Intersectionality in higher education research: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a systematic structured review of recent research that explicitly adopts intersectionality as a theoretical framework to interrogate how tertiary institutions manage, cater for, include, exclude and are experienced in ways that produce advantage and disadvantage. The analysis addresses the following questions: Within research that uses intersectionality, what aspects of the HE context are the focus? What methodologies are employed and how do these contribute to the production of knowledge? What vectors of identity are included? We find that gender appeared as the primary identity with which other dimensions of difference were combined to produce intersectional positions. Furthermore, case study and auto-ethnographic designs were primary approaches. This systematic literature review of 50 papers demonstrates that, when considering the workings of multiple systems of (dis)advantage, academic participation is intertwined with social and personal aspects of the HE experience. While intersectionality challenges the dominant instrumental view of HE, our review concludes that there is considerable work to be done to actively address the workings of intersecting systems of inequity impacting on participation and outcomes of students and faculty.     

Falling into LINE: school strategies for overcoming challenges associated with learning in natural environments (LINE)

As the benefits of outdoor learning have become of increasing interest to the education sector, so the importance of understanding and overcoming challenges associated with this pedagogy has gained greater significance. The Natural Connections Demonstration Project recruited primary, secondary, and special schools across south-west England with a view to stimulating and supporting ‘learning in the natural environment’ across the region. This research paper examines qualitative data obtained from case study visits to 12 of these schools. The results from teaching staff interviews and focus groups show that schools face many and varied challenges to embedding outdoor learning, and a raft of strategies are presented for tackling these challenges and integrating learning in the natural environment into much of the current curriculum.     

Rethinking Retirement in the Context of an Aging Workforce

As the baby boomers begin to retire in great numbers later this decade, there will not be enough workers in younger age categories to replace them. In this review, an attempt is made to integrate the demographics of an aging workforce with the projected economic revitalization. Implications are discussed regarding the concept of retirement and the paradox of an oversized generation preparing to retire in the context of extended life expectancies and projected worker shortages.     

Heterarchical coaching for continuing teacher professional learning and development: a transversal analysis of agency

Aligned with the development of human capital, in-service teacher education is globally conceived as a key lever in economic development. However, teacher education is also a critically important process to leverage teacher political awareness and social justice. This article provides a socio-materialist account of continuous professional development (CPD) that recognises the transversality of objects, space and bodies as a rich and complex assemblage. Investigations into agential matter are of increasing research interest. The authors use collective biography that draws on their CPD work with teachers in Aotearoa/New Zealand, to provide a ‘new material’ analysis of the multiplicitous nature of the agency of objects. Although agency in education is predominantly theorised in humanist terms, this article gives consideration to the co-constitutive nature of material objects in professional learning spaces. In particular, the research highlights the importance of material concerns in the relational and fluid dynamics of heterarchical coaching practices.     

Learning on Campus and Learning at a Distance: A Randomized Instructional Experiment

To address a major methodological problem in the body of evidence on distance learning in postsecondary education, we conducted a randomized, true-experiment paired with a quasi-experiment. Community college students randomly assigned to receive instruction at a distance via a two-way interactive telecourse demonstrated learning equivalent to that of students assigned to on-campus, face-to-face instruction. However, students choosing to take the course via telecourse at remote sites had significantly higher course learning than either randomly assigned group. Such evidence suggests that the body of evidence on distance learning could be seriously confounded by learner self-selection.     

Voice,Discourse and Transformation: Enabling learning for the achieving of social change

This paper proposes that transformative social change by community educators is not achievable unless they can challenge the social, economic and political discourses that have an impact on the practice of community education. As educators of community workers, the authors regard the development of voice to be a prerequisite for the challenging of discourse. Voice provides the foundations for understanding what it means to be who one is and how change is needed and possible. Voice, we argue, is inseparable from criticality and we draw on Brookfield's (2000) four traditions of criticality, in particular pragmatic constructivism, to link our understandings of voice. It is important, we conclude, to allow students to develop distinctive voices so that they become critically reflexive professionals who can work towards transformative social change. Shared and contrasting views on the development of voice are presented in a dialogical format to reflect the sometimes shared and sometimes contrasting voices of the two authors.     

Life history insights into the early childhood and education experiences of Froebel trainee teachers 1952–1967

Drawing on life-history interview data collected as part of a research project funded by the Froebel Trust, this paper explores the family backgrounds and educational experiences reported by nine women who attended Froebel College located in London in the United Kingdom (UK), in the 1950s and 1960s. Informed by Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and field and theories of identity, this paper explores any shared habitus and dispositions within the early childhood and family milieu reported by the participants. The paper also considers the women’s educational experiences and their stories of getting into Froebel College, reflecting on the commonality of family values and the secondary education pathways they reported. The findings show some striking resonances between Froebel’s educational ideals, in particular his belief in the mystical and transformative power of learning through play and engaging with nature, and the participants’ stories of their early childhood experiences.     

CONSIDERATIONS OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND ELITISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The year, 1992, has been one of bewildering change in British higher education caused primarily by government planning and intervention which has as its motor a complex political agenda. In this article, the authors concern themselves with one of these changes: the apparent move towards the democratization of higher education. The likely effect of this change is then assessed for all sectors of the British population and in particular for the linguistic and ethnic minority groups constituted by recent immigration into the country.