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This paper represents a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles which included reports of parental dis/satisfaction about their child’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessment and diagnoses. Five themes emerged which are visualised in evidence maps: country comparisons of parental dis/satisfaction; factors which enhanced satisfaction; barriers which prohibited satisfaction; differences in national diagnostic methodology; and the chronology of diagnoses across countries. Evidence gaps indicate the lack of unified approaches to the diagnostic process; underrepresentation of such research showing a geographical spread; a lack of unified approaches to the diagnostic process; and where a significantly higher reporting of dissatisfied outcomes was documented. Results indicate that higher parental dissatisfaction is linked to those whose children had undergone the ASD diagnostic process, and those experiencing negative cultural stigmas prior to, or throughout, their child’s ASD diagnosis.

This chapter is concerned with academic citizenry in higher education, and the conditions created within institutions for transformative leadership. This is central to the fitness-for-purpose of higher education institutions to drive the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Drawing from a mixed-method study, the chapter explores the patterns which emerged from literature, questionnaire responses, and semi-structured interviews about the problematics at play within six institutions in the post-colonial contexts of India and South Africa. The two upper middle-income contexts have strong constitutional commitments to democracy and social justice at the macro-level, with bold policy interventions undertaken at meso-level to address the legacies of exclusion and oppression in student enrollment and staff composition in HE. However, recent fraught dynamics and unrest within the sector in each country have brought renewed attention to the politics of participation and a breakdown in trust of governance and management.In this study, the standpoint of key stakeholders was prioritized, including those in assigned leadership positions and academic staff. Particular attention was paid to gender and intersectional inequalities impacting academic staff, and what they revealed about the persistence of policy-implementation gaps and their relation to principle-implementation gaps. Concerns are raised about impoverished comprehensions of, and conditions for, sustainable ethical leadership which emerged across both contexts.

Patterns of research funding in the UK clearly evidence unequal awarding to the detriment of applicants of African descent. This paper presents a case from ‘within’ this larger machine of knowledge production: a failed funding application made by two applicants to establish a social science network connecting African/ist scholars in Northern Ireland (UK) to those of its neighbouring Republic of Ireland (ROI). Rated highly with positive reviews by the two peers appointed by the funding agency, the deficit cannot be readily placed on the content of the application nor on the universities of the applicants at the time, both highly positioned within the institutional stratifications in the UK and ROI. To illuminate from within this darker side of structural knowledge delegitimation in the global North, we situate this ‘case’ as an insider example of the conditions which militate against advancing marginalised study areas. We do so to work against the prevailing impression of such work not being possible; turning towards that which is not structurally delineated by institutions nor national funding mechanisms. In publishing this paper, we re-assert our ethical obligations and agency as intellectuals to bring to light the defunding of such endeavours and the larger genealogies of influence in our times.

The university is a highly politicized and fractious realm for students and academics. Amidst trade-offs between the processes of massification, democratization, commodification, and globalization, the question of transformation for sustainability has become crucial to the social good(s) of higher education. This paper considers academic citizenry within Indian public higher education — a context where the increase in the enrollment of first-generation students and female students, due to affirmative action policies, has not substantially translated into altering the composition of academic staff. Informed by a mixed-method study conducted in 2019 with the participation of academics and those in leadership positions at four higher education institutions, we found that the enactment of such policies was operationalized for the production of the “New Middle Class” by universities. Of concern is that neither the representation nor the participation of academics who are women, “lower” castes, or minorities meets the mark of just, inclusive institutions. Despite the rhetoric of inclusiveness and development, the implementation of related policies clothe subalterns with the veneer of the intellectual class, permitting access on condition that sociocultural identities are concealed, and the hegemonic status quo maintained. Terms such as “quality” and “equality” function as tools for social control rather than serving social justice, where assertions of caste identity and resistance are simultaneously repudiated and misrecognized.

A presumed indicator of change, in terms of the South African higher education sector’s racialised past, are the quantitative measures of numerical ‘diversity’ within the academic staff composition at historically white institutions. To better inform policy, academic development curricula and institutional culture, this study focuses on macroaggressions related to the mis/recognition and un/belonging of black academics who were selected for prestigious affirmative ‘accelerated development programmes’ for transforming the academic staff composition. Insights and narratives elicited via report-and-respond questionnaires, reflective small group discussions and an arts-based method, indicated that participants (a) experienced various microaggressions as members of different communities within the institution, and as a result (b) negotiated different identities according to social group norms, affordances and settings. The study brings to the fore the complex social processes and agential consequences of negotiating the politics of belonging in the looming shadow of legacies of conflict and oppression.

Anti-racist education within the Academy holds the potential to truly reflect the cultural hybridity of our diverse, multi-cultural society through the canons of knowledge that educators celebrate, proffer and embody. The centrality of Whiteness as an instrument of power and privilege ensures that particular types of knowledge continue to remain omitted from our curriculums. The monopoly and proliferation of dom- inant White European canons does comprise much of our existing cur- riculum; consequently, this does impact on aspects of engagement, inclusivity and belonging particularly for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) learners. This paper explores the impact of a dominant Eurocentric curriculum and the Decolonising the Curriculum agenda within higher education and its influence upon navigating factors such as BAME attainment, engagement and belonging within the Academy. This paper draws on a Critical Race Theory (CRT) theoretical framework to centralize the marginalized voices of fifteen BAME students and three academics of colour regarding this phenomena. Aspects examined con- sider the impact of a narrow and restrictive curriculum on BAME students and staff and how the omission of diverse histories and multi- cultural knowledge canons facilitates marginalization and discrimin- atory cultures.

In the early stages of the ‘pivot online’, various conceptions of inequalities and their relations to educational equity peppered the discourses of higher education practitioners and the promotional discourses of their institutions. Concerned with what conditions subjectification and action within micro- and meso-curricula, this paper explores the cultural and structural discursive positions in which such agents are entangled, and the discourse conflicts they negotiated about what to adopt, shape, defer or resist. Offering deliberations on the possibilities and problematics for equity in higher education were insiders’ perspectives of those who operate in the thresholds between academic and professional communities within South African and UK higher education—learning technologists, academic developers and Higher Education Studies scholars—in the period from March to June 2020. Careful not to provide a monovocal nor hierarchical interpretation of these discourses at that early stage in the pandemic, our analysis rather juxtaposes complex and at times conflicting local accounts and negotiations of three schisms around which their narratives skirted: (i) the substantial fault lines under and in societies, institutions and practitioner communities; (ii) the complexities which intersect with digital divides; and (iii) the in/visibility of differentially impacted individuals and groups during that period. As people with often strong ethico-political commitments, and responsibilities as members of evanescent interpretative communities, their acts of narration drew from and at times against the dominant discourses situated within particular socio-economic and ideological higher education contexts.

Dina Zoe Belluigi, Andrea Alcock, Veronica Farrell and Grace Idahosa reflect on figurative imagery in their research practices to expose the “hidden curriculum of higher education”. Their reflection recounts discursive processes in an attempt to “make sense” of “the modes of politics” in which they engage. How to cite this reflective piece: BELLUIGI, Dina Zoe; ALCOCK, Andrea; FARRELL, Veronica; IDAHOSA, Grace. Mixed metaphors, mixed messages and mixed blessings: how figurative imagery opens up the complexities of transforming higher education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 2, p. 110-120, Sept. 2019. Available at: https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=105&path%5B%5D=50 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

With inequality persistent across geopolitical contexts, ‘transformation’ continues to be expediently cited in the rhetoric of higher education institutions. Illuminating alike issues worldwide, the paper critically examines race, inequality and oppression among the black and women academics who were selected as recipients of post-apartheid academic development programmes at an historically white institution in South Africa. Utilising a report-and-respond approach, participants initially responded in a questionnaire to definitions of notions of transformation espoused within The Integrated Transformation Plans of South African universities. This was followed by non-deterministic small group discussions of the researchers’ interpretations of those responses. The recipients’ lived experiences provide deep insights, from within, into the misalignment between those discourses espoused and those practiced, which have implications for transforming the institutional culture of the dominant in-group. Emerging ahead of the implementation of a self-regulatory tool for higher education institutions across that national context, many of the participants called for structural accountability mechanisms in the face of their frustration with current ineffectual approaches. A concern about institutional responsiveness to research findings of such critical studies is raised.

Six experienced academic reviewers and editors explored the nature of quality in academic publication processes in the contexts of sustainability, education for sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article documents their exploration as a collaborative autoethnography structured around the authors’ personal reflections on matters such as: how current quality indicators define the quality of academic publications; how effective current quality assurance processes may be; how congruent open access publication processes may be with the ideals of sustainability and of the SDGs; and about what new and different indicators of quality might look like. An inductive analysis of their reflections yielded three emergent and reoccurring themes: casting doubt on the fitness for purpose of current academic publication processes and means to assure their quality; seeking justice for all involved in academic publication; and creating opportunities for change. In writing this article, authors considered these themes and how academia might address them.

Situated against an historical narrative of academic development in South Africa, this chapter revisits the intractable politics of access to higher education. The critical reflections of Black academics who endured ‘inclusion’ to an historically White institution in the immediate post-apartheid period reveal fraught negotiations and resistances to transitions of authority. As critical stakeholders of transformation in that country, their perspectives about the different approaches to access offer insights into how discourses of equity, inclusion, diversity and decolonisation operated within a problematic hidden curriculum of academic ‘success’.

Produced from experiences at the outset of the intense times when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began in March 2020, this collaborative paper offers the collective reflections and analysis of a group of teaching and learning and Higher Education (HE) scholars from a diverse 15 of the 26 South African public universities. In the form of a theorised narrative insistent on foregrounding personal voices, it presents a snapshot of the pandemic addressing the following question: what does the ‘pivot online’ to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL), forced into urgent existence by the Covid-19 pandemic, mean for equity considerations in teaching and learning in HE? Drawing on the work of Therborn (2009: 20–32; 2012: 579–589; 2013; 2020) the reflections consider the forms of inequality - vital, resource and existential - exposed in higher education. Drawing on the work of Tronto (1993; 2015; White and Tronto 2004) the paper shows the networks of care which were formed as a counter to the systemic failures of the sector at the onset of the pandemic.

Participatory assessment is increasingly employed in higher education worldwide as a formative mechanism to support students’ active learning. But do students in an increasingly relationally diverse environment perceive that peer assessment of individuals’ contributions to group-work tasks enhances their learning? Recognising the impact of students’ conceptions on the quality of their learning, this study considers students’ perspectives of peer assessment of group-work contributions at a South African university. Questionnaires elicited students’ perspectives of and general attitudes towards assessment of and by their peers. A growing measure of discontent with the process of assessing peer contributions to group tasks emerged, including actual and perceived racial and gender stereotyping, and related rejection-sensitivity. These initial findings were checked against the students’ experiences in a report-and-respond process that enabled probing discussions of the interpretations. This paper examines and explores the implications of such identifications and receptions for learning engagement and group-work curriculum development in the context of a rapidly transforming higher education sector.

This paper considers the influences of curricula content on the nuances of teaching and learning practices, and the ways in such influences are complicated by the contexts within which they are situated. Generated data from within the particularity of two fine art schools, one operating from the developed world in the global ‘north’ and another the developing world in the ‘south’, considers how they have negotiated the contemporary push from the professional community of practice, led by ‘western’ artmaking, towards the discourse-interest of contextualism in fine art practice education, compared to the focus on skills and mastery of more out-dated formalism. Particular emphasis is placed on the significance of such influences and pressures on the structures and cultures of teaching and learning.

Criticality is an important means to negotiate uncertainty, which has become a characteristic of teaching and learning conditions in postmodern times. This paper draws from an empirical comparative case study conducted in the uncertain discipline of fine art visual practice, where critical judgement and meta-cognition are important for professional contemporary art practice. Charting the curricula intended by staff and the culture experienced by students, the paper considers the relation between the espoused theory of criticality in two art schools and their theory-in-use within assessment structures and cultures. Emphasis is placed on the significance of such approaches to criticality for the student experience and their learning engagement. Emerging discourses of ‘subjectivity’ and a lack of development of student meta-cognition indicated that, at an undergraduate level of study, the curricula of these cases are unwittingly underpreparing their graduates for operating with agential criticality as they enter the uncertain context of contemporary art.

Various constructions of supervisors and students emerge from education literature on art, design and architecture studio pedagogy. Constructions of the supervisor within the studio and during assessment are considered, with a discussion of the threads which underpin them. This is followed by a discussion of some of the current dominant constructions of the student, and possible effects of these roles and relationships on their engagement with learning. As many of these constructions may be inherited or unconscious, a concern for the agency of those involved to rupture, subvert, rescript or resist such constructions motivates this research, while acknowledgingSave that this may be limited by structural and cultural contexts.

This paper expands on empirical research which revealed that, whether or not an institution's interpretative community was explicitly informed by outcomes-based assessment, the more powerful and implicit discourses that emerged in assessment practices were those of their professional practice and academic traditions. Tensions, between the emerging dominant discourses, had their roots in academic perspectives and traditions; professional practice(s) and ways of being; and the more recent educational development discourses. The significance of these tensions for the discursive positioning of staff and students is discussed, with suggestions made for possible ways to negotiate these problematics more purposefully

This paper considers a curriculum design motivated by a desire to explore more valid pedagogical approaches that foster critical thinking skills among students engaged in an Environmental Science course in South Africa, focussing specifically on the topic of Citizen Science. Fifty-three under graduate students were involved in the course, which was run over a two week period. Data were generated from several sources, including individual student evaluations, a focus group discussion, lecturer reflections and summative assessment results. During the course, the development of critical thinking skills was scaffolded by different thinking approaches to the possibilities and problematics of student-selected case studies, followed by a collaborative re-examining of ‘what is known’ about Citizen Science. Spiralling engagement with various resources harnessed the diversity of the class, as they drew on their personal and disciplinary backgrounds. The insights highlight possibilities for alternative higher educat...

Recognising the authoritative de/legitimising power of education systems, this paper contributes to studies concerned with the ways in which new entrants to higher education experience the positioning of their inherited identities as they negotiate their transition to campus life. The findings emerged during a broader psychosocial study of the transitions of seven first-generation students at a technical university in South Africa. The nature of their self-positioning was explored through an analysis of the positioning statements they articulated during photo-elicitation interviews. The university was positioned as a powerful institution, with conditions for both opportunity and alienation. Participants strongly identified with the professional community of practice in Art and Design. However, in relation to the urban campus context, the majority of participants positioned aspects of their home communities as deficit. A case is made for creating conducive conditions that enable self-reflection on students’ transitional experiences and develop collective critical consciousness.

In this paper, an over-arching framework is presented and discussed which enables the mapping of the approaches to the interpretation of creative acts or artefacts for the purposes of analysing the underlying referential frameworks which inform assessment. Informed by literary and aesthetic theory, the framework’s horizontal axis relates to what might broadly be termed the sources or locus of meaning (that is, the author, the text, and the reader), and its vertical axis refers to broad approaches to how the problem of meaning is negotiated, whether representation or signification (differentiated in the framework as ‘eucharistic’, ‘objective’ and ‘operative’ criticism). The framework was initially constructed to analyse the embedded and often tacit interpretative approaches underpinning assessment practices in the creative arts in higher education, particularly in fine art studio practice, and as such the discussion of the methodological value of the framework is situated within this context.

Providing a cohesive language for graphic design, which can be utilized in the production of knowledge and the generation of theory specific to that sub-discipline of Art and Design, is a challenge that is often obscured by the very practical nature of the field. As practice-based problem-solving is at the core of graphic design, application often supersedes meta-level theoretical engagement when it comes to educating undergraduate students. In this article, the underlying structures of graphic design pedagogy are explored through sociology of knowledge theories. We demonstrate how these theories enable the identification and analysis of those underlying structures, both epistemic and social, which influence how knowledge and the knower is constructed, taught and assessed in this sub-discipline. Applying these knowledge-knower structuring theories to analyses of empirical data collected from curriculum documentation and assessment events, we draw comparisons with data generated from formative and summative assessment practices. It is our intention that, through articulating a language of description and providing this example of the application of such methodological procedures for investigating such knowledge, a cohesive language may be shared that holds the potential to better inform curriculum development of the sub-discipline in higher education.

Underpinned by an awareness that education systems inherently maintain the status quo, this article explores a paradox at the heart of fine art studio teaching, learning and assessment in the postcolonial context of South Africa. The content of most current curricula evidences a concern with power, and the politics and problematics of representation. As such, encouragement of student engagement around and negotiation of notions of transformation, critical dialogue and identity is espoused. However, in the article it is argued that current approaches to assessment often unquestioningly replicate inherited systems, and in so doing, unwittingly reproduce systems of cultural capital that may be non-transformatory and non-pluralistic. Thus, because of the way assessment is practiced, that which is taught may be radically different from that which is experienced and thereby learnt in the studio.

This paper aims to inspire stakeholders working with quality of higher education (such as members of study boards, study programme directors, curriculum developers and teachers) to critically consider their evaluation methods in relation to a focus on student learning. We argue that many of the existing methods of evaluation in higher education are underpinned by a conception of learning that is de‐contextualised. As a consequence, many data collection methods do not address aspects that affect students’ learning. This is problematic because the core aim of higher education is to facilitate student learning. We propose a contextualised evaluation methodology, guided by 10 key questions, which can help evaluators address concepts and questions of student learning in their evaluations.

Using critical discourse analysis to analyse the formative assessment method of a fine art studio practice curriculum, the author explores the espoused claim that both creativity and critical thinking are encouraged. Despite the prevalence of these often used terms, assessment practices and feedback were found to unwittingly encourage reproduction. A dominant negative dialectic at play in assessment practices was a modernist conception of the artist-student. The climate created by the imbalance between creativity and criticality was found to impact negatively on students' approaches to learning as a result of being alienated from their desires. Focusing on the South African context, this case study contributes to global concerns about strategic and uncritical adoptions of politically expedient discourses in higher education.

Health promotion is an effective strategy to address the increasing global burden of non-communicable diseases. A paradigm shift in pharmacy practice requires pharmacists to be more proactive in dealing with community health issues. In order to prepare pharmacy students for their changing role, a service-learning elective incorporating health promotion, was designed and implemented. This was to provide students the opportunity to achieve the critical cross-field outcomes to which Rhodes University aspires; and to empower the community with knowledge for the prevention and management of priority chronic health conditions in South Africa. Under supervision, groups of final year pharmacy students researched these health conditions and designed interactive health promotion activities. These were presented at the 2007 Sasol National Festival of Science and Technology (SciFest). A cross-section of children and adults visited the exhibit. Feedback indicated that this interaction between students and the communit...

Drawing on the case of a small South African university which espouses a social justice approach to transformation, this chapter considers the possibilities and challenges created for student feedback within an institutional context that gives the individual lecturer a large degree of autonomy in evaluation. The chapter looks at some of the dominant perceptions of student feedback in addition to how it is collected and utilised, by referring to the institution’s policies and guideline documents; institutional research conducted with course coordinators; responses elicited from 40 lecturers on the issues outlined in this chapter; the author’s own reflections as a staff developer in the institution; and specific examples of good practice from lecturers situated within social science disciplines. The emerging concerns which structured this discussion are: the impact of student feedback on improving quality; enabling student voice; increasing student ownership; and the educational value of evaluation processes.