This book explores the idea that teaching and learning – pedagogy – at universities is a crucial space for students’ formation as ethical graduates, equipped with knowledge, skills and values to contribute to more equal societies. We know that universities across the globe do not stand apart from social and educational inequalities at multiple levels; they have the potential to reproduce or reduce social inequalities and therefore towards transformative ends. This book suggests how this could be achieved both via policy and practice around the globe
What does higher education learning and teaching enable students to do and to become? Which human capabilities are valued in higher education, and how do we identify them? How might the human capability approach lead to improved student learning, as well as to accomplished and ethical university teaching? This book sets out to generate new ways of reflecting ethically about the purposes and values of contemporary higher education in relation to agency, learning, public values and democratic life, and the pedagogies which support these. It offers an alternative to human capital theory and emphasises the intrinsic as well as the economic value of higher learning. Based upon the human capability approach, developed by economist Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaum, the book shows the importance of justice as a value in higher education. It places freedom, human flourishing, and students’ educational development at its centre. Furthermore, it takes up the value Sen attributes to education in the capability approach, and demonstrates its relevance for higher education. Higher Education Pedagogies offers illustrative narratives of capability, learning and pedagogy, drawing on student and lecturer voices to demonstrate how this multi-dimensional approach can be developed and applied in higher education. It suggests an ethical approach to higher education practice, and to teaching and learning policy development and evaluation. As such, the book is essential reading for students and scholars of higher education, as well as university lecturers, managers and policy-makers concerned with teaching and learning.
This book focuses on the relations between social justice and higher education research. Jan McArthur and Paul Ashwin bring together chapters from international researchers that explore these relations in a range of national contexts and consider their implications for policies, pedagogy and our understanding of the roles of graduates in societies. As a whole, the book argues that social justice needs to be more than a topic of higher education research and must also be part of the way that research is undertaken. Social justice must be located in research practices as well as in the issues that are researched.
This book focuses on research-based teaching and learning practices that promote social justice and equity in higher education. The fourth volume in a four-volume series, this book critically addresses virtual and remote classroom settings. Chapters explore contexts within and outside the classroom, including a history of online learning; research on student engagement and perceptions; specific, actionable pedagogical or curriculum recommendations; and the application of traditional learning theories in virtual settings. The volume also explores how online education, through a technopositivist lens, promotes and reinforces sexist, racist, and gendered behaviors, as well as the role of the "student as consumer," troubling education in virtual settings in a way that allows for deeper discussion about how to make virtual education emancipatory and empowering.
This book explores how the concepts of social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion can be understood within the context of higher education. While terms such as these are often in common use in universities, they are not always used with clarity and precision. The editors and contributors offer a serious and detailed examination of pressing contemporary concerns around ‘social justice’ across politics, practice and pedagogy in order to encourage hard thinking and practical agenda setting for social-justice oriented research, teaching and community engagement. Drawing upon new theoretical work, research projects and innovative university teaching, this book offers both useful theoretical insights and practical possibilities for action. This collective and collaborative volume will be of interest and value to all those interested in promoting social justice, in particular how it can be promoted within the university setting.
This book addresses contemporary philosophical issues in higher education and how we can create socially just pedagogies and a socially just university. Providing a forum for thinking through how critical posthumanism, affect theory and feminist new materialisms provide a useful lens for higher education, and shows how these standpoints can benefit methods and practices of learning and teaching. Gross inequalities in higher education continue to affect pedagogical practices across geopolitical contexts and there is a need to consider new theories which call into question the commonplace humanist assumptions currently dominating the discourse around social justice in this context. However scholarship on the affective turn, critical posthumanism and new material feminisms, opens both new possibilities and responsibilities for higher education pedagogies. The approaches of this book also provide imaginative ways of engaging with current dissatisfactions with higher education, from the marketization of education, to issues of racism, discrimination and lack of diversity. Of international relevance, this collection particularly foreground southern contexts and case studies, such as the student activism in South African universities that has sparked a global project of decolonization and social justice in educational institutions. This book is an urgent call to reconceptualize, rethink and reconfigure pedagogies in higher education and the implications for future citizenship and social participation.
In comparing one public school to another, discussions frequently include talk concerning the socioeconomics of a school or district, which then leads to talk about the advantages that one socioeconomic setting has over another. Educators tend to agree that low academic achievement frequently associated with a low socioeconomic status is a characteristic difficult to resolve for a population of school children. The Handbook of Research on Social Inequality and Education is a critical reference source that provides insights into social influences on school and educational settings. Featuring an array of topics including online learning, social mobility, and teacher preparation, this book is excellent for educational leaders, educational researchers, teachers, academicians, administrators, instructional designers, and teacher preparation programs.
In what ways does access to undergraduate education have a transformative impact on people and societies? What conditions are required for this impact to occur? What are the pathways from an undergraduate education to the public good, including inclusive economic development? These questions have particular resonance in the South African higher education context, which is attempting to tackle the challenges of widening access and improving completion rates in in a system in which the segregations of the apartheid years are still apparent. Higher education is recognised in core legislation as having a distinctive and crucial role in building post-apartheid society. Undergraduate education is seen as central to addressing skills shortages in South Africa. It is also seen to yield significant social returns, including a consistent positive impact on societal institutions and the development of a range of capabilities that have public, as well as private, benefits. This book offers comprehensive contemporary evidence that allows for a fresh engagement with these pressing issues.
There is growing pressure on teachers and faculty to understand and adopt best practices to work with diverse races, cultures, and languages in modern classrooms. Establishing sound pedagogy is also critical given that racial, cultural, and linguistic integration has the potential to increase academic success for all learners. To that end, there is also a need for educators to prepare graduates who will better meet the needs of culturally diverse learners and help their learners to become successful global citizens. The Handbook of Research on Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education is a cutting-edge research book that examines cross-cultural perspectives, challenges, and opportunities pertaining to advancing diversity and social justice in higher education. Furthermore, the book explores multiple concepts of building a bridge from a monocultural pedagogical framework to cross-cultural knowledge through appropriate diversity education models as well as effective social justice practices. Highlighting a range of topics such as cultural taxation, intercultural engagement, and teacher preparation, this book is essential for teachers, faculty, academicians, researchers, administrators, policymakers, and students.
Universities face the prospect of becoming redundant unless the way teaching and learning takes place changes. This book explores the idea of transformation and pedagogy, In particular, it will highlight how universities are transformed through a set of pedagogical interventions and stances that integrate a sense of moral and ethical purpose to learning. Actively integrating cultural pluralism in developing knowledge and understanding aspires to liberate the learner from existing power structures by fostering a desire to challenge and change the social system in which we live and connects the reality around us and its many problems to the knowledge generation process.
