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Abstract
This article addresses teachers’ challenges in relation to other stakeholders, in light of funding policies and evaluation mechanisms. In particular, a condition where pressures toward high pass rates or ‘throughput’ in the degree system provide a good negotiation position for students with little learning orientation as to their aspirations after credit units is considered. This condition is intensified by the fact that the mere completion goals of non-learning-oriented students align with the collective goals of administration (university), given the throughput-based funding policies. A teacher willing to honorably exercise the profession is, then, ‘squeezed in between.’ Daily teaching endures by the incorporation of the wrong kind of flexibility, which undermines the education system. This problematic pattern is reviewed, and a remedy proposed by drawing on Freire and considering a recent theorization by Sutton on the position of an academic under a neoliberalist condition.
... The data that we have been explaining about feelings of gratification point out that these teachers, as a whole, place a higher value on students' learning and development processes and pedagogical relationship than on quantitative results and obtainment of students' degrees, not following the two categories of teachers from Isomöttönen (2018). According to these author, teachers found themselves divided between the alternative roles of the educator who ensured the deve system's representative, mainly interested in quantitative progress, evaluated in number of credits and the obtainment of degrees. ...
... The data that we have been explaining about feelings of gratification point out that these teachers, as a whole, place a higher value on students' learning and development processes and pedagogical relationship quantitative results and obtainment of students' degrees, not following the two categories of teachers from Isomöttönen (2018). According to these author, teachers found themselves divided between the alternative roles of the educator who ensured the development of the student, and that of the system's representative, mainly interested in quantitative progress, evaluated in number of credits and the Even those who focus on student success, particularly value their learning and skills development and very little the institutional dimension (obtaining degrees, namely). ...
... The data that we have been explaining about feelings of gratification point out that these teachers, as a whole, place a higher value on students' learning and development processes and pedagogical relationship quantitative results and obtainment of students' degrees, not following the two categories of teachers from Isomöttönen (2018). According to these author, teachers found themselves divided lopment of the student, and that of the system's representative, mainly interested in quantitative progress, evaluated in number of credits and the ls development and Arvaja (2018) also advances an analogous finding of the growing tension between what is prescribed by hers who were more focused on student learning expressed more positive emotions than those focused on teaching, who were more neutral, as Ylänne, 2011; Trigwell, eless, a certain level of disenchantment in relationship with students was also observed. ...
This article aims to contribute to the understanding of emotions in the pedagogical relationship in Higher Education, within the context of the changes that have occurred in Portugal over recent decades. The empirical study framed in a phenomenological-interpretative perspective, was developed through 12 interviews with university and polytechnic teachers of 4higher education institutions. The findings show that most of the teachers participants have been seeking new forms and styles of pedagogical relationship, given not only the systemic changes resulting from the Bologna Process, but also from the challenges of globalization and the consequent mobility of students and teachers. Most teachers are attentive to students' emotions and derive gratification from the pedagogical relationship they establish with them. They see it as a rebalancing element in their own emotional life in face of the intensification and bureaucratization of work resulting from the dominant higher education mercantilist view in past decades.
... (Kristina) Ši patirtis patvirtina Henry Giroux (2010) teiginį, kad dėl kapitalizmo logikos pašalinami teisingumo ir lygybės klausimai. Tai skatina mokinių, turinčių žemą orientaciją į mokymąsi, "slydimą" sistemoje ir žinių bei mokymo devalvaciją (Isomöttönen, 2018). ...
Beginning teachers are confronted with certain established norms, power relations, cultures and systems in schools and in education in general at the beginning of their careers. They are in a constant field of tension and can be much more sensitive to observing and questioning standards than those who have been operating in that system for a long time. In order to maintain a critical and change-oriented approach, it was chosen to describe the ideas of critical pedagogy and to analyze teachers’ experiences through this prism. Nine beginners in teaching from “Teach First Lithuania” were interviewed about their encounters with the reality of education and the choices that followed. The findings of the study revealed the prevailing hierarchical relationships in the school (often based on fear or tension); the prevalence of various types of falsification – when documents do not correspond to reality; orientation to the curriculum, standardized tests, and exams; the formation of academic classes and the “norm” of labeling – phenomena that form the habitus of the weaker and contribute to social reproduction in education. For all participants in the study, the relationship with the students is the most important, but teachers who are still teaching admit that results became very significant (due to pressure from parents, administration, and society). Staying in public schools is most motivated by a sense of appreciation, good relationships with colleagues, and commitment to students. Decisions to abandon teaching are most motivated by a heavy workload and lack of freedom.
The paper puts forward the case for vulnerability as an important element within higher education pedagogy. In a context of rapid change and competing demands in the global higher education sector, the zeitgeist is that of teaching excellence, usually measured by a market-driven metrics approach. Teachers might, therefore, feel pressured not to reveal weaknesses either to their students or to their colleagues, and might tend to position themselves far away from any kind of vulnerability mode. Pedagogic vulnerability is a complex concept, liable to diverse interpretations and definitions. In an attempt to understand it more clearly, different views are explored in the literature, combined with a reflective analysis of two autoethnographic narratives portraying examples of vulnerability in teaching. This examination generated five principles of pedagogic vulnerability which are suggested as an approach to rethinking the purpose of higher education and the notion of teaching excellence.
The cumulative tale ‘the house that Jack built’ is used as an analogy for flawed theories. This paper considers how the marketisation of higher education in neoliberal countries like England is affecting teaching and learning in Higher Education Institutions. Neoliberal policy approaches resulting in the marketisation of higher education may also be considered as a ‘house that Jack built’. The policies are cumulative and they can be interpreted as being flawed due to their contradictory nature. The paper presents research findings revealing the impact of neoliberal agendas on teaching and learning in higher education in the UK. The content of the paper is relevant to other neoliberal contexts including the USA and Australia. The commodification of higher education has implications for the teaching relationship between academics and students as ‘student satisfaction’, ‘value for money’ and ‘critical pedagogy’ form part of the interplaying discourse in higher education.
Using a dialectical mode of exposition, I offer a reflexive sociological theorisation of the paradox that characterises my academic identity: a fatalistic disenchantment concerning the colonisation of Higher Education (HE) by neoliberalism co-exists with a utopianism concerning HE's emancipatory possibilities. I begin with a discussion of Weber's contention that disenchantment is the fate of bureaucratised modernity. This is followed by a consideration of Freire's conception of hope as a universal ontological need and Bloch's conceptualisation of the objective and subjective dimensions of hope. The significance these authors attribute to dreaming in the development of the utopian imagination is also addressed. Next, I argue that the tensions in my identity, generated by the paradox of fatalism and utopianism, are partially resolved in the practice of a pedagogy of critical hope. I conclude by suggesting that this pedagogy can only be interstitial, existing within the gaps in bureaucratised, neoliberal higher educational institutions.
Autoethnography is an intriguing and promising qualitative method that offers a way of giving voice to personal experience for the purpose of extending sociological understanding. The author's experience of writing an autoethnography about international adoption has shown her, however, that autoethnography can be a very difficult undertaking. In writing her autoethnography, she confronted anxiety-producing questions pertaining to representation, balance, and ethics. As well, she dealt with the acceptability of her autoethnography by informal and formal reviewers. In this article she discusses the challenges she faced in her autoethnographic project to inform future autoethnographers and to inspire them to share their experiences and reflections. For the author questions linger, but she hopes that sharing issues that arise in autoethnographic work will strengthen our understandings of this challenging yet highly promising form of inquiry.
This article sets out to explore how academics make sense of the current transformations of higher education and what kinds of academic identities are thereby constructed. Based on a narrative analysis of 42 interviews with Finnish academics, nine narratives are discerned, each providing a different answer as to what it means to be an academic in the present-day university. Narratives of resistance, loss, administrative work overload and job insecurity are embedded in a regressive storyline, describing deterioration of academic work and one's standing. In a sharp contrast, narratives of success, mobility and change agency rely on a progressive storyline which sees the current changes in a positive light. Between these opposites, narratives of work–life balance and bystander follow stable storylines, involving a neutral stance toward university transformations. The paper concludes that academic identities have become increasingly diversified and polarized due to the managerial and structural changes in higher education.
A pilot survey of science students conducted by Cook & Leckey confirmed that student study habits formed in secondary school persist to the end of the first semester of university life. Such a conclusion indicates that students are not bridging the gap between school and university quickly and effectively. The study reported here is based on surveys of first year students across the University of Ulster and compares their prior perceptions with their experiences after one term. We consider the literature relating to preparedness and student retention and present the results of these surveys in this broad context. Most students appear to have managed the transition into university life success fully since they do not experience the academic, personal and practical difficulties they expected. There is, however, a considerable minority (20-30%) who consistently experience academic and personal problems and for whom coming to university has been a negative experience. These students are at risk, if not from drop-out, then from under-performance and lack of fulfilment.
Decentralization, goal steering, accountability, managerialism, evaluation, choice, competition and privatization are key terms in the international rhetoric of educational policy. However, in the historical traditions and cultural-social framework of various nations, this ‘new’ policy perspective takes a specific form and shape. In the Nordic countries, with their welfare state tradition which stresses equality in education as well as in other fields of life, radical changes are taking place. This article examines the change in educational policy and governance in Finland during the past decade. The examination is based on many sources and materials including documents, statistics and interviews with educational politicians, administrators and teachers, and a survey of students collected during two comparative research projects during 1998–2001.
In helping students manage the transition into higher education, there must be (i) an understanding of the needs and expectations of the students, and (ii) a process that inducts the students into the needs and expectations of higher education. This premise underpins the on-line Spiral Induction Programme (onSIP) developed at Southampton Institute. onSIP consists of various on-line activities designed to help students take responsibility for their own learning; feedback from these activities enables both staff and students to identify if and what additional support is required. The intention was to provide a real-time analysis and indication of those students who may be ‘at risk’, allowing for the appropriate targeting of timely support. Initial results indicate a positive reaction by the students to onSIP. In addition, the predictive feedback from onSIP demonstrates a good correlation with the end-of-year outcomes for a cohort of technology students at Southampton Institute.
A scale designed to assess various aspects of the burnout syndrome was administered to a wide range of human services professionals. Three subscales emerged from the data analysis: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Various psychometric analyses showed that the scale has both high reliability and validity as a measure of burnout. Since the publication of this article in 1981, more extensive research was done on the MBI, which resulted in some modifications of the original measure. The present article has been re-edited to reflect those modifications. However, it does not include other new additions (which are contained in the MBI Manual distributed by the publisher, Mind Garden).
In his forward to The Postmodern Condition, Fredric Jameson distinguishes Lyotard's theories from Habermas. Using Habarmas' idea of the legitimation crisis as a starting point, Jameson outlines two legitimizing myths: the liberation of humanity and the speculative unity of all knowledge. He explains the trend in philosophy to express skepticism for totalizing philosophical narratives as part of the linguistic turn in philosophy. In the introduction to the book, Lyotard establishes the differences between modern and postmodern thought. He defines modern as a science that uses a grand narrative to legitimate itself. Conversely, postmodern is a general distrust of such metanarratives.
This article reports on an action research project on improving a functional programming course by moving toward a practical and flexible study environment-flipped and blended classroom. Teaching the topic of functional programming was found to be troublesome using a traditional lectured course format. The need to increase students' amount of practice emerged while subsequent challenges relating to students' independent practical coursework were observed. Particular concerns relating to group work, learning materials, and the attribute of flexibility were investigated during the third action research cycle. The research cycle was analyzed using a qualitative survey on students' views, teacher narrative, and students' study activity data. By this third research cycle, we found that (i) the "call for explanation" is an apt conceptualization for supporting independent work, and in particular for the design of learning materials; (ii) use of studentselected groups that can be flexibly resized or even disbanded enables spontaneous peer support and can avoid frustration about group work; and (iii) students greatly appreciate the high degree of flexibility in the course arrangements but find that it causes them to slip from their goals. The project has improved our understanding of a successful implementation of the target course based on group work and learning materials in the context of independent study, while the attribute of flexibility revealed a contradiction that indicates the need for further action.
Corruption in higher education is the focus of growing international concern among governments, educators, students, and other stakeholders. Those working in higher education institutions now face a unique convergence of pressures that is creating a heightened threat to the integrity of the higher education enterprise worldwide. This paper draws on recent measures of the perceived magnitude of corruption, studies of respondents' direct experience with corruption, and case studies of specific instances of corruption to illustrate the nature and extent of corruption in higher education. The authors suggest that the impact of corrupt practices in higher education can have a wider negative influence to the extent that it breaks the link between personal effort and anticipation of reward. The risk is that employees and students come to believe that personal success comes, not through merit and hard work, but through cutting corners.
Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world.
This paper presents a qualitative study of a school-university collaborative project where a game-themed CS1 course was offered as-is to high school students. Our specific interest was to explore the students' experiences with the university level course. Our analyses indicate that immediate and regular support was highly important for student performance, as support of this kind could mitigate issues related to students' orientation towards the high workload of the course. Students who showed academic interest were likely to pass, whereas students lacking self-direction or work efficiency were likely to drop out. Both passed and drop-outs found the course to be a good learning experience. The game theme of the course was in most cases found highly motivating and fun, while it was not a necessity for the majority of the students. This information can be utilized by higher education instructors who plan to carry out university courses in cooperation with high schools.
Since the late 1980s, much has been written about the meaning of action research (AR), and the basic cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection has been used to improve practice in many fields of human endeavor, including education and management. This article examines the meanings of rigor when the term is applied to AR and discusses some of the strategies recommended to improve rigor. Focusing questions for the article include the following: What is AR? Who does it, with whom, and for what purposes? Why and how can one make the framework/method itself more rigorous? How can one make data interpretation more rigorous? What about theory building? What about the dilemma of group involvement with rigor for the Ph.D. student and thesis writer? The author's experiences in achieving an AR Ph.D., examining AR theses, and generating and using a daisy model of AR with several groups of staff are used.
From the Publisher:
Manuel Castells describes the origins, purpose and effect of proactive movements, such as feminism and environmentalism, which aim to transform human relationships at their most fundamental level; and of reactive movements that build trenches of resistance on behalf of God, nation, ethnicity, family, or locality.
The fundamental categories of existence, the author shows, are threatened by the combined, contradictory assault of techno-economic forces and transformative social movements, each using the new power of the media to promote their ambitions. Caught between these opposing trends, he argues, the nation-state is called into question, drawing into its crisis the very notion of political democracy. The author moves thematically between the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Islamic World, China, and Japan, seeking to understand a variety of social processes that are, he contends, closely inter-related in function and meaning.
This is a book of profound importance for understanding how the world will be transformed by the beginning of the next century.
Role theory concerns one of the most important features of social life, characteristic behavior patterns or roles. It explains roles by presuming that persons are members of social positions and hold expectations for their own behaviors and those of other persons. Its vocabulary and concerns are popular among social scientists and practitioners, and role concepts have generated a lot of research. At least five perspectives may be discriminated in recent work within the field: functional, symbolic interactionist, structural, organizational, and cognitive role theory. Much of role research reflects practical concerns and derived concepts, and research on four such concepts is reviewed: consensus, conformity, role conflict, and role taking. Recent developments suggest both centrifugal and integrative forces within the role field. The former reflect differing perspectival commitments of scholars, confusions and disagreements over use of role concepts, and the fact that role theory is used to analyze various f...
This study of 469 elementary and secondary classroom teachers examined the relationships among role conflict, role ambiguity, and teacher burnout. Three phases of burnout were examined: feelings of emotional exhaustion, negative attitudes toward students, and feelings of lack of accomplishment. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationships. Two of the more important findings were: (1) Role conflict and role ambiguity explained a significant amount of variance in feelings of emotional exhaustion and negative attitudes toward students; and (2) Role conflict and role ambiguity differ in their relationship to the three burnout phases. Suggestions for minimizing role conflict and role ambiguity and recommendations for future research are presented. (Authors/JD)
The funding of Finnish Universities has been based on a management by results strategy since 1991. This paper analyses the effects of this strategy on university management and administration. Empirically the study is based on material collected from four multidisciplinary universities. Theoretically it is based on organization theory and higher education research. The financial development of four case‐study universities has been analysed according to the source of funding from government or non‐government sources. Quantitative results for each case‐study university are compared with the numbers of teaching and administrative staff.
This article distinguishes two meanings of the performativity of economics, a thesis advanced by Michel Callon: ‘generic’ performativity, according to which markets and other economic relations are not to be taken as given, but as performed by economic practices; and ‘Austinian’ performativity, in which economics brings into being the relationships it describes. The two versions of performativity are explored by means of an examination of the history of portfolio insurance (a financial-market technique based on the economics of option pricing), of the 1987 stock market crash, and of subsequent efforts to diagnose the causes of the crash and to redesign the market to avoid future catastrophe. The article emphasizes the extent to which the financial markets of high modernity are designed entities, and argues that the question of their design is always a political question, even if it is seldom recognized as such.
This research focused on the early experience of students entering an undergraduate course in a post‐1992 university that is committed to widening participation. Using Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and habitus as a theoretical framework, data were collected from students using an online questionnaire and small‐group discussions during the critical first days and weeks when they need to fit in to their new environment. The research was designed to consider whether there is a ‘new student’ in higher education (HE) and to consider the possible influence of cultural capital and habitus on a student’s transition. Data were collected using an online questionnaire with a response rate of 52% (n=180), and this was followed up with five small‐group discussions with 25 of the respondents. Participants self‐selected to take part in the small‐group discussions but the sample did reflect the cohort in relation to ethnicity, age and gender. The data collected from the questionnaire provided a snapshot of the students’ early experience within the university, and data from the small‐group discussions were used to triangulate this and allow emerging themes to be explored in greater depth. The results showed that the majority of the students (70%) were combining work with study and most students spent a minimal amount of time on campus, perhaps supporting the concept that there is a ‘new student’ in HE. Perceptions about their transition varied, but most of the students expressed concern about the perceived need to be an independent learner. Students stated that they needed more structured activities on campus to encourage them to fit in, and more support from academic staff, with clear instructions about what was expected.
Argues that positive self-identity is not easily attained in this culture, due to the pervasive number of "-isms" (e.g., racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism) and their adverse impact on those who are defined as inferior. L. J. Myers's (1988) examination of the conceptual system that predisposes people to these "-isms" concludes that it is the nature of the conceptual system that is inherently oppressive, and all who adhere to this conceptual system have a difficult time developing a positive identity. A new way of describing the identity development process under oppression is postulated using optimal theory. From this view, oppression is perceived as self-alienating and yielding a fragmented sense of self. Identity development is a process of integrating and expanding one's sense of self. A model of identity development is described. (Spanish abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The paper critically reviews some themesand methods within qualitative research andargues for self-ethnography as an approach tostudy universities and other settings which theresearcher is highly familiar with, and hasdirect access to. Advantages and disadvantagesare discussed. In particular the strugglebetween utilizing closeness to empirically richsituations and avoid the closure following frombeing (staying) native is highlighted. Someideas for self-ethnographic work inorganization studies are developed.
Autoethnography: An Overview [40 Paragraphs
- Carolyn Ellis
- Tony E Adams
- Arthur P Bochner
Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2010. "Autoethnography: An Overview [40
Paragraphs]." Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12 (1).
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108.
Vocationalizing Higher Education: Schooling and the Politics of Corporate Culture
- A Giroux
- Henry
Giroux, A. Henry. 2001. "Vocationalizing Higher Education: Schooling and the Politics of
Corporate Culture." In Beyond the Corporate University: Culture and Pedagogy in the New
Millennium, edited by Henry A. Giroux and Kostas Myrsiades, 147-161. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Sorrettujen pedagogiikka. Tampere: Vastapaino. Finnish translation of Pedagogia do Oprimido
- Paulo Freire
- Joel Kurtti
- Tuukka Tomperi
- Juha Suoranta
Freire, Paulo, Joel Kurtti, Tuukka Tomperi, and Juha Suoranta. 2005. Sorrettujen pedagogiikka.
Tampere: Vastapaino. Finnish translation of Pedagogia do Oprimido.
Performativity and Fragmentation in ‘Postmodern Schooling
- Stephen J Ball
Ball, Stephen J. 1998. "Performativity and Fragmentation in 'Postmodern Schooling'." In
Postmodernity and the Fragmentation of Welfare, edited by John Carter, 187-203. London:
Routledge.
Ilon Pedagogiikka: Kohti Nykyaikaista Koulua: Konstruktiivinen Peruskoulun Käyttöteoria. Jyväskylä: Tutkiva Opettaja
- Juha Juurikkala
Juurikkala, Juha. 2008. Ilon Pedagogiikka: Kohti Nykyaikaista Koulua: Konstruktiivinen
Peruskoulun Käyttöteoria. Jyväskylä: Tutkiva Opettaja. In Finnish.
Corrupt Schools, Corrupt Universities: What Can Be Done? Paris: International Institute for Education Planning
- Jacques Hallak
- Muriel Poisson
Hallak, Jacques, and Muriel Poisson. 2007. Corrupt Schools, Corrupt Universities: What Can Be
Done? Paris: International Institute for Education Planning.