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Everyday learner–teacher interactions are a key factor in student engagement and learning. There is thus growing scholarly attention on the relational practices of engaging students as partners (SaP) in higher education. In Chinese universities, there is an emerging literature exploring learner–teacher relationships as a partnership. To advance the global conversation on SaP as it expands in China, we designed an exploratory study to understand how broader context and culture influence the implementation of the learner–teacher pedagogical partnership in Chinese universities. To do so, we drew on interviews with 27 undergraduate students and 17 academics in three Chinese universities discussing learner–teacher interactions and relationships. Using thematic analysis, the study revealed nuanced understandings and complex tensions at play in how students and academics reflected on the collectivist relational orientation of China, the risks of stepping outside of top-down policy-driven mandates, and the external global influences shaping everyday pedagogical interactions. The study is timely given the emerging literature on SaP in China and contributes much needed insight into the role of culture shaping the context of learner–teacher relationships in China. By better surfacing cultural forces, forms of partnership can flourish in China that are culturally situated and responsive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing practice of engaging students as partners (SaP) has been conducted to nurture values-based pedagogical relationships. Yet, SaP is contested with little known about how Chinese students understand their relationships with teachers in a sector shifting toward student-centred approaches. To advance the collective understanding of SaP practices in China, we interviewed 30 postgraduate students who reflected on their learner-teacher relationships as undergraduate and postgraduate students while considering the possibilities of SaP practices. While some SaP practices emerged, students evoked the language of family to describe meaningful interactions with teachers. They raised pragmatic (large student numbers), epistemological (knowledge accumulation before knowledge construction), and cultural (hierarchical construct of power and authority) concerns about the possibilities of pedagogical partnerships. We argue that the willingness of university communities to raise questions about assumed learner-teacher hierarchy, power dynamics and identities will shape how student-centred and SaP practices unfold in Chinese universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to calls for partnership among students and teachers in feedback and assessment, this study explores the question: What do students and teaching staff talk about when they talk together about feedback and assessment? We used reflexive thematic analysis to interpret 15 hours of conversation involving 14 students and 22 staff members as they collaborated to redesign feedback practices in eight courses by co-creating a plan for change. The results revealed that participants largely focused on the challenges of feedback and assessment, such as university policy, lack of time and student disengagement. However, when they dug deeper into challenges within their sphere of control, conversations opened spaces for students to actively participate and contribute their knowledge. Students displayed intellectual candour and expanded notions of what counts as feedback to them, disentangling feedback from assessment to advance continuous feedback practices in supportive classroom environments. We argue that both student and teacher feedback literacy can be developed when teaching staff are willing to listen to students but that partnership processes that build and enhance feedback literacies are neither automatic nor straightforward. Further research to understand the conditions that enable partnership to build staff and student feedback literacy would advance collective knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory approaches are receiving renewed attention in the 'students as partners' (SaP) and 'feedback' discourse communities, respectively. SaP scholars tend to focus on pedagogy (pedagogical partnerships) and curriculum (co-creation). Assessment and feedback, as connective and relational practices that bridge these two domains, receive less empirical and conceptual attention as partnership praxis. Both share commitments to participatory forms of democratic education and critical pedagogy. This conceptual article transgresses artificial boundaries often constructed between discourse communities through bringing into conversation established scholars from both. In doing so, we illuminate two points of intersection: dialogue and trust. First, speaking back to the SaP community, we urge greater recognition of feedback practices as partnership praxis entangled with both pedagogical and curricular praxis. Second, speaking back to the feedback community, we advocate for a foregrounding and richer theorisations of learner-teacher power dynamics in feedback praxis. We conclude by considering the implications for both discourse communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education communities are becoming more diverse and seeking to create more intercultural interaction and culturally responsive pedagogies. One promising approach gaining scholarly attention is engaging students in intercultural partnership practices. We have conducted a scoping review to investigate theorisations and practices of intercultural partnership in the current literature. In doing so, we identified 19 publications that explicitly explored learner-teacher partnership practices with learners and teachers from different cultural-linguistic contexts. Drawing on both descriptive and thematic analyses, we found an emerging scholarly attention to intercultural partnership motivated mainly by a 'what's working' study design with a tendency toward perceptions-based qualitative research methods. Thus, numerous benefits and challenges were identified, most overlapping with the broader partnership literature. However, there was a consistent undercurrent of culturally situated beliefs that shaped and complicated learner-teacher power dynamics. We encourage future research to focus on the process of intercultural partnership that contributes collective understanding about the unique power dynamics in such practices. Drawing on existing theories of translation and intercultural communication, we can develop new insights that advance the intercultural partnership theory-practice nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this invited commentary, we offer three principles to anchor understanding of student voice in university teaching and learning. Encompassing related concepts and practices, the principles we offer support a shift in (1) attitude toward, (2) structures for, and (3) goals of teaching and learning. In our introduction, we provide a short history of the concept of student voice and our reason for using the notion of anchoring to argue for embracing its practice. In the main body of our commentary, we share expanded reflections on what each of the three principles might look like in practice, grounded in examples and selected scholarship. We conclude with an invitation to continued dialogue about this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students as partners (SaP) is gaining attention in higher education (HE) as universities worldwide rethink pedagogical practices through a relationship-rich lens. Many studies have examined partnership practices, conceptions of learner-teacher partnerships and its application in various (mainly anglophone) contexts. However, relatively few studies have explored SaP issues in non-anglophone contexts (e.g., China). In this study, we interviewed 20 lecturers at a Chinese university to understand how they perceived the role of students in teaching and learning. Our reflexive thematic analysis found that many lecturers were open to, and some already practising forms of, partnership practices. But pragmatic, structural and cultural issues caused hesitation, particularly the cultural heritage of Confucian education and global HE competition drivers rewarding research outputs over teaching practices. This study is an initial step in exploring academics' perceptions of SaP in a changing Chinese HE system with a strong policy focus on student-centred approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learner-teacher relationships have a profound impact on teaching and learning quality with many universities focusing on relationship-rich educational experiences. Engaging students as partners (SaP) has emerged as a way of enhancing learner-teacher relationships with research reporting numerous benefits and challenges. In this article, we address a worrisome challenge identified in a recent scoping review that Confucianism is an obstacle to pedagogical partnership in Asian countries, specifically, in China. Acknowledging the many global influences shaping Chinese higher education and the long history documenting the contested interpretations and application of Confucian philosophy, we speak back to the findings of the scoping review by challenging the narrow view expressed about Confucianism. Our aim is to demonstrate that Confucian educational values are not the purported barrier some have suggested through illuminating axiological overlaps between historical Confucian educational values and modern SaP values commonly evoked in the literature. In doing so, we critically reflect on the influence of Confucian educational values in contemporary Chinese education and posit that cultural scripts offer a generative lens to examine culture in partnership practices. Importantly, moving beyond essentialising enables new opportunities for research and practice to arise as partnership praxis translates, evolves, and adapts across and within dynamic cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging students as pedagogical partners aspires to reposition students with more agency within universities as egalitarian learning communities. The growing literature reports numerous beneficial outcomes of such positioning, yet many partnership opportunities are limited to small numbers of selected students in extra-curricular, quality-assurance efforts. Understanding how partnership can reach into the classroom space affords opportunities to expand both practices to more students and theorisations of partnership beyond the extra-curricular realm. Our study investigates how final-year undergraduate students experienced the shift toward partnership in the classroom. Thematic analysis of focus group conversations surfaced four interrelated themes that shared many similarities with existing literature, yet diverged in regards to the central place of conflict students navigated as power dynamics shifted. Conflict manifested as both internal (within individual students) and interpersonal (among students and between students and the teacher). We argue for deeper attention to conflict, including its generative potential, in partnership practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging with students as partners (SaP) in learning and teaching is fundamental about quality learner-teacher relationships. It is a growing and contested arena of pedagogical practice that is dominated by western scholarship. Seeking to expand understanding of partnership approaches, we conducted a scoping review guided by the question: what is known from the current literature about SaP practices and theorisations in Asia? The review identified 18 studies with half published in the last two years and a high frequency of citations to a limited number of western scholars. This signals that partnership in Asia is in its infancy and influenced by western practices. Yet, Asian scholars raised distinct cultural considerations that positioned Confucianism as an obstacle to learner-teacher relationships through partnership praxis. We outline implications to guide future research into student-teacher relationships in Asia that evoke broader interpretations of Confucianism that are seemingly more compatible with partnership praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students as partners (SaP) is gaining momentum as both a practice and as a subject of analytic inquiry. This study draws on interviews to explore how formal, senior leaders responsible for teaching and learning conceptualise and imagine the implementation of SaP. While leaders saw SaP as occurring within a range of activities, the concept was typically discussed in terms of quality assurance activities, seldom conceived outside of a neoliberal discourse, and often at odds with theorising of SaP in the literature. Three, overlapping themes emerged from our analysis: (1) where partnership happens; (2) how partnership happens; and (3) benefits of partnership, which we interpreted through the lens of neoliberal rationalism. The findings have important implications for the compatibility of partnership practices with the neoliberal university and the role that formal leaders can play in shaping SaP practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature on students as partners in learning and teaching offers evidence on which academic developers can draw when supporting, advocating for, or engaging in partnerships. We extend a previous systematic review of the partnership literature by presenting an analysis and discussion of the positive and negative outcomes of partnership, and the inhibitors to partnership. Implications include the importance of academic developers supporting: the relational processes of partnership; institutional or structural change to address resistance; and the potential of partnership to make institutions more equitable and empowering spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging students as partners in the scholarship of learning and teaching (SoTL) is a principle guiding good practice. Enthusiasm for student-faculty partnerships in learning and teaching continues to grow. In this essay, I want to invite readers to reflect with me about concerns of resistance to partnership practices. I interweave stories from my experiences with selected literature that is shifting the conversation about the 'challenge of resistance' in partnership work in learning and teaching. Positioning students as partners work as a values-based practice and in the context of 'scaling-up' partnership programs, I argue that our pre-occupation with resistance is problematic. Instead, we should accept resistance as part of a natural sense-making process that allows us to think together about the complexity of genuine pedagogical partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the perceptions of participants following the first International Summer Institute (SI) on students as partners in higher education, a four-day professional development experience designed to foster student-staff partnerships. Approximately 9 months after the Institute, 10 participants were interviewed to understand their perceptions of student-staff partnership, and what role the SI played in supporting partnership working. We discuss the key themes that emerged from our interviews, and analyse these participant responses in comparison to responses collected during the 2016 SI. In evaluating our data, we consider the general efficacy of the SI and offer ideas for academic developers interested in supporting partnership work more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A body of literature on students as partners (SaP) in higher education has emerged over the last decade that documents, shares, and evaluates SaP approaches. As is typical in emerging fields of inquiry, scholars differ regarding how they see the relationship between the developments in SaP practices and the theoretical explanations that guide, illuminate, and situate such practices. In this article we explore the relationship between theory and practice in SaP work through an analysis of interpretive framing employed in scholarship of SaP in teaching and learning in higher education. Through a conceptual review of selected publications, we describe three ways of framing partnership that represent distinct but related analytical approaches: building on concepts; drawing on constructs; and imagining through metaphors. We both affirm the expansive and creative theorising in scholarship of SaP in university teaching and learning and encourage further deliberate use and thoughtful development of interpretive framings that take seriously the disruptive ethos and messy human relational processes of partnership. We argue that these developmental processes move us toward formulating theories of partnership praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]