Search

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) in higher education institutions has increased in the past 20 years. While ICT has brought many benefits to students and faculty, research shows that it also creates barriers and challenges for students with disabilities due to the inaccessibility of digital tools and learning materials. Faculty members play an important role in inclusive higher education. Previous studies have emphasised the need to train faculty about digital accessibility to achieve inclusion in higher education. This systematic literature review aims to study existing work on increasing the faculty members' competence in providing accessible and inclusive digital learning materials and environments to students in higher education. Sixteen peer-reviewed papers were included and analysed. Most trainings included topics on disability and awareness, legislation, and methods of producing accessible digital materials and providing inclusive digital learning environments. While surveys and interviews were mostly used to evaluate training outcomes, there was a lack of objective data and commonly accepted instrument for evaluation. Good practices and further research opportunities are identified. This study has implications for researchers and higher education institutions that are interested in research and practice on increasing general competence in digital accessibility and inclusive education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several communities in India have defined the contours of the extent and quality of women's education based on the shifts in the demands of marriage within the community. The following paper traces a similar pattern in the educational trajectories of first-generation women of the Meena community across the rural and urban areas, to access the state government's women's college in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, India. The relevant data has been collected through fieldwork conducted in Sawai Madhopur in the year 2017. The paper explores the complicity of the women's college with the institutions of family and marriage that result in a complete elimination of the classroom as a meaningful space of learning for women. The paper focuses on these and other such costs that Meena women bear for access to education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are now part of our daily lives, and the speed of their implementation and use has been accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital transformation, seen in the past as a problem, is now perceived as an important component in the future of sustainable development (SD), especially at higher education institutions whose operations have been adversely affected by the pandemic in many ways. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the subject matter of digital transformation and how it relates to a SD context. It reports on the results of a worldwide survey at higher education institutions, which identified some areas where the pandemic impacted and/or influenced their activities. The survey received 158 responses and a principal component analysis was performed to model the items associated with digital tools boosting SD, innovative business opportunities and ideas, and needs for improvement at HEIs. The results indicate that most part of the respondents developed digital skills and increased their involvement with e-learning and distance learning; however, more digital training is needed. Findings also support the role played by digital technologies in boosting SD at HEIs, and the role of institutions in promoting innovation through digital tools. Apart from an analysis of the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to digital transformation in an SD context in higher education institutions, the paper provides an assessment of trends and recommendations that may guide future developments in a post-pandemic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient Chinese civilisation developed two ideas about the ordering of large human spaces. The first was tianxia or 'all under heaven', the inclusive and cosmopolitan world as a whole, with no exterior, and governance on the basis of shared values and benefits, which first shaped statecraft in the Western Zhou dynasty (1047–1771 BCE). Second, the centralised nation-state which emerged in the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Both strands have been influential through Chinese history. In the last twenty years discussion of tianxia has revived, especially through Zhao Tingyang, stimulated by globalisation and the need for practical relations beyond the nation state. This paper proposes one version of tianxia as a heuristic for understanding, rethinking and remaking ethical relations in worldwide higher education. It reviews different understandings of tianxia in China, identifies a world-centred (rather than China-centred) tianxia , and discusses the potentials of tianxia in higher education. Tianxia is appropriate to world higher education because of its spatiality and its ethical commitment to universal benefit in diverse settings on the basis of mutual respect. The article suggests four clusters of relational values that could constitute a tianxia order in higher education, and compares tianxia to existing practices of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have identified a deficit with the higher education (HE) decision-making support offered by further education (FE) colleges, compared with other post-16 providers. However, there has been little research as to why this might be the case. This paper explores this issue by considering the HE choice-making experiences of Level 3 Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) students and the staff supporting them in an FE college in England. Data are viewed through the theoretical lens of the Theory of Practice Architectures, a framework which illuminates the pre-existing conditions holding the practices of HE choice-making in place. The investigation reveals inconsistent College HE choice support, with a reliance on tutors and local universities that can both enable and constrain the programme. Factors underlying the construction of the programme include the structural parameters of both the BTEC qualification and the College, competing College priorities and the varying relationships the College has with different types of universities. The paper concludes by highlighting the complexity of the tensions and conflicts inherent in FE and making a number of practical recommendations as to the underlying conditions that would need to change in order for FE HE choice support to fulfil its potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class inequalities in accessing sport persist across the western world as a result of financial, social and cultural factors. Research to date largely explores how inequalities impact both accessing and practicing sport and physical activity – identifying patterns and differences between social classes but failing to identify the long-term implications such as how students exchange these as official qualifications and knowledge in Physical Education (PE) degrees. In this paper, we use Bourdieu's concepts of capital, and to a lesser extent habitus and field to theorise about sport as sites of socialisation that shapes the composition and volume of capital students enter PE degrees with. To date, research suggests the role socialisation and informal learning plays in shaping PE students' development of valued dispositions, but often overlooks the intersecting impact of social class. We draw on data from seventeen undergraduate students, studying a non-teacher training PE degree, in the UK. The data presented is selected from interviews exploring how the fields of family, school, extra-curricular sport and the geo-demography of the area they grew up in shaped their access to and practice of Sport/PA. Furthermore, it indicates class differences exist in both the key sites and agents of socialisation. We suggest this has ramifications, in relation to the volume and composition of capital PE students enter Higher Education (HE) with, highlighting the importance for PE staff in HE to be aware of this. Consequently, we demonstrate prior socialisation contributes to students' differing experiences of PE degrees, potentially shaping inequalities resulting from their capacity to exchange capital when studying PE at university. This paper encourages PE staff in universities to question the assumption parity of entry qualification results in all students entering HE with same access to knowledge and experiences valued in PE degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of stare decisis is often explained in first-year law studies as synonymous with the doctrine of precedent and dichotomised into ratio decidendi and obiter dicta. This explanation of stare decisis is frequently supplemented by an exercise where the novice law student is provided with a case and directed to identify the ratio decidendi of the case, and to appreciate the distinction between ratio and obiter dicta in it, the latter being persuasive only. It is argued that this pedagogy is limited and unrealistic because stare decisis is a dynamic process whereby, applying the precepts of formal legal logic, legal principle evolves. This paper propounds that the fundamental precepts of formal legal logic should be harnessed as a dedicated pedagogy to teach students how principle evolves. The extant legal studies curriculum can readily be modified to accommodate these suggestions. Consistent with the proposition that stare decisis is ultimately a process, whether a statement in a case has the character of ratio decidendi or obiter dictum is itself determined as the outcome of that process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colleges are important providers of vocational education and training and in some countries they are the major provider. Although the international literature on colleges has grown considerably in the past two decades, it still consists primarily of qualitative descriptions of college sectors in different countries. Quantitative studies of differences in the activity mix of colleges in different countries could improve knowledge of international variation in the roles of colleges and provide a stronger foundation for study of the sources and consequences of variation in college roles. After reviewing different methodological frameworks for comparative analysis of college activity, the research reported here employs one of these frameworks to analyse differences in the activity mix of colleges in five countries. In addition to finding some noteworthy differences among the five countries, the paper also identified several problems of comparability of college data from different countries. The paper concludes that the development of internationally comparable data on colleges would require leadership by international organisations and agencies and is an undertaking well worth pursuing both for the benefits that it could bring to those whom colleges serve and for its contribution to the advancement of comparative study of vocational education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Australian young people comprise over 50% of the total Indigenous population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). Yet, the voices of Indigenous young people are seldom centred in policy or scholarship (Shay & Sarra, 2021). This paper shares findings from a three-year national transdisciplinary, qualitative study that explored the identity and well-being of Indigenous young people in diverse school settings. The data told counter-stories through the lens of Indigenous young people currently absent in mental health and educational wellbeing scholarship. This article illustrates how the theoretical/methodological approach and data provide a strengths-based alternative to trauma-informed and medicalised mental health frameworks that dominate policy and practice approaches. This paper shares key findings from Indigenous young people who articulated their identities as underpinned by respect, pride and collectivism and shaped by culture, where you are from, physicality and role models. These expressions are clearly at odds with broader deficit discourses on Indigenous identity and have implications for health and schooling settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we respond to this special issue's critical focus on mental health in education by considering the medicalised and homogenising approaches to the mental health of young people and the severely negative consequences for young people. Our argument is underpinned by the need to destabilise the hegemony of the current dominant discourses and practices of mental health used in education. The problem with these discourses and practices, informed by particular forms of psychiatry and psychology, is precisely their dominance and their popularised proxy take-up of these. We firstly outline this problem, explore the emergence and saturation of a 'damaged self' in education and consider the impact on young people. We offer counter-narratives that involve a reframing of the self in relation to ethics, politics, capability and the arts and can assist in countering the psy-dominance in education. The paper concludes with some reflections on how teachers might work against the damaging effects of the psy-disciplines and instead support young people in finding their counter-narrative selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual and theoretical paper seeks to analyze the dynamics and consequences of psychologization and therapization, key mechanisms of the therapeutic turn in education. In particular, it focuses, on how the pathologization of social problems occasions individualization and the production of self-reliant and inward-looking subjects trained to maximize human capital according to the tenets of neoliberalism. Second, it explains the principles of a critical approach to education that is informed by the concept of intersectionality. It shows how this concept might be helpful in interrogating and addressing structurally embedded inequalities and injustices. Informed by the insights of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, this approach engenders a contextualized and nuanced analysis of social forces, social identities, and ideological instruments through which power and disadvantage are expressed and legitimized. To further illustrate its importance, insurgent citizenship education, a concept drawn from the experiences of a Philippine school for displaced indigenous groups will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a written dialogue among four activists from the Emancipa Popular Education Movement in Brazil, following the principles of Freirean pedagogy as a 'circle of culture'. It delves into how popular knowledge can be experienced as popular power, narrating the history, struggles, and strategies employed by the Emancipa movement in their pursuit of democratizing Brazilian universities. The discussion is set within the context of Latin American structural inequalities and the issue of educational exclusion in Brazil. It emphasizes the vital role of contesting culture and knowledge as part of the movement's fight against social injustices perpetuated by peripheral capitalism, including racist violence and gender oppression. The paper adopts emancipatory pedagogy as the method to empower and mobilize grassroots efforts in this transformative endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical analysis of Freire's Italian reception and argues that reinventing Freire requires us to historicise and to contextualise his legacy, which in Italy makes sense in consonance with the already existing Italian popular education tradition. Based on the case study of his 1989 honorary degree at the University of Bologna, this article investigates Freire's influence in academia by comparing two generations of scholars and activists who have received Freire in different ways. Drawing on interviews to key informants who belong to two generations of educators influenced by Freire, this paper argues that the Italian Freire's renaissance is associated with the growing need for a generation of militant educators to find a theoretical framework to oppose the hegemony of both neo-liberal and neo-nationalist discourses in education. The reasons for Freire's reinvention in the academic sphere are investigated and the profile of the second generation of Freireans in Italy traced out, highlighting both continuities and tensions with the first one. Finally, the motives for Freire's success in today's Italy are presented in seven main theses, showing that many of them are made possible by virtue of the political, cultural and pedagogical background that made Freire's re-invention in an Italian context possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education is increasingly defined by data, indicators and metrics. The paper examines how English universities conceptualise and articulate their perspectives on 'teaching quality' in the context of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) in the UK. By adopting a qualitative thematic analysis approach, the author examines how a sample of English higher education institutions [n = 18] articulated their perspectives on teaching quality by analysing the 'teaching quality' section of their qualitative TEF submissions. The findings have shown that higher education policies, such as TEF, have greatly shaped institutions' perspectives on teaching quality and teaching excellence. In turn, universities' articulation of teaching excellence appeared to have significant implications for their management and academic practices, such as institution priorities, resource allocations, performance evaluation and academic career development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a process of development and validation of a methodological tool for supporting the co-design of strategic actions to enhance the digital competencies of educators in higher education. Considering that organisational strategy and change are often imperfectly reflected in structural arrangements in higher education institutions, this work proposes a novel approach to address this difficulty. In a four-iteration process with a design-based approach, a team of experts and stakeholders from six European countries has created and validated a CANVAS to design actions for fostering Digital Teaching Competences based on the DigCompEdu framework. The result is a methodological instrument that facilitates co-design across stakeholder groups within higher education institutions. Its goal is to enhance a strategic vision for participatory action by scaffolding institutional development processes, collaboratively defined, for short, medium- and long-term impacts. This work can also be a reference for other systematised innovation design approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on higher education regionalism, this paper explores international branch campus (IBC) initiatives undertaken by one of the largest Russian IBC-exporting institutions, the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU). To date, very little is known about higher education (HE) export-import between the post-Soviet countries. This qualitative inquiry critically examines the Soviet legacy of LMSU IBCs to understand their origins, purposes, and utility as a form of HE export. This paper sheds light on (1) the similarities and differences between six LMSU IBCs and (2) discourses used to rationalise the establishment of LMSU branch campuses. The findings from this paper suggest that LMSU IBCs are established (a) to promote the Russian HE model, (b) to strengthen political and cultural ties with neighbouring countries, and (c) to bolster LMSU's image and brand appeal in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the predicament of the Dalit youth in their pursuit of higher education through a qualitative study in a low-income locality of Delhi. In absence of control over material resources historically, education offered promise in liberating socially excluded groups for its instrumental link with modern occupational structure. The policy of universal public education backed up with affirmative action in India has formally aided its access across sections. Even as the participation of the hitherto marginalized groups has been increasing manifold, privatization and marketisation in the education sector under the neo-liberal regime have transformed the educational landscape. Dalit youth is largely segregated into low-quality distance and social sciences education. The paper discusses various constraining and motivating factors embedded within and outside the neighbourhood and educational institutions which shape their educational interests, choices, and decisions. It elaborates on how cumulative socio-cultural, spatial, and historical disadvantages continue to shape the process of educational exclusion, even when these groups live in a metropolitan city amidst educational institutions. However, we also stress that the state policies, informed mentors, shared aspirations, and diversity in socio-cultural interactions hold the potential to alter and widen educational aspirations, access, and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developing structure of Omani higher education sector depends upon a culturally diverse group of international academics who outnumber their Omani colleagues. This creates a unique group composition that is inconsistent with the largely Omanising workplace context. Drawing on data gathered from a case study, this paper explores the reasons and the effects of group instability resulting from faculty's national diversity on establishing a group's social identity, the latter being an antecedent for establishing an intellectual capital. The findings of the study suggest that national diversity is associated with a number of factors that impede longevity within work groups thus affecting identification with a common group prototype. These include human resources management practices, such as outsourcing recruitment, inconsistent recruitment standards, low faculty agility and a number of personal factors that emphasise individual identity. The paper concludes by arguing that the absence of social identity in higher education hinders establishing an intellectual capital that represents a cornerstone for establishing a knowledge-based economy that fuels the realisation of Oman 2040. The findings have implications to the GCC1 contexts that are characterised by depending on largely nationally diverse workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic Language and Learning (ALL) is a relatively recent practice field in Australian Higher Education (HE). Throughout its history, the institutional positioning of ALL has varied significantly in line with an incessantly changing HE environment. Most recently, neoliberal policies and discourses are reconfiguring the professional identities of ALL practitioners and complicating their relationship with students, increasingly depriving both of a hospitable home in universities. Implicit in these discourses is also the depoliticisation of the ALL teacher–student relation and assumptions of mastery of these educators over their object of knowledge, the students. Rather than aligning ALL practitioners with neoliberal subject positionings, this conceptual paper explores the framing of ALL practitioners, particularly their relations with students, in terms of Derridean hospitality. The article details Derrida's deconstruction of the concept of hospitality in order to (1) examine the complex power dynamics that structure the relationship between ALL practitioners and the student guest/foreigner and (2) insist on an ethical responsiveness to student difference based on responsibility for the other and a radical opening to the new. Derrida's ideas of hospitality, the paper argues, offers an alternative language for thinking, speaking, and enacting ALL practitioner–student relations and opens new ethico-political horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The normative institutional practices of White, native English speakers have been explored in detail by CRT scholars in US academia, and these practices perpetuate a system which maintains White privilege to the detriment and systemic exclusion of the Other. Consequently, students of colour and non-native English speakers are inclined to face a number of forms of inequality, inequity, discrimination and harassment based on Whiteness and nativism including English speaker centrism, and this eventually serves to reproduce Whiteness and White racial domination. To better understand this institutional practices based on Whiteness in US academia, this paper explores how structural inequity based on linguistic racism and White privilege is reproduced by patterns in everyday institutional practice in US academia, and how intersectional structural inequity influences non-White, non-native speakers of American English such as international students from Asia by interviewing an Asian international ELL Ph.D. student, and exploring his counterstory in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the contribution of university educators toward prefiguratively creating tomorrow today in the higher education classroom. Educators often teach for peace and social justice through a variety of normative pedagogical frameworks. Yet, this linkage of pedagogy and prefigurative politics in university classrooms is frequently under-examined. Moreover, such research has not yet been conducted within the context of Korea. Hence, this paper investigates – through a qualitative case study methodology – the varied approaches to pedagogy for social change in Korean universities today, including but not limited to: (a) democratic pedagogy, (b) critical pedagogy, (c) peace and social justice pedagogy, and (d) decolonial pedagogy. The paper examines these intersectional pedagogies through the lens of prefigurative politics, which is understood as a form of praxis that attempts to (re)construct through education a more just society. Findings indicate challenges and opportunities that Korean university educators face today in teaching for social change in higher education classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'See the World – Winchester' programme was funded by the UK Turing scheme in 2021–2022 and aimed to broaden the horizons of historically marginalised students who may not otherwise have had access to extracurricular opportunities such as international travel. The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, the authors reflect on the successes, failures and challenges involved with running internationalisation activities during a time of travel disruption. Secondly, this article presents findings from a small-scale evaluation that sought to measure the impact of short-term mobility with historically marginalised or under-represented students. The paper is useful for institutions looking to run international mobilities with students during a period of travel disruption using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study. In addition, the findings highlight the experiences and benefits to students participating in short mobilities, which include, a cultural experience, opportunity for personal growth and development, enhanced employability, and ultimately, broader horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a Foucauldian theorisation and an in-depth study with eight disabled student activists in England, this paper explores how persistent marginalisation and ableism in higher education has triggered a wave of activism among disabled students, who, just before the advent of the pandemic, had organised a structured movement, Disabled Students UK. We employ Foucault's ideas of the care of the self and others to discuss the formation of disabled students as activist subjects fighting discrimination in English higher education, in a moment in which the intersection between inclusive policies and austerity measures exposed the ableism rooted in academic practices. This paper promotes discussion on the nurturing relationship that exists between the individual and the community in constituting disability activism and disabled activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognition of the benefits that can be achieved through the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and, more broadly, Open Educational Practices (OEP), there has been little research on the competences that are needed to enable educators to utilise such practices. To contribute to closing this gap, this paper presents a framework of the competences that educators in higher education should develop in order to effectively engage in OEP. The framework development was based on an in-depth analysis of a set of existing successful open teaching practices, which allowed to identify the underlying competences needed to engage in each one of them. The competence framework consists of one transversal attitude (that of being open to constructively engaging in OEP) and two competence categories (those relating to OER and those relating to open pedagogies). These two categories include a total of eight competences, described in detail through the corresponding knowledge and skills. The paper closes with a reflection on how to facilitate the attainment of these competences, that could become a key part of existing capacity building actions for educators at all levels, and suggests some directions for possible future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines how digital technologies support innovation in teaching and learning the English language across Palestinian Higher Education Institutes. A European project collaborated to build staff capacity in knowledge and skills, shown here through the redesign of curricula, pedagogical training, the design and implementation of interactive textbooks, the creation of language labs, helping to develop expertise in creating and utilising Open Educational Resources (OER) and significantly, the development of individual agency as a form of OER. In this paper, we draw on three years of data to present a model for teacher innovation showing how digital innovation is firstly personal at a practitioner level and shaped by need, before becoming driven by collaboration at an organisational level with like-minded colleagues. Shared practice at this level can lead to community discourse through practitioner networks, which in turn can lead to dialogue initiating instances of organisational change. This resonates with literature which shows innovation has three outcomes: originality (practitioner-based agency); scale (going beyond the site of creation) and value (how this produces benefits for others). We perceive that the resulting capacity-building extends beyond the redesign of curricula mentioned to professional enrichment, collegiality through cascading innovation to other areas, and enhanced practitioner agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of artificial intelligence in academia is a hot topic in the education field. ChatGPT is an AI tool that offers a range of benefits, including increased student engagement, collaboration, and accessibility. However, is also raises concerns regarding academic honesty and plagiarism. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges of using ChatGPT in higher education, and discusses the potential risks and rewards of these tools. The paper also considers the difficulties of detecting and preventing academic dishonesty, and suggests strategies that universities can adopt to ensure ethical and responsible use of these tools. These strategies include developing policies and procedures, providing training and support, and using various methods to detect and prevent cheating. The paper concludes that while the use of AI in higher education presents both opportunities and challenges, universities can effectively address these concerns by taking a proactive and ethical approach to the use of these tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, there has been growing concern about teacher preparation at university and the link to educational quality. As a result, higher education institutions have designed programmes to help faculty teachers further their development in their professional careers. However, the literature pinpoints a lack of empirical evidence on professional development (PD) policies at university level due to the limited tradition of research and evaluation at this educational stage. The aim of this research is to provide an overview of the actions and programmes for the professional learning of new academics at university institutions. To this end, we conducted a systematic review of the international literature, based on 262 papers from three international databases, of which a total of 18 were analysed in depth. This study examines the types of programme, content and learning outcomes. The findings show that most programmes deploy mentoring versus other modalities, although duration and content are heterogeneous. In addition, mentor selection and training is revealed as a key element for programme success. Finally, we present a number of lessons learned that may be useful for university induction programme design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to failures in policy-driven public governance research this paper looks at strategising in higher education. It expands horizons for understanding university strategies in a more nuanced way than hitherto has been done. Deploying systems theory, it shows how different temporalities co-exist in strategies and how their change reflects the university's capacity to meet future contingencies. Extending the current research on strategising, the paper uses the present's past, the present's future, the future's present and the future's future as temporal categories to understand strategies. It shows how strategies evolve from traditional linear planning orientation to a novel potentiality-seeking mode with unique meanings attached to unknown futures. It claims that universities develop such responsive contingency awareness to construct a leeway for their self-governance in the face of unexpected future conditions. This change is characterised by the emergence of a potentialising organisation seeking to turn indeterminant futures into its developmental resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discussing the functions of education Gert Biesta distinguishes qualification, socialisation and subjectification. In subjectification higher education facilitates the evolution of students as distinctive self-determining persons. This paper foregrounds and discusses 'student self-formation', a paradigm of subjectification with fecund potentials for empirical inquiry. Self-formation emphasises reflexive agency, whereby students consciously monitor and develop themselves on an ongoing basis. The paper draws especially on Margaret Archer's discussion of reflexive agency. It argues that the core features of self-formation that are specific to higher education are engagement in disciplinary knowledge, and in activities and relations beyond the classroom that are part of student life. Student self-formation is both a norm to be achieved, with lifelong learning potentials, and a descriptor of existing practices. By its nature self-formation is never complete and its incidence is uneven among students, with some of them scarcely experiencing it. Conditions and potentials for reflexive self-formation vary on the basis of factors including the degree of immersion in higher education, the scope for agentic initiative, personal resources and support, institutional and pedagogic resources and arrangements, and existential challenges (e.g. transitions between countries and cultures) that can trigger accelerated self-reflection and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the extent of the brain drain problem in Mississippi and quantifies its economic impacts on the state. The study begins by defining brain drain and comparing brain drain in Mississippi to other states in the region using two definitions of the term. We find that all states in the study experience gross brain drain, but not all states experience net brain drain. Returning the focus to Mississippi, the study includes an experimental analysis of the potential effects to the Mississippi economy if the state's migration patterns of college-educated individuals were similar to those of other states in the region. This experiment allows us to determine the impact of brain drain on Mississippi's economy in terms of real gross domestic product (GDP), personal income, employment, and population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how students participating in a co-curricular scholarship programme in a large Australian university develop their employability. It seeks to add to recent literature regarding different approaches to graduate employability through examining how participating students' capital acquisition is shaped by and internalised within the structure and culture of the scholarship. The paper also offers an example of how comprehensive and integrated co-curricular scholarship programmes can facilitate graduate employability. It suggests that despite curricular intentions to promote comprehensive and processual approaches to employability, students' employability internalisations are influenced by possessive and positional messages and cultural cues within the scholarship programme. These insights serve as important considerations for higher education institutions seeking to instigate or improve their employability curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid growth of English Medium Instruction (EMI) programmes around the globe, the language goals in such programmes have not been clearly defined, making it difficult to evaluate their success. Accordingly, our paper reports on a study that attempted to identify the language goals, operationalised as the vocabulary expected of learners, by investigating the under-explored area of EMI assessment. We sampled a corpus of 16 sets of examination papers in two subject areas, namely, Biology and Geography, spanning eight years in Hong Kong. The examination papers, analysed for their vocabulary profiles, indicated that students were expected to learn beyond the K3 level (the most frequent 3,000 words in English) and master mid-frequency words (K4−K8) as well as academic words. Our findings suggest that the less frequent words were not often shared by the two subjects. Analysing academic words also enabled us to showcase how some words were common across the two subjects while others were more subject-specific. Pedagogical implications are discussed, highlighting the need for teachers and students to attend to target language goals in EMI, and to consider the subject-specific nature of vocabulary items in EMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the use of translanguaging in the assessment of content subjects in the context of Nepal's higher education. Since its proposition in the 1990s, translanguaging has been receiving much scholarly attention in multilingual educational contexts. In such contexts, individuals' language practices show a shift from the understanding of languages as separate autonomous systems to the recognition of integrated and heteroglossic practices. Drawing on the analysis of relevant policy documents and examinees' answer sheets of formative assessment, and interviews with eight purposively selected teacher educators teaching at the master's level at a university in Nepal, this paper reports that examinees' translanguaging practices in responding to assessment questions exhibit their translanguaging instinct resisting unplanned English-prioritised monolingual policies. It also reveals fluidity and simultaneity in examinees' use of diverse linguistic resources defying demarcated language boundaries as aspired by the institution's English-prioritised policies. The study further reports layered translanguaging exercised by examinees which educators acknowledged as an attempt to enhance efficacy in content communication. Examinees' translanguaging practices and educators' acknowledgment of translanguaged writing indicate collective resistance from the bottom-up countering monoglossic ideologies in assessment systems. This implies consideration of examinees' and educators' roles in promoting translanguaging for future language policy changes to facilitate effective assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to how markers of adulthood linked to education and employment form an influential social narrative and argues that these help to construct teenage motherhood as problematic. Social policies, informed by this narrative, reinforce the idea of a "correct" path through education and into employment from which young mothers deviate and must be realigned to. This paper draws on a sample of former young mothers who had largely progressed into higher education and sheds light on how their pathways were possible and what challenges they encountered. It therefore joins others in challenging common conceptualisations of teenage motherhood as inevitably leading to educational failure. This paper seeks to open a further avenue to this debate however, in that it questions the wisdom of utilising predetermined markers of success to measure the achievement of young mothers. As the accounts discussed here show, a later data collection point enables us to see how "outcomes", but also priorities, change. Furthermore, by highlighting stories of pride and joy outside of markers of adulthood, it also encourages us to reflect on the effects of a normative social narrative which depicts divergence as failure. The paper therefore seeks to strike a note of caution in the ways in which we define success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The salience of education for better life outcomes is well accepted, but people with disabilities continue to be underrepresented in higher education. Building on Weedon's approach to the intersection of impairment with socioeconomic factors, this paper identifies the facilitators and barriers encountered and/or experienced by young people with disabilities along their diverse pathways to and through higher education in Sweden. The data comes from longitudinal ethnographic case studies of persons with ADHD. While the findings show similarities in impairment-specific barriers, such as transition and inadequate support available at university, they make even more visible the existing heterogeneity among people with ADHD and the inadequacy of support structures at higher education institutions. Parents, economic security and individual factors, such as ease of learning and belief in one's own capacity, were found to be strong facilitators. ADHD and socioeconomic disadvantage together magnified vulnerabilities and hurdles faced while aspiring to and accessing higher education. The article concludes by highlighting the urgent need for universities to change entrenched structures that perceive students with disabilities as a homogeneous group and disability as an individual problem, in order to enable participation of all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptual framework of spatial belonging. The aim is to enrich our conceptual understanding of space and belonging in higher education, with a provisional spatial belonging framework for researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on the different ways in which higher education spaces can facilitate and shape belonging and inclusion for students. Understanding spatial influences on student belonging is key to appreciating the nuances and multidimensionality of their experiences, especially for underrepresented students whose belonging at university is often more precarious. Drawing on theories from education, sociology and geography – especially Foucault's (1986. "Of Other Spaces." Diacritics 16 (1): 22–27) heterotopia, Lefebvre's (1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell) spatial production, Massey's (2005. For Space. London: Sage) spatial relations and literature on spatial justice – four dimensions of spatial belonging are proposed as a lens to better recognise the influence of multiple spaces on student belonging. The physical dimension includes the material and visible aspects of space and how that can shape student experiences and belonging, while the digital dimension considers the role of technology, especially virtual learning and hybrid spaces. The relational dimension highlights the importance of social relationships and connections, which transcends physicality and digitality, and likewise, the structural dimension focuses on the wider societal system and how dominant discourses shape the way space is experienced by different students. By examining the physical, digital, relational and structural spaces, the spatial belonging framework provides an innovative conceptual insight into student belonging in higher education. This paper lays the groundwork for future research to examine how multiple spaces intersect and contribute to student belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theorizes time, affect, and politics as entangled by foregrounding the notion of chronopolitics as affective milieus in higher education. In doing so, the analysis emphasizes how time discourses and practices are embodied and affective, sometimes becoming sedimented, while other times functioning as a means of disruption. The paper draws on existing studies in neoliberal academia to argue that changing academics' affective habits created by dominant time discourses and practices requires the disruption of affective milieus in which time is channeled, routed and molded. The paper theorizes the potential of affect to be deployed as a means of disrupting sedimented social and political formations, practices and patterns of time and temporality in higher education and cultivating new affective habits in academia. The paper suggests that understanding time-as-affect in higher education makes an important contribution to existing research and theorizing on how academics are affected by time and temporality norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Australian Higher Education sector, the gendered, racialised, and heteronormative culture of neoliberalism means that for minoritised teachers the university classroom is always a contested, and often hostile, space. Our gendered and racialised bodies become objects under the gaze of our students and the deafening headwinds of post-truth anti-intellectualism render our stories difficult for our students to hear. This paper probes our experiences as minoritised educators who through a decolonial framework, actively challenge deeply entrenched narratives through critical teaching and consider how that translates into student feedback. We employ a collaborative autoethnographic approach to offer an understanding of how Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are used as a tool of disciplinary control in the neoliberalised university. We argue that SETs are racialised and gendered tools of power that can be hostile and biased towards minoritised teachers, and urge reconsideration of their overuse in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In immersive block models students learn over shorter teaching periods and with fewer concurrent units than in typical semester or trimester models. A core aim of many such innovations is to enhance students’ learning outcomes; however, there are few investigations of student satisfaction at scale in immersive block models. This paper reports on an exploratory study of results from an institution-wide student feedback survey administered at an Australian public university that has introduced a 6-week immersive block model across the institution. Two strands of analysis were undertaken. Strand 1 (N = 4,157) compared satisfaction ratings across units delivered in the immersive block model in 2021 with ratings from the trimester model in 2019. Strand 2 (N = 1,925) explored the relative strengths of correlations between individual survey items and overall unit and overall teaching satisfaction in the immersive block model. The research found that overall, five of seven unit satisfaction indicators and all six teaching indicators improved to a statistically significant degree in the immersive block model. While student perceptions of workload appeared to be most susceptible to negative change, the correlation between workload and overall unit satisfaction was relatively weak compared to other unit indicators, suggesting that students have some tolerance for reduced satisfaction with workload. Meanwhile, the data suggest that students’ overall satisfaction with their units in the immersive block model appears most strongly tied to their satisfaction with teaching. Overall satisfaction with teaching appears most strongly associated with academics presenting content in a clear manner while showing concern for students’ learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge exchange (KE) is increasingly important in higher education internationally, yet relatively little attention has been paid to it as a pedagogic opportunity for students. This paper draws on 26 interviews with stakeholders within and outside HE to develop a model of studentled knowledge exchange as a guide for learning through KE. The model includes the following elements: Preconditions, Prior Knowledge, Planning and Place, Pedagogic Context and Product, and offers an analysis of different forms of KE which occur between individuals in a learning triad consisting of student, facilitator and external participant. The research foregrounds a social view of learning where valid knowledge comes from diverse participants in the exchange, including students themselves. Students act as a catalyst for multi-directional KE – a finding which challenges the implied hierarchies evident in much of the literature on this topic. The model is offered as a starting point for developing a pedagogy of KE in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching quality assurance has become a common concern and a common pursuit for institutions of higher learning around the world. This paper takes teaching quality as a governance issue in higher education, as different governance systems entail different approaches to quality assurance. Through a detailed examination of the Chinese system in teaching administration in comparison with the Canadian system, this study aims to provide insights on different approaches to teaching quality assurance in more centralised and decentralised governance structures. Based on the findings of this study, no winner can be declared between centralised and decentralised systems in the area of teaching quality assurance. Instead, the study points to different strengths in each system. With more local autonomy, the decentralised system better respects disciplinary uniqueness and academic freedom in teaching. With more national planning, the centralised system secures a system-wide threshold in teaching quality and an optimal long-term development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentorship may be conceptualised in terms of the form it takes, function it serves or it's learning centred nature which makes research in mentoring to receive attention within different disciplines. This article attempts to understand how a mentoring programme can contribute to enhanced research capacity building in the field of Innovation and Development (I&D) studies in Africa. It does this through a qualitative study of an African-oriented research capacity building network (AfricaLics) that aims at building a critical mass of scholars in I&D studies in the continent of Africa. Drawing on theoretical approaches in higher education that support systems of interaction thinking, the paper finds that more systematic and extensive mentorship, and awareness about different types of mentorship can enhance capacity building in the field of I&D studies. The paper recommends that development of an I&D mentorship programme must consider a mix of both structured and unstructured elements that are aligned to the local context. These context-specific elements are critical to building sustainable research capacity building programmes in academic disciplines that are transdisciplinary in nature such as I&D studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary education has become increasingly prominent in the higher education landscape over the past several decades. However, it is unclear if interdisciplinary learning environments offer students an equitable learning opportunity. This research paper examines the performance of 435 undergraduate students from different disciplinary backgrounds who enrolled in and completed two interdisciplinary project-based courses. The results of this study indicate that different assessment styles in interdisciplinary courses tend to benefit students from certain disciplines while disadvantaging others. This paper goes on to consider this problem from an equity perspective, cautions educators to consider the challenges, and encourages inclusive assessment design to ensure students are presented with equal opportunity in interdisciplinary learning environments. This paper offers a substantive contribution to the field by highlighting a need for more research on inclusive assessments in interdisciplinary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, we explore the opportunities and challenges of using Generative AI (GenAI), in particular, text generators in higher education learning and teaching. As GenAI has become increasingly popular with many staff and students, this special issue provides an overview of the current state of the field and offers insights into future research. This introduction paper consists of four parts. It begins by providing an overview of AI and Generative AI, identifying the gap and framing the special issue relating to the gaps. The second part explores the opportunities and challenges of GenAI in higher education, as identified in the literature. The third part provides an overview of the papers included in the special issue. The final part is the self-reflection of the lead author. The special issue aims to serve as a valuable resource for higher education stakeholders, such as students, practitioners, researchers and managers. We hope this collection will help advance knowledge and future research, encourage innovation and inform evidence-based policy and practices in the field of Generative AI in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we take the "university enrollment expansion" policy implemented by the Chinese government in 1999 as a quasi-natural experiment and use the difference-in-differences method to identify the effect of human capital expansion on firm innovation. Findings suggest that human capital expansion significantly improves firm innovation performance. More innovation is realized by promoting firms' invention patent applications than their design and utility model patent applications. Further analysis highlights the varying impact of human capital expansion on the innovation performance of firms of different types, thus indicating significant heterogeneity. This study enriches the innovation literature on the drivers of firm innovation by identifying the role of human capital while providing new empirical evidence from the perspective of firm innovation to further understand the microeconomic effects of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the tension between professional and liberal education by revisiting The Idea of the University (1852), the seminal mid-nineteenth century treatise of John Henry Newman. In returning to Newman's classic text, we are interested in the significance of his lectures for a contemporary Higher Education increasingly under pressure to be 'useful:' on this understanding, 'useful' denotes an arguably limited and utilitarian sense where the university guarantees its students a well-paying job on graduation. In pressing on this distinction between 'the useful' and 'the useless' – a distinction that continues to plague discourse on the contemporary university – our paper focuses on the experiential and pedagogical aspects of education that find recurring emphasis in Newman's classic work: aspects of place, of community, and of the teacher–student relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sets out a conceptual argument that the choice of teaching method is part of the freedom to teach in higher education. It enters into a dialogue with the views of Stephen Finn in a paper published in Teaching in Higher Education in which he argues that academic freedom should be limited in respect to teaching methods. The concept of pedagogic self-governance is linked to the importance of choice of teaching method and illustrated by reference to the history of the seminar and signature pedagogies. While Finn argues that not developing pedagogical skills is a breach of professional ethics it is contended that a failure to engage in research and enable students to critically evaluate the latest propositional and professional knowledge in a subject represents a much more serious issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University education can provide more than discipline knowledge development. It can also develop lifelong skills such as autonomy, critical reflection, and independent thought. With its concern for the individual and development of the self as well as society, the Capability Approach offers a useful framework for evaluating individual development beyond disciplines. This paper aims to employ the Capability Approach to explore how student-led learning might lead to individual and social development. As there is a focus on courses and curricula, it employs the complementary concept of Pedagogic Rights. It presents findings from a small-scale qualitative research project, which included the perspectives of individuals who had recently completed self-designed, individually-created courses. Findings show that student-led courses align with Capability Approach values, providing a space for individual development and expansion of capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]