Joelle Fanghanel

Freeing the chi of change: the Higher Education Academy and enhancing teaching and learning in higher education

This article examines recent UK policy initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in higher education in the UK, and the quality of the student experience there. The Higher Education Academy has recently begun to work in this area and the Higher Education Bill (2004) has passed into law. A reflective review of previous initiatives is therefore very timely. The article shows that, while these different initiatives have been explicitly addressed at different levels of analysis, the meso level—a particularly significant one—has been largely forgotten. Meanwhile these interventions have been based on contrasting underlying theories of change and development. One hegemonic theory relates to the notion of the reflective practitioner, which addresses itself to the micro (individual) level of analysis. It sees reflective practitioners as potential change agents. Another relates to the theory of the learning organization, which addresses the macro level of analysis and sees change as stemming from alterations in organizational routines, values and practices. A third is based on a theory of epistemological determinism and sees the discipline as the salient level of analysis for change. Meanwhile, other higher education policies exist alongside those mentioned above, not overtly connected to the enhancement of teaching and learning but impinging upon it in very significant ways in a bundle of disjointed strategies and tacit theories. Of particular relevance here are policies on funding, on research and on widening participation, all implemented in an increasingly managerialist environment in which work intensification and degradation of resources are occurring. Missing in all this is coherence across the policies, and their underlying theories, at the different analytical levels. Because there is disjointedness in various government and other agencies, higher education policies they have tended to obstruct rather than complement each other. Hence our use of a metaphor from Eastern philosophy—the notion of blocked chi. Also missing is a robust theory of change and associated set of policies at the meso level of analysis—the departmental level. We suggest ways in which the latter omission might be rectified, thus freeing the ‘chi of change’.

Capturing dissonance in university teacher education environments

In response to policy developments in higher education in the UK, the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE—now merged in the Higher Education Academy) was established in 1999 to provide a national framework for teaching and learning at tertiary level. This article considers the training environment of novice lecturers within the ILTHE framework and identifies areas of tensions within it. Activity systems theory is used as a broad framework for apprehending this environment. Praxis‐related, epistemological, structural and ideological dissonances are identified. Suggestions to advance change in this area are formulated in the light of the main findings. The limitations afforded by the activity systems approach are also discussed.In response to policy developments in higher education in the UK, the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE—now merged in the Higher Education Academy) was established in 1999 to provide a national framework for teaching and learning at tertiary level. This article considers the training environment of novice lecturers within the ILTHE framework and identifies areas of tensions within it. Activity systems theory is used as a broad framework for apprehending this environment. Praxis‐related, epistemological, structural and ideological dissonances are identified. Suggestions to advance change in this area are formulated in the light of the main findings. The limitations afforded by the activity systems approach are also discussed.

The role of ideology in shaping academics’ conceptions of their discipline

This paper examines the role of ideology in academics’ conceptions of their discipline. The focus is on how individual ideologies affect the way academics conceptualise and enact the discipline in practice. It uses data collected for a study involving 18 academics in 15 disciplines working at seven different institutions which had the broader remit of examining the pedagogical constructs of university lecturers. It established that a number of ‘filters’ came into play to ‘colour’ the way academics conceive of and approach teaching and learning in higher education. One of those filters concerned academics’ own conceptions of their disciplines which were found to be at the same time more complex, and more grounded in the material context of practice, than both epistemological or socio-cognitive studies of the discipline infer.

‘Worldly’ pedagogy: a way of conceptualising teaching towards global citizenship

In this paper, we discuss the characteristics of a form of pedagogy capable of addressing differences across nations and cultures in ways that do not inflate differences. We suggest that those conceptual insights are particularly relevant to the teaching of ‘global citizenship’. We have labelled this a ‘worldly’ pedagogy, because of the connection to teaching in a global context, and with reference to Arendts concept of ‘worldliness’ and the ‘worldly’ experience of human beings in their plurality sharing a ‘common world’. Our conceptual framework results from our analysis of a specific educational environment which we investigated through a small grant obtained from the Higher Education Academy (UK) that examined the pedagogies used to promote learning amongst two polarised (Palestinian and Israeli) communities. We carried out eight interviews with participants to this programme and report on the outcomes of this study. This paper contributes to the debate on tribal identities through the challenge it offers to positions on difference that display rigid essentialising identity readings and to homogenising discourses that fail to appreciate the differences within cultures/nations/groups.