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This paper will re-visit the origins and early use in South African curriculum writing of the concept of 'coherence'; it will go on to show how Suellen Shay and her colleagues fleshed out the concept and created an instrument for its empirical analysis; it will then step back and examine the contribution and some problems that were brought to light; examine briefly how Shay's later work continued to wrestle with the notion of 'practice', particularly in light of curricula that were judged to display conceptual coherence; and will suggest one possible solution in the seminal paper by Bernstein (2000). Finally, the paper will reflect on two implicit definitions of 'curriculum', a 'strict' one and an 'extended' one and suggest why they should be distinguished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to a question posed by [Shay, Suellen. 2012. "Educational Development as a Field: Are We There Yet?" Higher Education Research and Development 31 (3): 311–323. doii:10.1080/07294360.2011.631520] about the status of knowledge building in the field of Educational Development. In her paper, Shay critiques knowledge produced in the field arguing that it is 'codified practice' [Gamble, Jeanne. 2001. "Modelling the Invisible: The Pedagogy of Craft Apprenticeship." Studies in Continuing Education 23 (2): 185–200. doii:10.1080/01580370120101957; Gamble, Jeanne. 2004. "Retrieving the General from the Particular: The Structure of Craft Knowledge." In Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein, edited by J. Muller, B. Davies, and A. Morais, 189–203. Abingdon: Routledge; Gamble, Jeanne. 2006. "Theory and Practice in the Vocational Curriculum." In Knowledge, Curriculum and Qualifications in South African Further Education, edited by M. Young and J. Gamble, 87–103. Pretoria: HSRC Press] rather than applied theory which could succeed in reconceptualising problems rather than simply trying to address them. This paper draws on a review of research produced in the field in recent years in South Africa to argue that, although some work does result in the reconceptualision of problems the higher education, it is limited in that (i) it has been produced by a relatively small group of practitioners located at a few universities and (ii) draws on theory developed in the Global North. The paper then proceeds to offer some tentative suggestions for the way future work aimed at knowledge building could proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the pervasive impact of US imperialism, it is often ignored in US schools and teacher preparation programs. This paper introduces the concept of imperial evasion, which refers to the process of ignoring and denying imperialism and its effects. The authors argue that it is imperative that educators work to interrogate imperialist ideologies through curricula, and prepare future educators to disrupt such ideologies, policies, and practices in schools. Using a collaborative scholarly personal narrative approach, the authors discuss their experiences and approach to designing and teaching a course on migration and education at a US university. Ultimately, this paper responds to calls to disrupt imperial ideologies in education by (1) providing a framework for identifying and naming imperial evasion and how it operates through schooling; and (2) describing and reflecting on curricular and pedagogical approaches to disrupting such evasions in a teacher education course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suellen Shay's work on higher education curricula foregrounds the importance of professional curricula which face inwards to disciplines and outwards to practice. This paper builds on her framing of professional curricula, distinctive in the differentiated knowledge base and the social relations which legitimate them. I extend Shay's work deeper into the internal governance structures underpinning curriculum decisions in engineering. Two dimensions of governance are explored: central control from the Faculty of Engineering over its departments; and the authority of individuals in department-level curriculum and accreditation roles over their colleagues. The empirical focus is on curricula reform towards 'graduate attributes' in engineering education, through a comparative study of eight universities in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Singapore, and Australia. The findings show that research-intensive universities are shielded from the full implications of accreditation requirements, while teaching-intensive universities are more likely to invest in developing the governance processes and systems demanded by professional bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Copyright of Teaching in Higher Education 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.)

This paper provides an Activity Theory analysis of two online student-driven interactive learning activities to interrogate assumptions that such groups can effectively learn in the absence of the teacher. Such an analysis conceptualises learning tasks as constructed objects that drive pedagogical activity. The analysis shows a disconnect between the codified curriculum plan and its actual enactment, and a misalignment of interpretations of the object by different participants in the activity. We name this "pedagogical distance". We argue that a teaching presence is important to guide both student and tutor interpretations of the learning task, and offer suggestions for decreasing pedagogical distance.

Through an evaluation of an institution-wide curriculum change process, this paper analyses how strategic policy is variously enacted in departmental communities. Linguistic ethnography of public, institutional and internal policy documents illuminates departments' engagement with the change process. With curriculum change positioned as a disorienting dilemma, transformational learning theory provides a lens to analyse the departments' alignment with the intention of the curriculum change policy. The paper explores the extent to which departments transformed from a disciplinary content-based and high-stakes examination approach to the curriculum to incorporating broader institutional aims and active learning theories into disciplinary language, pedagogy and practices. Three stages of engagement are identified through an evaluation rubric, offering a framework to assess curriculum change initiatives. Implications for educational leaders include the need to integrate institutional strategy with disciplinary experts and expertise and the importance of language adoption as a precursor to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institution-wide curriculum change is a costly, time-intensive and politically fraught undertaking. It is a challenge identifying who has responsibility for the curriculum and who is empowered to change it. The unbundling of the traditional tri-partite academic role of teaching, research and service leaves a gap of who in those communities decides what features in the curriculum. Using discourse analysis of curriculum change documentation, this paper analyses the experience of departments in a research-intensive institution undergoing a holistic, large-scale curriculum review. Departments engaged to varying degrees, with associated integration of educational and disciplinary perspectives. Landscapes of practice are used to explore different communities within departments coming together, or not, in the process. The acknowledgement and appreciation of educational expertise alongside disciplinary research-based knowledge is highlighted as a marker for successful adoption of the curriculum review intentions. This paper contributes to the underdeveloped field of curriculum change in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context of this paper is a strategy at a large Australian university that involves embedding a new graduate quality 'cultural competence' and lifting the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, experiences and histories. It has been argued that the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges is essential for the decolonisation of our higher education institutions. Decolonisation involves removing the barriers that have silenced non-Western voices in our 'multi-cultural' higher education system and combatting the epistemic injustices of a system dominated by Western thought. In this paper, we suggest that our university's suite of graduate qualities can provide a locus for work at the cultural interface between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. While these qualities may be firmly embedded within Western ways of knowing, being and doing, they can nonetheless be used to interrogate and revisit Western disciplinary knowledge construction and pedagogy so as to help bring about institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how the curriculum is experienced across two higher education institutions to probe students' understandings of epistemic access in the context of decolonisation debates. Three particular aspects of student experience of the decolonised curriculum and pedagogy are scrutinised. First, we look at the kind of sociality encouraged in the pedagogic encounter. Since a core function of education is social and cultural formation, a question arises as to what kind of sociality is possible between students and lecturers in a decolonised education space, including in the context of COVID-19. Second, we explore patterns of participation including, academic activities and support provided. Third, we investigate the knowledge forms and canon to which students are exposed in their respective programmes, with consideration of language issues. Finally, we examine the decolonisation of the curriculum in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the intellectual threads to which Suellen Shay contributed was describing the curriculum structure of professional and vocational education. This work was part of the Bernsteinian call for a return to knowledge in the curriculum. But education for vocations and professions, termed 'regions', remains a vexing problem. Turning to LCT (Semantics), Shay attempted to elevate the knowledge produced in practice to that of theoretical knowledge. Although laying the foundations she did not fully capture the complex conceptual nature of knowledge of the contextual detail central to practice. Using empirical data from an engineering curriculum, this paper develops an alternative conceptualisation of 'practical knowledge' in terms of knowledge of the contextual details of professional problems. Professions recruit theory to solve contextually emergent problems, suggesting knowledge of the material detail is the origin of reasoning, Symbolic relations do function to develop reasoning in professional problems, but material relations dictate which knowledge is relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What knowledge matters in health professions education is an issue of debate in the literature, foregrounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and informed by calls for students who are not only clinically competent, but also critically conscious of global health inequity. Building on this work, this paper explores what kinds of knowledge are legitimated in two health science programmes at a South African university. Thirty-four health professions teachers participated in the study. Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) Specialisation was used as an analytical framework, with Epistemic and Social Relations as coding categories. Results revealed the dominance of a knowledge code, with the social dispositions and attributes relating to the development of critical consciousness often not considered knowledge at all. Our contention is that both knowledge and social dispositions are equally important in the development of future healthcare professionals and that collaborative curriculum conversations are needed to enable them being interwoven throughout curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comprises findings from three parallel case studies within the broad framework of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). These provide results from classroom-based action research conducted over two years working with Semantics, Specialisation and axiological cosmologies from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Each author shares how one or both of these LCT dimensions have guided their practice in the teaching of English for academic writing and specifically, the development of their students' critical dispositions by teaching them how to apply lenses to analyse texts so that they may make informed judgements. Data from classroom interventions and student writing are provided. It is hoped that this paper elicits further discussion in the growing field of applying LCT and may draw attention to the role of the EAP teacher as expert in linguistics and the need to focus more on knowledge in EAP writing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent feedback literature suggests that the development of student feedback literacy has potential to address problems in current feedback practice. Students' feedback literacy involves developing the capacity to make the most of feedback opportunities by active involvement in feedback processes. How the development of student feedback literacy can be embedded within the undergraduate curriculum has not yet been discussed in any depth. This conceptual paper fills that gap by elaborating three key mechanisms for embedding feedback literacy within the curriculum: eliciting, processing and enacting. These are illustrated through enhanced variations of four existing practices: feedback requests, self-assessment, peer review, and curated e-portfolios. The discussion summarizes the key implications for practice and identifies the need for further empirical work investigating how students elicit, process and enact feedback in situ, and longitudinal research exploring the impact of curriculum design on the development of student feedback literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies highlight positive outcomes from curriculum co-creation including its transformational potential for students. In this paper, we explore how curriculum co-creation transforms students, drawing on Johansson and Felten's (2014. Transforming Students: Fulfilling the Promise of Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press) theoretical framework including four factors of student transformation: (1) disruption of previous ways of working, (2) reflection on experiences, (3) new forms of action, and (4) integration of new perspectives and ways of working. We present our analysis of student and staff experiences of actively engaging in curriculum co-creation at five Scottish universities to understand the ways in which students are transformed through this experience. Our findings focus on four themes of student transformation in curriculum co-creation: developing positive relationships and community; engagement and enjoyment; taking risks and overcoming challenges; and academic achievement and retention. We conclude that the risks and challenges inherent in curriculum co-creation may in fact be exactly those conditions conducive to student transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can universities ensure that strategic aims to integrate research and teaching through engaging students in research-based experiences be effectively realised within institutions? This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study exploring academics’ perceptions of the challenges and barriers to implementing undergraduate research. Academics were asked about perceived constraints and enablements, how they defined undergraduate research, the forms of undergraduate research used, and they were encouraged to provide examples. Perceived constraints included particular institutional policies and structures, academics’ mindsets and lack of skills and questions of time and money. It was found that different definitions of undergraduate research lead to different practices and varying opportunities for further development. This paper presents different forms of engagement in undergraduate research allied to these different definitions and it draws on interviewees’ ideas about what has been enabling in their context to suggest possible strategies for institutions to move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Universities Australia's Indigenous Strategy recommended a sector-wide approach to 'closing the gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, universities have grappled with how to do this. Resisting mainstream approaches to curriculum development that eschew any kind of relational accountability (Wilson, Shawn. 2008. Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Manitoba: Fernwood Publishing) requires entering difficult relations of power and occupying space to transform the act of curriculum development itself. This paper is the second in a series understanding Jindaola, a programme led by a Local Aboriginal Knowledge Holder within one Australian university. It 'hacks' the curriculum development space with staff through Aboriginal way towards Curriculum Reconciliation, building knowledge-based relationships between disciplinary and relevant Aboriginal Knowledge. We deliberately and controversially enact this type of relationship, by temporarily bringing the Foucauldian lens of 'heterotopia', and interview data from 30 participants, to describe how Jindaola usurps the neocolonial remit to embed Indigenous Knowledge, and creates and holds a counter-hegemonic space to decolonise curriculum development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that powerful regional knowledge is necessary and possible and that there are historical precedents supporting these claims. Regional knowledge is being used in a double sense: the first Bernsteinian, the second in relation to knowledge generated outside the academy. Both are important if the debate is not to be confined solely to the global north and if the curriculum is to be responsive to geo-political realities. In order to think critically about access to higher education, we need to consider the sorts of knowledge, engagement, and opportunities that are open to newer actors. This includes recognising the contextual nature of professional practice and also that social movements beyond the academy can and do challenge academic knowledge. The paper concludes that many of issues addressed are not capable of theoretical resolution alone and that we need more empirical work to inform curriculum change and renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of internationalisation and globalisation, neoliberal agendas have now become important aspects of many institutional and national governments’ higher education policy. A major aspect of these neoliberal agendas is their impact on the curriculum. This paper critically examines the impact of neoliberal agendas on curriculum through a postcolonial and decolonising lens, drawing on research conducted in the African context to illuminate the theoretical analysis presented. Drawing on 48 semi-structured interviews and documentary analyses across three public universities in Ghana, we examine the relationship between neoliberal agendas, neo-colonialism and curriculum imperatives in African higher education. The analysis illuminates the ways that hegemonic discourses connected to neoliberal agendas re-privilege Western-oriented values and perspectives and impact the curriculum changes in African higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to explore how academics can become agents of meaningful educational change and social cohesion, by implementing a Pedagogy of Compassion. The education triad comprises the teacher, the learner and the content (curriculum), which unfolds within historical, political, social and educational contexts. Changing one aspect of this triad – the curriculum- without due consideration to the others, will not effect the desired change. In the context of the university, the demographics of the learner has radically changed and a massive drive to decolonise the curriculum has been initiated, but little if any attention has been given to academics who deliver the curriculum. I argue that the Achilles' heel in the decolonisation of the curriculum project of South African universities is the academic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand for English-taught courses (ETCs) is growing exponentially in non-English speaking universities. These courses require new teaching competences of lecturers, most obviously English language proficiency and intercultural skills. Given the high workloads academics are currently burdened with, it can be expected that this form of teaching is presenting them with a considerable challenge. Despite this, little is known about their ETC teaching experiences. This study addressed this issue by examining and comparing beginning and experienced ETC lecturers' perspectives on their practices. The study was conducted at a university in Taiwan. Ten academics were interviewed in-depth, some two to three times over a two-year period. The study found the two groups' experiences were polar opposites. This paper argues an awareness of English as a lingua franca accompanied by student-centered teacher concerns led to the senior cohort's positive ETC teaching experiences, while a lack thereof gave rise to the beginning lecturers' unfavorable experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the current demands and trends within education, the disciplines as one of the core long-standing organizing structures within knowledge production and transmission are questioning and shifting what and how they teach. Universities are increasingly offering interdisciplinary subjects and programmes as an alternative to or alongside disciplinary subjects. This paper investigates the underlying themes and principles that inform curriculum debate around the value of the disciplines and interdisciplinarity in Australia when compared to the views and practices of academics. A focus on the knowledge that is included in discipline-based and interdisciplinary curricula reveals interdisciplinary knowledge to be more weakly classified and framed than discipline-based knowledge. This has consequences for the depth of interdisciplinary knowledge and requires the consideration of the structure and place of interdisciplinary curricula in university education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that curriculum decision-making in the South African University of Technology (UoT) environment is affected not only by industry and disciplinary demands, but also by socio-structural features and ideologies particular to this educational sector. It supports the view that recontextualisation processes are subject to multiple socio-epistemic factors. The theoretical concept of regulative discourse is used to understand sectoral influences that direct recontextualisation rules. Two vignettes, taken from graphic design and Film Production courses at a UoT are drawn upon to illustrate recontextualisation processes. Curriculum and assessment practices in these courses ensure that industry texts and practices dominate the assessment regime, while reductionist and decontextualised approaches to academic writing are privileged. The argument advanced here has implications for practitioners seeking to ensure that vocational education students gain meaningful opportunities to actively participate and progress in both their fields of practice and in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was motivated by student protests at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where the Rhodes Must Fall collective called for the ‘decolonisation’ of the university’s curriculum. I deliberately adopt a ‘decolonial gaze’ to re-describe the structural and cultural conditioning of the post-colonial university and the contradictions it sets up for black students. Using Archer’s morphogenetic cycle and Bernsteins’s pedagogic device I tease out what contestation for control of the curriculum entails, with a particular focus on the Humanities and Social Sciences. I identify three groups of students for whom the situational logic of the post-colonial university offers very different opportunities for agential development and therefore academic success. At the level of pedagogy, I suggest there may be a ‘collective hermeneutic gap’ between some academics and their students. Finally the paper makes some suggestions for what curriculum reform in a post-colonial Humanities and Social Sciences might involve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic writing is challenging, particularly for new undergraduates who can struggle to know what is expected of them. Research into Academic Literacies often presents academic literacy practices as a barrier to the academy, excluding those not familiar with and those not able to participate in those practices and positioning them permanently on the periphery of the academic community. In seeking to explore how curricula should be designed to counter exclusion, this paper brings three theoretical frameworks together: Academic Literacies; Communities of Practice; and Bernstein's conceptualisation of the classification and framing of knowledge. Together, they provide a multi-layered understanding of how students are positioned by academic literacy practices: Academic Literacies illuminates the ‘problem’; Communities of Practice provides an analytical perspective on the process of exclusion; and Bernstein's work offers pedagogical insights into how academic literacy practices can be reimagined as a bridge, rather than as a barrier, to the academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that knowledge is not a passive product of learning that can be possessed, but rather that it represents an active engagement with ideas, arguments and the world in which they reside. This engagement requires a state of 'knowing' - a complex, integrative, reciprocal process that unites the knower with the to-be-known. Exploring the notion of knowledge, this paper considers the roles of truth and belief in knowledge production, the relationship between knowledge and the disciplines, and knowledge as a social and cultural product. These ideas are contextualized in higher education practice with an example of a course designed to help science and engineering students develop criticality and a sense of 'knowing' about the world. The students are challenged to consider what it requires to turn facts and information into knowledge, and to unite their knowing with their own personal experiences and ideas about the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With equal access requirements and increasing rates of enrolment of students with disabilities in higher education, universities must find appropriate and efficient ways to create accessible materials which benefit and support all students. In response to cuts to disability funding, issues relating to the provision of an inclusive curriculum are now dominating institutional policy and educational discourses. This paper reports on a trans-Atlantic project which utilised student employees to convert and develop inclusive learning materials for their peers, with the expressed purpose of piloting a sustainable intervention method generalisable to meeting similar needs of diverse universities for inclusive material provision and a future workforce aware of disability issues and accommodations. Qualitative in-depth interviews with ten students (eight UK and two US) find that involving student employees in the delivery of inclusive materials improves partnerships and attitudes around disability and accessibility measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a qualitative inquiry on teaching a British undergraduate management programme to Chinese students in China. The research objectives were to develop a deeper understanding of challenges students face in their academic learning within an English speaking and study environment, and to enhance organisational learning through developing practical pedagogical techniques to improve classroom interactions. A longitudinal participatory action research strategy was employed. The subjects were second and third year undergraduate students who were studying for dual-degrees in international tourism management at a Sino-Foreign educational institute. The inquiry found that various instructional techniques could help the students engage with fellow students and the lecturer in the classroom setting. We conclude that, in addition to linguistic factors, normative values of education in Chinese culture ought to be appreciated so that Chinese students’ learning needs can be better served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on discussing the possibilities and complexities of practical efforts for decolonising higher education. Topics include range of decolonising collectives, networks, and groups based in specific institutions having critiqued institutional cultures, curricula, and pedagogic practices; and different dimensions such as theoretical development, national policy, institutional policy and culture, an academic discipline.

The idea of threshold concepts (TC) has been well received across the higher education community. However the concept’s framework is still evolving and the literature uses the framework in different ways. Just over a decade since the idea first captured interest, it is opportune to explore the nature of that discourse, and the kinds of enquiry undertaken to date. This article reports on a qualitative synthesis that analyses published research on TC in health sciences. It provides a fresh perspective on the literature to identify key themes.Inducting students into complex practices;beyond conceptsanddeveloping students’ agency, are the three themes to arise from our findings. These themes offer insights on the ways TC have been used to develop scholarly curriculum, teaching and learning practices. They not only reflect the concerns of the community, but represent a set of empirically based principles for curriculum and course design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the massification of higher education in a knowledge-driven economy, Western universities have struggled to keep pace with the cultural, linguistic, educational and economic diversity of university students and the complex realities of their lifeworlds. This has generated systemic inequities for diverse or ‘non-traditional’ students, and left academics with pedagogic uncertainty. This paper reports on action research that examined curricular and pedagogic practices that made elite academic codes explicit, and utilised students’Funds of Knowledgeas assets for disciplinary learning, in an Australian university. The action research confirmed the potential of creating bridges between the cultural practices and literacies of diverse students and the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge, facilitating their negotiation of multiple literacies and the successful participation of all students. Institutional arrangements – governed by economic, cultural and socio-political conditions – that enabled and constrained these potentials were highlighted, suggesting areas for negotiation for the pedagogies’ ongoing and wider use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses Bernstein's sociology of knowledge and studies of professional knowledge and expertise to identify how knowledge value is constituted in higher education curricula. It is argued that different knowledge structures and forms of disciplinary community influence how curricula are determined, and lead to distinctive types of knowledge value that reflect curriculum purpose. Three models of curriculum construction are presented to distinguish between the constitution of value in the curricula of (i) pure disciplines, (ii) ‘stronger’ professional disciplines and (iii) ‘weaker’ occupational disciplines. These illustrate how processes of knowledge selection and transformation, and the dynamics of disciplinary and professional communities, can lead to the strengthening or undermining of knowledge value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For students entering a profession with a strong vocational focus, the development of professional identity and attributes are important components of successful professional practice. Familiarity with the norms and culture of a specific profession are not often addressed within normal curricula contexts of undergraduate degrees. At Griffith University, undergraduates within an aviation degree work together in a student led community of practice (CoP) to develop their professional identity along with a broader understanding of the aviation industry. This paper examines how Mentoring Aviators Through Educational Support (MATES) CoP provides the opportunity to engage with other students to develop professional competence through meaningful practice. It also examines how the MATES CoP fosters the student's sense of professional identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For efficient and effective learning, intensive-mode programs have increasingly focused on threshold concepts – transformative, often-troublesome, moments in learning that represent the development of key knowledge. Threshold concept theory has support in the context of content-based, disciplinary domains, but questions remain about its applicability to curricula that have broader aims. This study investigated the 'fit' of threshold concept theory to participants, many of them previously marginalized, in an intensive Widening Participation (WP) program at a regional university in Australia. Thematic analysis of data from focus groups, comprised of students and teachers respectively, revealed that participants perceived not only the development of key conceptual knowledge as integral to learning, but that they also recognized that acculturation, metacognition, and affective attributes were important for success. This finding suggests that a narrow focus on academic knowledge – (both content- and skills-related) – is inadequate in programs that aim to include previously marginalized students in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities value the provision of opportunities for students to undertake international mobility experiences. Contemporaneously, they often highlight their commitment to social justice through international experiences, though it is not always clear how their educational activities fulfil this commitment. There has been little focus to date on the intersection of student mobility and the desire to include socially just pedagogy into university curricula. Drawing on narratives from semi-structured interviews with academics and professional staff, we explore the utilisation of study abroad within criminology. We argue that student mobility experiences have the potential to be socially just pedagogy through increasing access to new forms of education for a broad range of students. In turn, this positions mobility as a pedagogy for social justice by providing experiential learning opportunities that encourage critical engagement of students and increase their capabilities to act on social justice when in their home country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teaching in Higher Education 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 increasingly complex socio-technical and economic challenges of our time place considerable pressure on engineering programmes. To ensure that graduates are well-prepared to address these challenges requires curriculum developers to select the appropriate knowledge for the engineering programme. A number of key theorists, notably from the sociology of education, have contributed to conceptualising forms of knowledge in different curricula, but the nature of practical knowledge in qualifications such as the engineering technician diploma has not adequately been theorised. Following Shay, we argue for the specialist value of practical knowledge in technical engineering curricula. Our purpose is to provide a more robust conceptualisation of practical knowledge that recognises its complexity and value. We argue that prioritising theoretical, abstract knowledge over practical knowledge has impoverished technical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning and teaching in the university sector is at an impasse. Almost every university one surveys seeks to produce graduates who are adaptive, creative, curious, and entrepreneurial. But the learning and teaching quality assurance frameworks upon which universities rely to prepare such graduates are comprised of rigidly prescriptive norms, wideranging managerial oversight, and time-consuming bureaucratic processes. The learning outcome and the rubric stand out as the two most prevalent technologies deployed in such systems. Much the same could be said about a comparison between the openness of transdisciplinarity and the relatively closed system of disciplinary learning and teaching. In an effort to move beyond such dilemmas, the learning and teaching model of the knowledge ecology can restore to the classroom the individuality and spontaneity that has gone missing while it can also prepare students for the demands and challenges of the precarious world they will enter upon graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curricula do not fall onto the page fully formed, but are built around a series of choices made by educators. The curriculum establishes which knowledge is considered valid and which is not; the works of women and people of colour are typically underrepresented within curricula, and the issues affecting these groups are frequently neglected. This article examines three groups seeking to change this within higher education (Rhodes Must Fall, Why is My Curriculum White?, and Women Also Know Stuff) asking three questions: how can they be characterised? How do they operate? Why are they important? Drawing upon, and expanding, the work of Paolo Freire, this article argues that these groups utilise feminist principles and methods to demand a Pedagogy of the Oppressed. A feminist reading of the theory of representation, borrowed from analyses of legislative politics, helps us understand why higher education curricula should be more representative of society, allowing practitioners to advocate for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, based on case study analyses of two interdisciplinary programmes in a research-intensive university in the UK, focuses on the challenges involved in designing, coordinating, and leading interdisciplinary postgraduate curricula, including workload, student heterogeneity, and difficulties in achieving coherence. Solutions and approaches developed within these case study programmes are also highlighted. This study raises awareness of the complex nature of interdisciplinary curricula so that it may help academics proactively develop better strategies and approaches to address common challenges. It also synthesises disparate literature into a framework for investigating curricular coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In higher education, despite the emphasis on student-centred pedagogical approaches, undergraduate research methods pedagogy remains surprisingly teacher-directed. Consequently, it may lead to research methods students assuming that becoming a researcher involves gathering information rather than it being a continuous developmental process. To combat this idea, a reflective student-centred pedagogical approach is evaluated for encouraging students’ development as researchers. In this study, undergraduate research methods students piloted a research method and produced a reflective essay of their research experience. Qualitative analysis of the students’ reflective essay demonstrated that students showed an awareness of both their research skills such as choosing an appropriate research instrument and their researcher identity such as the metacognition of their research competence. Pedagogical approaches that encourage ‘reflection on action’ in the research curriculum can, therefore, help students to articulate their researcher identity and build their research skills confidence and should be actively promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research identifies the importance of feminist knowledge for improving gender equity, economic prosperity and social justice for all. However, there are difficulties in embedding feminist knowledge in higher education curricula. Across England, undergraduate sociology is a key site for acquiring feminist knowledge. In a study of four English sociology departments, Basil Bernstein's theoretical concepts and Madeleine Arnot's notion of gender codes frame an analysis indicating that sociology curricula in which feminist knowledge is strongly classified in separate modules is associated with more women being personally transformed. Men's engagement with feminist knowledge is low and it does not become more transformative when knowledge is strongly classified. Curriculum, pedagogy and gender codes are all possible contributors to these different relationships with feminist knowledge across the sample of 98 students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research ethics in education is a challenging topic to teach and to learn. As the staff and student body in UK higher education and elsewhere diversifies, the challenges increase as shared reference points diminish. My teaching reflections focus on a key tension explored in this article: how the imperative of internationalising the curriculum conflicts with hegemonic codes of conduct regarding research ethics that seem resistant to change. The framework of threshold concepts is applied to the teaching and learning of research ethics in education not, as is usual, to identify such concepts, but to draw attention to the critical role of the intersection between learner and curriculum and how institutional expectations need to be re-appraised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While achieving research independence by becoming a principal investigator (PI) is a key aspiration for many postdocs, little is known of the trajectory from PhD graduation to first PI grant. This interview-based study examined how 16 PIs in science, technology engineering, mathematics or medicine, in the UK and continental Europe, prepared for and dealt with this career transition. Individuals demonstrated commitment to lengthy periods of postdoctoral work in a range of institutions (often involving international mobility) to achieve PI-status. Their emotionally laden journeys required resilience and self-belief, since getting a grant was conceived as partly luck. Once individuals had their grant they faced new challenges that distanced them from actively researching. Still, individuals navigated their intentions in a sustained fashion to create a distinct intellectual profile in the face of challenging circumstances. The results highlight the centrality of emotion in the journey, as well as curricular imperatives for both doctoral and postdoctoral learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The promotion of student development through engagement with a course of study in higher education (HE) is an area in need of urgent research. This study of college-based HE identified that teachers working with development in mind possessed a nexus of core values which were expressed in practice through an integrated pedagogical pattern (i) the development of trust, (ii) developing roles, relationships and a sense of community (iii) active confrontation and challenge and (iv) using pedagogical time and space. A naturalistic, ethnographic methodology and case study approach was used to answer the question ‘what is going on here?’ in contexts where ‘development of the person’ was a key aim. A sociocultural perspective on learning and development was adopted which supported an integrated approach to research design, analysis and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is based on an empirical study exploring how academics make curriculum decisions and their perceptions of the influences that shape their decisions. Interviews were held with 20 academics from diverse disciplines, who were both research active and committed to teaching. The higher education curriculum was conceptualised as a field of decision-making shaped by academics’ beliefs about educational and contextual influences. The study identified five distinctive curriculum orientations representing coherent patterns of curriculum decisions aligned with academics’ beliefs about educational purposes. Case studies are presented to elucidate each of the curriculum orientations. Curriculum orientations were also found to shape academics’ responses to educational change. The following higher education change drivers are explored: graduate employability and the skills agenda, teaching–research relationships, changing understandings about teaching and learning, educational technologies and flexible delivery. The findings suggest implications for institutional curriculum change initiatives and academic development programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study addresses the challenges concerning the internationalisation of higher education, with a particular focus on designing new international programmes. It presents a case study of a novel international study programme: the MA in Media Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Lapland, Finland. The study looks into its curriculum as an affordance network and asks: How do the planned and experienced curricula respond to and support cultural inclusion? The results shed light on the risks of transforming existing domestic degree programmes into ‘international’ programmes. The core curriculum design challenges found in this study stem from the fact that the meaning of internationalisation has been defined ‘from within’; from the existing structures and expectations of the programme and from the host institution. We suggest that more attention should be paid to students' life-worlds and the entire multicultural ecosystem that builds on the affordances inscribed in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]