Although academic freedom in teaching and learning methods is crucial to a nation’s growth, the concept comes with numerous misnomers and is subjected to much academic debate and doubt. This volume maps out how truth and intellectual integrity remain the fundamental principle on which the foundation of a university should be laid.
The freedom of students to learn at university is being eroded by a performative culture that fails to respect their rights to engage and develop as autonomous adults. Instead, students are being restricted in how they learn, when they learn and what they learn by the so-called student engagement movement. Compulsory attendance registers, class contribution grading, group project work and reflective learning exercises based on expectations of self-disclosure and confession take little account of the rights of students or individual differences between them. This new hidden university curriculum is intolerant of students who may prefer to learn informally, are reticent, shy, or simply value their privacy. Three forms of student performativity have arisen - bodily, participative and emotional – which threaten the freedom to learn. Key themes include: A re-imagining of student academic freedom The democratic student experience Challenging assumptions of the student engagement movement An examination of university policies and practices Freedom to Learn offers a radically new perspective on academic freedom from a student rights standpoint. It analyzes the effects of performative expectations on students drawing on the distinction between negative and positive rights to re-frame student academic freedom. It argues that students need to be thought of as scholars with rights and that the phrase ‘student-centred’ learning needs to be reclaimed to reflect its original intention to allow students to develop as persons. Student rights – to non-indoctrination, reticence, in choosing how to learn, and in being treated like an adult – ought to be central to this process in fostering a democratic rather authoritarian culture of learning and teaching at university. Written for an international readership, this book will be of great interest to anyone involved in higher education, policy and practice drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary literature related to sociology, philosophy and higher education studies.
The five chapters of this book on teachers' need and responsibility to prepare themselves for criticisms and attacks on their teaching methods and materials deal with the scope of censorship issues, the significance of academic freedom, recent judicial rulings, school-community tensions, and case studies of censorship cases. The first chapter, "Child Abuse in the Hate Factory" (Edward Jenkinson), describes tactics used by critics of public education to create dissatisfaction among parents and to encourage people to challenge books, courses, and teaching methods. The paper lists 50 aspects of public education targted at one time or another by schoolbook protesters. Chapter 2, "The Significance of and Rationale for Academic Freedom" (Jack Nelson), discusses the professional and social significance of academic freedom, teacher competence necessary for academic freedom, some problems, and some needed improvements. The chapter called "Academic Freedom: What the Courts Have Said" (John Strope, Jr. and Cathy Broadwell), focuses upon cases where public school teachers went to court arguing for their right to academic freedom and other cases offering insights into teachers' rights. Chapter 4, "Academic Freedom and Community Involvement: Maintaining the Balance" (Arnold Fege), discusses social and demographic changes contributing to censorship tensions and argues that parents involved in their children's education should not impose their own values by narrowing the content of the educational program. The fifth and final chapter, "Lessons Learned from Three Schoolbook Protests" (Edward Jenkinson), outlines myths about schoolbook protests and describes three Indiana experiences. An appendix prepared by Janet Jones includes "The Typical Censorship Scenario,""Six Case Studies with Helpful Tips,""Countering Far Right Tactics,""Generic Materials Selection," and "Survival Tips." References accompany each paper. (JDD)
This text offers a comprehensive account of the social, political, and cultural forces undermining academic freedom. At once witty and devastating, it confronts these threats with frankness, then offers a prescription for higher education's renewal.
Essays on the challenges to academic freedom posed by post-9/11 political interventions and the growing commercialization of knowledge. Are the attacks on academic freedom after 9/11 a passing storm, or do they represent a structural shift that undermines one of the pillars of democratic societies? This book brings together some of this nation's leading scholars to analyze the challenges to academic freedom posed by post-9/11 political interventions and the market-driven commercialization of knowledge, examining these issues in light of the major transformations in the system of higher education since the Second World War, including conflicting interpretations of what constitutes academic freedom. Following an analysis of the historical significance of the post-9/11 threats to academic freedom, three strongly argued and not easily reconcilable essays by Robert Post, Judith Butler, and Philippa Strum discuss what visions of academic freedom can be defended and the best strategies for doing so. Three case studies--Kathleen J. Frydl on the loyalty-oath and free-speech controversies at the University of California, Amy Newhall on the tortured relationship between universities and the government as seen in language acquisition programs, and Joel Beinin on the policing of thought in the academy in relation to the Middle East--deepen our understanding of what is at stake. In clear and powerful prose, these essays provide a solid platform for informed classroom and public discussions on the philosophical foundations, institutional practices, and political dimensions of academic freedom on the threshold of the twenty-first century.
Including case studies from Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan and Hungary, the authors in this edited collection examine the role of racial and gender biases, paired against rights and responsibilities, to highlight the drivers of restrictions on academic freedom against a backdrop of globalisation.
Framed in the context of a world in which academic freedom is often jeopardized, or criticized by outside social forces, Academic Freedom: Autonomy, Challenges and Conformation sets out to echo the voices of faculty who have encountered challenges to academic freedom within their personal and professional careers.
This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.
This book offers a concise explanation of the history and meaning of American academic freedom, and it attempts to intervene in contemporary debates by clarifying the fundamental functions and purposes of academic freedom in America.--From publisher description.
Within this parameter, the main objective of the FSS research project was to identify the regulatory framework, institutional arrangements and established practices pertaining to governance, academic freedom and conditions of service of higher-education t
