pervasive learning environments is advanced, taking into consideration personal, situational and contextual factors as influencing variables. While the path associated with curiosity, interest, and engagement during learning and research has remained essentially the same, how individuals tackle research and information-seeking tasks and factors which sustain such efforts have changed. Learning modalities for promoting this theoretical model are discussed leading to a series of recommendations for future research. This article offers a multi-lens perspective on curiosity and suggests a multi-method research agenda for validating such a perspective.     

Enhancing the practice of social work

This account of practice focuses on my learning and development as a new Action Learning Facilitator. It reflects on my thoughts and feelings as I began to facilitate my own sets a year or so ago. It will discuss and reflect on topics such as communication, feedback, expectations (both mine, the set members and the organisations), values, ethics, power and confidentiality. It opens with a personal reflection on my experience of becoming a set facilitator and then explores other aspects of my learning. It draws out, in particular, the links between Action Learning and social work and the ways in which the principles that underpin each of these are complementary and mutually enhancing.     

Knowledge is Power—Unitarians,gender and education in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

This article attempts to show the importance of education to gender equality in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and in particular, the relevance of the progressive views and practice of the Unitarians whose attitudes affected women generally both through their educational endeavours, especially in higher education, and through their pioneering efforts on women's rights. There were a number of limitations, however, to the Unitarians’ contribution, not least their paternalistic attitudes to the working class coupled with their genuine upholding of the status and responsibility of motherhood which led them to restrict working‐class women's role in practice even whilst promoting for them a better and wider education. Nevertheless, Unitarians made an outstanding early contribution to gender equality by seeking to provide women with the education which would enable them to develop their full potential and prove their equality.