Advance Notice
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| 'Dissemination' - see Mail and Guardian of 30 January 2015 |
The intention behind the colloquium is threefold:
·
To share findings from our Structure, Culture
and Agency multisite research project
·
To provide a platform for research for
colleagues outside of the project, who are taking a contextual approach to
professional academic development.
·
To generate recommendations for national and
institutional professional academic development strategies and further
questions for research.
We have confirmed plans for a special issue of the South
African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE), due out in the second quarter of
2016, on the topic of contextual approaches to professional academic
development (or 'professional learning', which provides more emphasis on what the academic does, than on what is done to or for him or her). The deadline for submissions will be the 31 July 2016 –more
information to follow shortly on this blogsite.
Focus on Theory:
Critical (and Social) Realism and Practice/SocioMaterialism
If all goes well the colloquium will be followed by a late
afternoon/early evening focus on two approaches to research on professional
academic development: critical (and social) realism and a practice-based and
socio-material approach. The idea would be to discuss, with panellists, what
kinds of insights can be generated with these two theoretical approaches.
Why this focus on theory?
Educational research that informs practice, for example with
regard to higher education teaching and learning, has become increasingly
informed by theory over the past few decades. This is perhaps partly due to the
maturing of educational development as an academic and professional field (vis
the increase in Masters and PhD programmes in the area, Postgraduate Diplomas
in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, in South Africa and elsewhere). Many
international educational journals, for example the International Journal of
Academic Development (IJAD) expects a sound theoretical base for articles that
it publishes. But questions still
remain, about which theories we should use to inform our research or practice;
how important is one’s choice of theory; what issues we take into consideration
when selecting a theory; how important is selection of theory in relation to
issues such as personal values and philosophy of life and ethics? Various people such as David Gosling (2003),
Paul Ashwin and Etienne Wenger-Trayner (2013) have written about the issue of
theory in relation to education. The issue requires further consideration,
especially when the language theory is so often opaque to the uninitiated. When people have not mastered the
respective logics and vocabularies, (which is fair enough, considering that it takes a while to master specific bodies of theory, and one cannot have in-depth knowledge, or would not necessarily choose to have in-depth knowledge of all) theory can divide people or impede
communication. Within higher education the literature on how lecturers learn to
teach has not teased out the implications of any of the dominant approaches of
the twenty-first century, let alone of these two.
Why these two theories?
Perhaps ‘approaches’ is more appropriate than ‘theory’,
since there are a variety of takes on critical realism (here we draw on the
work of Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer, Andrew Sayer and Dave Elder-Vass, and
they differ on many points), and possibly an even greater variety of takes on
practices and socio materialism (here again, writers such as Theodore Schatzki
and the feminist socio-materialists like Karen Barad would have quite different
views on agency). One reason accounting for the focus on these two approaches
is the Structure, Culture and Agency research project, which was based on
social realism loosely defined. This approach has many advantages for a
contextual approach to professional academic development, especially in
relation to the study of change, and the role of structure and agency. Our project has already published one or two
papers using the work of Archer (see our list of publications). However there
are many valid criticisms of Archer’s take on agency, most notably of her
depiction of reflexivity. Although Archer does describe practice in human
activity and development, and although she takes into account material
resources as an aspect of structure, there is a strong possibility that a
practice based approach will contribute more to our understanding of
professional academic development, than social realism alone. – if nothing
else, it would complement our understanding.
These two approaches are in many respects in contradiction
(approaches to agency and the individual; and transcendence or categorisation,
and a stratified ontology, being aspects of critical realism in contradiction
to the view of practices as typified by Fenwick et al, 2013, drawing on
feminist socio-materialists, for example.) An important difference is how
culture and text is viewed - as ‘real’, within a realist approach. This has
significant ramifications for approaches to teaching and learning, as
differences between realists and practice-based writers have demonstrated. In some respects there are also similarities: a
non-Cartesian view of practice and emotion not divorced from cognition and
intellectual activity, (as pointed out by Sue Clegg in her presentation on
critical realism - http://youtu.be/v79aIto70U0).
These two approaches thus provide a fruitful basis for a discussion on what
theory can do, which theory, how we choose theory, and so on.
Why does this deserve attention (and now)?
Is this a rarefied debate about nothing crucial? On the
contrary, the ramifications of these approaches, about issues such as agency,
responsibility, development, and distribution of resources, are crucial if one
believes that teaching and
learning is a political project, in the pursuit of social justice. We hope to
take this discussion forward at the colloquium, and possibly in the form of a
book thereafter.
- More about these up and coming events shortly. Comments to
this posting are welcome.
References
Ashwin, P. 2009. Analysing
teaching-learning interactions in higher education: Accounting for structure
and agency. London: Continuum.
Fenwick, T. and Nerland, M. (eds). 2013. Reconceptualising professional learning:
Sociomaterial knowledges, practices and responsibilities. London:
Routledge.
Gosling, D.
2003. Philosophical approaches to academic development. Eggins, H. and
MacDdonald, R. (eds) The scholarship of
academic development. Buckingham: SRHE and OUP. 70 – 79
Schatzki, T.
2002. The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social
life and change. Penn State University Press.
Wenger-Trayner,
E. 2013. The practice of theory: Confessions of a social learning theorist.
Farnsworth, V. and Solomon, Y. (eds) Reframing
educational research: Resisting the ‘what works’ agenda. London: Routledge.
