Search

What role does academic development have to play in responding to radical cultural shifts in the global landscape? Whose voices and identities are contributing to institutional change? This reflective essay encompasses the perspectives of the four international panellists in the opening plenary of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) 2018 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA – Torgny Roxå on ideologies; Chng Huang Hoon on agency and empowerment; Joy Mighty on voices and identities; and Mary Deane Sorcinelli on evidence and outcomes. These perspectives set the stage for the conference, and, brought together in this paper now, they address key conference themes, offer coordinates for reflection, and pose further questions about our profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to sort out the issues triggered by the crisis in the classrooms. The authors offers details on the complex nature of Singapore as a dynamic postcolonial site, with its intricate play of multi-ethnic and multi-religious contentions. They also address the level of feminist and racial consciousness in the feminism classroom that they may be adherent of larger macro-societal attitudes towards gender and race.

Using feminist pedagogy and postcolonial theory, the authors of this article focus on the (re)presentation of Asian sexualities in an Asian classroom through a feminist reading of the short prose fiction "Bandong," by Suchen Christine Lim. Constantly aware that representations of sexualities are closely linked to power, the authors question how academic knowledge can seek to (re)present Asian sexualities when that knowledge itself is deeply imbricated in power structures that empower global concepts of sexualities. The argument advanced in this article draws attention to essentialistic gender representations that continue to this day of Asian femininities and masculinities. For instance, the authors challenge the ways in which the trope of the subjugated Asian woman and man works in predictable ways to disempower Asian women and men far removed from such stereotypical locations. Critiquing dominant representations of Asian sexualities in the classroom involves teaching students to take ownership of their own reading and re-reading of texts. In addition, the article delves into how the authors attempt to make the academic package relevant to their students situated in the local Singaporean context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]