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Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Across the world, university teachers are increasingly being required to engage with diversity in the classes they teach. Using the data from a large Economics 1 class at a South African university, this attempts to understand the effects of diversity on chances of success and how assessment can impact on this. By demonstrating how theory can be used to understand results, the paper aims to encourage university teachers to adopt proactive strategies in managing diversity, rather than simply explaining it using student characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the benefit of understanding institutional differences to enhance the scholarship of teaching and learning. It discusses the African research which attempts to show how the connection of institutional purpose to teaching and learning could contribute to the learning area more generally. It indicates the need to take serious consideration of the institutional purpose while engaging with the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Since 1994, the South African higher education system, fragmented and divided along racial lines during the years of apartheid, has been subject to a wide range of initiatives directed at bringing about the 'transformation' necessary for a more equitable dispensation and, ultimately, a new social order. One of the 'levers' being used in transformation processes is quality assurance. The paper uses a case study of an institutional audit at one historically white, elite South African university to provide a social realist account of an audit process and to analyse the likelihood of the audit contributing to institutional transformation. A conclusion is that the South African audit methodology per se is unlikely to bring about the change necessary because of its tendency to focus on the mechanistic implementation of recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article uses ‘close-up’ ethnographic research to provide an account of students’ engagement with learning in a South African university. Broadly based on Halliday''s [Halliday, M. A. K. (1973). Explorations in the functions of language. London: Edward Arnold; Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic. London: Edward Arnold; Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold] understanding of texts resulting from contexts, the account challenges dominant constructions of the problems students encounter as stemming from the use of inappropriate ‘approaches’ to learning, the lack of ‘study’ and other skills or problems with proficiency in areas such as writing or language and shows how students’ unfamiliarity with the context of the university leads them to draw on ‘other’ contexts in order to engage with the texts they must read, write and listen to in the course of their studies. This drawing on ‘other’ contexts then results in the texts produced by students, and the practices which give rise to those texts, being inappropriate to the context of the university. Although the research on which the article is based took place in South Africa, it is argued that the theoretical perspective it provides has relevance across other contexts given the increasingly diverse student bodies which characterize higher education across the globe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]