Penny Jane Burke

The landscape of higher education has undergone change and transformation in recent years, partly as a result of diversification and massification. However, persistent patterns of under-representation continue to perplex policy-makers and practitioners, raising questions about current strategies, policies and approaches to widening participation. Presenting a comprehensive review and critique of contemporary widening participation policy and practice, Penny Jane Burke interrogates the underpinning assumptions, values and perspectives shaping current concepts and understandings of widening participation. She draws on a range of perspectives within the field of the sociology of education – including feminist post-structuralism, critical pedagogy and policy sociology – to examine the ways in which wider societal inequalities and misrecognitions, which are related to difference and diversity, present particular challenges for the project to widen participation in higher education. In particular, the book: focuses on the themes of difference and diversity to shed light on the operations of inequalities and the politics of access and participation both in terms of national and institutional policy and at the level of student and practitioner experience. draws on the insights of the sociology of education to consider not only the patterns of under-representation in higher education but also the politics of mis-representation, critiquing key discourses of widening participation. interrogates assumptions behind WP policy and practice, including assumptions about education being an unassailable good provides an analysis of the accounts and perspectives of students, practitioners and policy-makers through in-depth interviews, observations and reflective journal entries. offers insights for future developments in the policy, practice and strategies for widening participation The book will be of great use to all those working in and researching Higher Education.

Beyond widening participation

The Right to Higher Education

Gill Crozier

Lauren Ila Misiaszek

Higher education is in a current state of flux and uncertainty, with profound changes being shaped largely by the imperatives of global neoliberalism. Changing Pedagogical Spaces in Higher Education forms a unique addition to the literature and includes significant practical pointers in developing pedagogical strategies, interventions and practices that seek to address the complexities of identity formations, difference, inequality and misrecognition. Drawing on research studies based across California, England, Italy, Portugal and Spain, this book analyses complex pedagogical re/formations across competing discourses of gender, diversity, equity, global neoliberalism and transformation, and aims: to critique and reconceptualise widening participation practices in higher education to consider the complex intersections between difference, equity, global neoliberalism and transformation to analyse the intersections of identity formations, social inequalities and pedagogical practices to contribute to broader widening participation policy agendas to develop an analysis of gendered experiences, intersected by race and class, of higher education practices and relations. Changing Pedagogical Spaces in Higher Education will speak to those concerned with how theory relates to everyday practices and development of teaching in higher education and those who are interested in theorising about pedagogies, identities and inequalities in higher education. Engaging readers in a dialogue of the relationship between theory and practice, this thought-provoking and challenging text will be of particular interest to researchers, academic developers and policy-makers in the field of higher education studies.

Diversity, inequalities and misrecognition

Changing Pedagogical Spaces in Higher Education

Nancy S. Niemi

Rosalind Gill

Julia Coffey

Marie-Pierre Moreau

Akane Kanai

What does it mean to be pedagogical in a post-truth landscape? How might feminist thought and action work to intervene in this environment? Gender in an Era of Post-truth Populism draws together leading feminist scholars of gender and education to explore the current significance of the rise of populist policies and discourses and the challenges it poses to the hard-won battles regarding the rights of women, immigrants, and minorities. Offering the first detailed feminist intervention in this space, the collection explores the significance of populism for feminist pedagogies and practices in relation to gender and education. This exploration has significance for broader and urgent questions of our times regarding knowledge, authority, truth, power and harm and considers the potential for feminist interventions in relation to pedagogies and activisms to speak back and disrupt populist agendas.

Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies

Gender in an Era of Post-truth Populism

Suellen Shay

Thinking about teaching in educational terms has become increasingly difficult because of the conceptions of higher education that predominate in both policy and public debate. Framing the benefits of higher education simply as an economic good poses particular difficulties for making educational sense of teaching. Moreover, the assumptions about social mobility, usefulness, and the economic advantages of higher education, upon which these conceptions are based, can no longer be taken for granted. The chapters in this book all wrestle with understandings of education and teaching experiences in changing global, national, and institutional contexts. They explore questions of difference and privilege, the social transformation of teaching through transforming teachers, contestations of global citizenship and interculturality, learning and sensibilities of self-in-the-world, the relationship between programme content and student decision-making, divergent conceptions of learning in international education, and subject-centred approaches to embodied teaching. The book considers the value of disciplinary tools of analysis in addressing contextual challenges in developing societies, connections between pedagogies, autonomy and intercultural classrooms, and ways of countering the marketization of higher education through online teaching communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education.

Making Sense of Teaching in Difficult Times

Penny Jane Burke

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