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This paper explores the potential of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), to provide new insights into community service-learning (CSL) in higher education. While CSL literature acknowledges the influences of John Dewey and Paolo Freire, discussion of the potential contribution of cultural-historical activity theory, rooted in the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, is noticeably absent. This paper addresses this gap by examining four assumptions associated with activity theory: the rejection of a theory/practice divide, the development of knowledge as a social collaborative activity, the focus on contradictions in and across activity systems, and the interventionist approach aimed at transformation.

As a Turkish Muslim White woman teaching in Western Canada, the author relates how she struggled to convey to her students how these identities come together, and how they facilitate a pedagogy of anti-oppression in her practice. To disrupt Orientalist assumptions or stereotypes about Muslim women, the author relates that she developed the following teaching principles: (1) the principle of self-focus; and (2) perspectives detectives. The principle of self-focus demands that students practice seeing themselves as products of individual as well as social-group acculturation. On the other hand, perspective detectives is a principle that focuses on the understanding of heterogeneity within any particular group.

In this paper, we shed light on the dynamic nature of "diversity" in higher education from the perspectives of four Japanese women graduate students seeking possibilities through different ways of knowing. Using an autoethnographical methodology embedded in a dialogue format of "zadankai", we examine the stereotypes of Japanese women that are activated both inside and outside of academic institutions. Stereotyping propagates racist, patriarchal and heterosexist norms. The examination of the mechanisms in which stereotyping silences Japanese women reveals the micro and macro politics of identity. Our collective dialogue demonstrates the processes in which silenced Japanese women graduate students reclaim their holistic agencies to peel the layers of superficial notions of diversity and address the creative and flexible nature of "difference" and "diversity" in knowledge production. We hope this paper will encourage minority groups amongst students, educators, and administrators to engage in various ways of knowing and address the issues of "diversity" in higher education.

This paper aims to explore—in a broad and preliminary way—the nature and impacts of two recent federal initiatives related to university research, namely the creation of the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada Research Chairs Program. After describing and highlighting key features of these initiatives, the paper examines how they are helping to reorganize social relations within and between universities, government, the private sector, and the general public. It also considers some implications of these changes for the various parties involved, as a means of informing the latter's discussions of, and responses to, these unique and significant developments in Canadian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]