Argumentative and trustworthy scholars: the construction of academic staff at research-intensive universities

Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference.     

Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate cross-cultural research: identifying and understanding non-invariance

Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) allows researchers to determine whether a research inventory elicits similar response patterns across samples. If statistical equivalence in responding is found, then scale score comparisons become possible and samples can be said to be from the same population. This paper illustrates the use of MGCFA by examining survey results relating to practising teachers' conceptions of feedback in two very different jurisdictions (Louisiana, USA, n?=?308; New Zealand, n?=?518), highlighting challenges which can occur when conducting this kind of cross-cultural research. As the two contexts had very different policies and practices around educational assessment, it was considered possible that a common research inventory may elicit non-equivalent responding, leading to non-invariance. Independent models for each group and a joint model for all participants were tested for invariance using MGCFA and all were inadmissible for one of the two groups. Inspection of joint model differences in item loadings, scale reliabilities, and scale inter-correlations established the extent of non-invariance. This paper discusses the implications of non-invariance within this particular study and identifies difficulties in using an inventory in cross-cultural settings. It also provides suggestions about how to increase the likelihood that a common factor structure can be recovered.     

Experiencing an ‘inclusive’ education: parents and their children with ‘special educational needs’

This paper focuses on the experiences of British parents who have children identified with ‘special education needs’ within mainstream education. Expectations of mainstream education can have a negative affect on parents when a child is unable to maintain his or her education within a mainstream school. In England and Wales, ‘inclusion’ within mainstream schools is implemented by the current government and promoted as anti‐exclusionary. However, current research indicates that actual ‘inclusion’ (the child experiencing inclusion as well as being placed in a mainstream environment) is not necessarily occurring in practice. As it stands, the conflict is between desires to embrace difference based on a philosophy of ‘equal rights’ (‘inclusive’ education) and prioritising educational performance, structuring it in such a way that it leaves little room for difference and creativity due to the highly structured testing and examination culture. Qualitative analysis of parents who have children identified with special educational needs indicate that they have hopes and expectations for their children. These hopes and expectations are challenged recurrently.     

Task-based small group learning in large classes: Design and implementation in a second year university botany course

We describe the introduction of task-orientated cooperative group work in a second year Botany course in Phycology (the study of algae) to accommodate a large class of students with varying academic and linguistic skills and a tendency to learn by rote. Students were issued with workbooks, containing study questions, readings, a discussion worksheet, and a test yourself quiz. Each of six weekly topics was introduced by a lecture or slide-tape presentation, after which students were asked to answer study questions as homework. This was followed by group discussion work in the classroom. Group discussion worksheets were collected weekly and used together with a 10-question multiple choice spot test for continuous evaluation. Interviews with students, and the results of a questionnaire indicated that they enjoyed the approach, and found that it stimulated their interest in the subject. A subjective assessment by the lecturer, based on student performance, suggests that they improved their use of higher intellectual processes.     

Mothering and intellectual disability: partnership rhetoric?

This paper is about mothering an intellectually disabled child identified with special educational needs. It specifically looks at the parent partnership rhetoric that has dominated UK government policy and directives for nearly three decades and yet research suggests parents and more often mothers have to battle to be recognised as legitimate experts. This paper engages with sociological analysis as it highlights via qualitative narratives that mothers are weighed down by the sheer number of professionals involved in their day-to-day life. Moreover, mothers whose children are not identified in the early years are often blamed in the first instance for playing a part in their child’s difficult behaviour. This research ultimately suggests that partnership work is important and necessary for practice within health, education and social work professions, not least of all because the emotional roller-coaster that mothers experience during the assessment and statementing process is disabling.     

Inclusive education and intellectual disability: a sociological engagement with Martha Nussbaum

As a result of exclusionary tactics, social, cultural or economic disadvantage or disability, vast numbers of pupils have poor educational experiences and are either marginalised or demonised due to ‘difficult differences’. In the context of Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, where she suggests that we ought to be who we want to be, this paper addresses intellectual disability, inclusion and inclusive education. It proposes that care, compassion, creativity and ethics are critical in understanding the education for all children and young people, rather than necessarily pedagogical process. In addition, it suggests that learning should take place within and through relationships and that these relationships are important in developing a healthy sense of self. Therefore politically, rather than following a path of blame whether it is the dysfunctional family, the deficit child or the economically deprived nation, this paper says that we require socially just practices, compassion and care as fundamental to human development, social inclusion and inclusive education. Ultimately, education is failing a large sum of children and young people and therefore needs to be radically reconsidered.     

Texts,practices and student learning: A view from the South

This article uses ‘close-up’ ethnographic research to provide an account of students’ engagement with learning in a South African university. Broadly based on Halliday's [Halliday, M. A. K. (1973). Explorations in the functions of language. London: Edward Arnold; Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic. London: Edward Arnold; Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold] understanding of texts resulting from contexts, the account challenges dominant constructions of the problems students encounter as stemming from the use of inappropriate ‘approaches’ to learning, the lack of ‘study’ and other skills or problems with proficiency in areas such as writing or language and shows how students’ unfamiliarity with the context of the university leads them to draw on ‘other’ contexts in order to engage with the texts they must read, write and listen to in the course of their studies. This drawing on ‘other’ contexts then results in the texts produced by students, and the practices which give rise to those texts, being inappropriate to the context of the university. Although the research on which the article is based took place in South Africa, it is argued that the theoretical perspective it provides has relevance across other contexts given the increasingly diverse student bodies which characterize higher education across the globe.