What does a 'depth ontology' imply for research on quality teaching and professional development in higher education?

By now several papers have emerged from the Structure, Culture and Agency project, including one which considers significant structural and cultural factors influencing teaching and learning and professional development across the eight higher education institutions in our paper in Higher Education (Leibowitz, Bozalek, van Schalkwyk and Winberg, DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9777-2) and several others listed in the pages on this blog-site. But I would like to concentrate on the Leibowitz et al study referred to here, in order to tease out something that has been worrying me about our own research using as guiding concept, the interplay of structure, culture and agency. In this article, the focus is on enabling and constraining factors as perceived in particular by academic developers, and this is discussed as they appear to play themselves out across eight sites. The result, in my view, does not lead to 'depth', and makes me wonder how we have benefitted from basing our research on a 'depth ontology'. It feels, by contrast, rather 'flat', and could have been achieved without reference to the work of Margaret Archer at all. It points to a risk associated with multi-site studies, of not looking at the interplay between the dimensions. The way forwards for the analysis of data in studies using the interplay of structure, culture and agency, it seems to me, is provided by three questions which Margaret Archer poses in the article she wrote with Dave Elder-Vass, in 2011. The three questions she poses in the extract below, can be usefully adapted, and can form the base for analysis of data for our own project, and others considering the interplay, and how teaching and learning contexts can be enhanced. I am quoting from the rather enjoyable article to read, by Archer and Elder-Vass, in full:

(a) My own concern as a working sociologist is to develop and refine an analytical

framework that is useful for conducting substantive analyses of why the cultural order

– or part of it – is, in Max Weber’s words, ‘so rather than otherwise’. That is why I call

the Morphogenetic approach an ‘explanatory framework’, in other words, a practical

toolkit (Parker, 2000: 69–85). This means attempting to provide guidelines to produce

particular explanations of cultural phenomena in different times and places, the most

important being:

How the prior context in which cultural interaction develops influences the form it

takes.

Which relations between agents respond most closely to these influences and which

tend to cross-cut or nullify them.

Most generally, under what conditions cultural interaction results in morphostasis

rather than morphogenesis.

One can just as easily apply this to the structural order as well, or to both the cultural and structural, at the same time. In a future article, to come out shortly in Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CRISTAL), I pay more attention to the human and agentic element. I believe that if we do wish to understand how teaching and learning can be enhanced, it is precisely the interplay between structure, culture and human interaction, that needs to be investigated. What interests me personally in all of this, is the human or individual component, and the extent to which this is indeed reflexive, or more unconscious or habitual or conditioned, as critics of the work of Margaret Archer argue. 

O

Archer, M.S. & Elder-Vass, D., 2011. Cultural System or norm circles? An exchange. European Journal of Social Theory, 15(1), pp.93–115. Available at: http://est.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/1368431011423592 [Accessed May 31, 2014].

Leibowitz, B., Bozalek, V., van Schalkwyk, S & Winberg, C. 2014. Institutional context matters: the professional development of academics as teachers in South African higher education. Higher Education. Available at: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10734-014-9777-2 [Accessed July 2, 2014].

Conference presentations by Structure, Culture and Agency team

June has been a busy month for the Structure, Culture and Agency team. We made five presentations at the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) Conference in Stockholm and one poster presentation at the Propel Conference in Stirling. Most of these have been written up for publication or are being written up at our up and coming writing retreat at the end of July. They are mostly based on the idea of the interplay between structure, culture and agency, and are mostly based on the institutional case studies.

Chris Winberg's presentation at ICED, Stockholm, 2014 from Brenda Leibowitz

Clever Ndebele's presentation at ICED, Stockholm, June 2014 from Brenda Leibowitz

Leibowitz, Bozalek, van Schalkwyk and Winberg presentation at ICED, Stockholm June 2014 from Brenda Leibowitz

Leibowitz, Garraway and Farmer presentation at ICED Conference, Stockholm, June 2014 from Brenda Leibowitz

Jeff Jawitz also made a presentation on the UCT case study, which is available as part of the ICED proceedings. And finally, Wendy McMillan and Natalie Gordon made a poster presentation based on an interview with one lecturer, using complexity theory:

Here are some photos of some of the South African gang enjoying Stockholm:

New article from project on the influence of institutional context on quality teaching

The latest article based on the Structure, Culture and Agency project is entitled Institutional Context Matters: the professional development of academics as teachers in South African Higher Education, by Brenda Leibowitz, Vivienne Bozalek, Susan van Schalkwyk and Chris Winberg (Higher Education, DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9777-2).

Abstract: This study features the concept of ‘context’ and how various macro, meso and micro features of the social system play themselves out in any setting. Using South Africa as an example, it explores the features that may constrain or enable professional development, quality teaching and the work of teaching and learning centres at eight universities in varied socio-cultural settings. The article draws on the work of critical realists and their explication of the concepts of structure, culture and agency. The research design was participatory, where members of teaching and learning centres at the eight institutions defined the aims and key questions for the study. They collected the data on which this article is based, namely a series of descriptive and reflective reports. The findings clustered around six themes: history, geography and resources; leadership and administrative processes; beliefs about quality teaching and staff development; recognition and appraisal; and capacity, image and status of the TLC staff. These features play out in unique and unpredictable constellations in each different context, while at the same time, clusters of features adhere together. Whilst there is no one to one, predictive relationship between university type and outcome, there is a sense that socio-economic contextual features are salient and require greater attention than other features.

New article on access to higher education

For a new article using a social realist account, see Leibowitz, B. and Bozalek, V. 2014. Access to higher education in South Africa: A social realist account. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning. 16 (1), pp 91 - 109. http://wpll-journal.metapress.com/link.asp?id=X7243U561274. This article is part of a special issue on widening participating in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The articles in this special issues cover the topic of access to higher education from a range of theoretical perspectives, including social realism and critical race theory.

An interesting take on realist social theory: The Reality of Social Construction by Dave Elder-Vass

The Reality of Social Construction, by Dave Elder-Vass was published in 2012 (Cambridge). Here Elder-Vass argues that social scientists should be "both realists and social constructionists" (p.3). He agrees that "our senses and/or concepts of ourselves are shaped by discursive forces as well as by other forms of experience" (p. 12). He further develops the concept of "norm circles", posited in his 2010 book, The Causal Power of Social Structures which he says regulate cultural, linguistic, discursive and epistemic practices. These circles influence our thinking and provide the resources for us to think and to challenge. These circles are, he argues, increasingly intersectional. Significantly, for the Structure, Culture and Agency project, although Elder-Vass stresses culture and norms, he makes provision for the influence of "practice" and "participation" - for those of us who feel very strongly about practice based perspectives on learning and development. He also affirms the importance of materiality: "material configurations of, for example, location or technology may also help to shape these practices" (p. 259). This is extremely helpful for the Structure, Culture and Agency research project's investigation of how context influences academics' participation in professional academic development activities, where we have found that geographic location of universities, for example, does have a potential impact on teaching quality. But in a more fundamental sense, the material world is the basis for much action and sensory activity: "our minds are material; our social world is material; neither is fundamentally divided from the rest of the world in a way that would prevent us from accessing that world" (p. 262). A point that Elder-Vass makes several times in the book, is that it is people, not language, that influence how we talk about the world. This should prevent us from reifying language the way many pro-multilingualism or pro-mother tongue activists do.

One of the joys of this book is that it traverses a huge body of theory on language, discourse, knowledge and agency. Elder-Vass gives his view on diverse writers including Durkheim, Foucault, Judith Butler, Saussure, Berger and Luckmann and Margaret Archer. He makes a successful attempt to write lucidly and fairly simply about a range of important ontological and epistemological issues and provides a very interesting account of critical realist thinking about how norms are generated. It is a valuable resources for investigating the influence of institutional contexts on the professional development of academics.

Presentation by Susan van Schalkwyk and Julia Blitz at Ottawa Conference, 25 - 29 April 2014

Julia Blitz and Susan van Schalkwyk, members of the Structure, Culture and Agency research project, made a presentation on data from the project at the 12th Canadian Conference on Medical Education in Ottawa, Ontario, on 25 - 29 April 2014. They used the work of Lieff to show that the qualitative data derived from the open ended responses to a survey conducted at participating universities could be analyzed in terms of four lenses: political, structural, symbolic and human resource. (See S Lieff 'Faculty development: Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Guide supplement'. 33.2-Viewpoint, Medical Teacher, 32, 429-431, 2010). Their conclusion is contained in the slide below.

Interplay of Structure, Culture and Agency: A study on Professional Development in Higher EducationAccessing 

development activiTheyteaching role

Interesting application of the work of social realist Margaret Archer to higher education and professional development

                                                (Picture of Peter Kahn, University of Liverpool)

I have found it quite frustrating to take critical realist writings and apply these to the setting of higher education and to the topic of professional development. One of the reasons for this is that the theory of critical realism is pitched at a meta-theoretical level. Furthermore, the work of social realistMargaret Archer targets social institutions and society more generally. I find the temptation to apply these theoretical writings to my work can become quite forced or pointless, and have been quite frustrated with the publications of several people who apply these theories to their work in higher education. Often they could made the same general level and common sense observations without referring to these theories at all. For this reason I would like to draw the attention of researchers wishing to apply critical and social realism to the field of education to the work of Peter Kahn from the University of Liverpool. He writes with others, but has a fairly consistent location of his work within the critical realist stable. Below is a list of a few papers which draw on the work of critical realism. The publication that I just read, and that I feel makes meaningful links with the professional development of academics in relation to reflective practice, is:

Kahn, P E, Qualter, A and Young, R (2012) ‘Structure and agency in learning: a critical realist theory of the development of capacity to reflect on academic practice’,Higher Education Research and Development 31(6) pp. 859-71.

It is a review article. Kahn et al write in favor of the view that "there is a need to consider both personal and socio-cultural factors in understanding student learning" (p. 859). Here are three general points from the conclusion (p. 868): 

Adapting perspectives from realist social theory, we contend that learning in our given context may be modelled as follows:

1. The situations that learners confront involuntarily are objective shaped by structural and cultural factors, including the programme itself and tasks incorporated into the programme, the knowledge structures involved and the context for professional practice.
2. Those factors possess generative powers of constraint and enablement in relation to learners' own configuration of concerns and foci for attention, as subjectively defined in relation to nature, practice and society. 
3. Projects of professional learning or educational compliance are produced through the reflexive deliberations of learners and their contemporaneous interactions with teachers and fellow students, allowing learners subjectively to determine these projects in relation to their own capacities and objective circumstances, resulting also in variation in the creation and application of resources for the adaptation of practice. 

Given the focus of the Structure, Culture and Agency research project on the institutions as contexts and the manner in which they can influence academics to participate in their professional development, the interplay between objective circumstances and individual reflexive deliberations and projects, becomes very important.

Here are a few other publications applying the writings of Margaret Archer to higher education: 

Kahn PE (2013) ‘The informal curriculum: a case study in tutor reflexivity, corporate agency and medical professionalism’, Teaching in Higher Education, 18(6), pp. 631-642.

Kahn, P E, Qualter, A and Young, R (2012) ‘Structure and agency in learning: a critical realist theory of the development of capacity to reflect on academic practice’,Higher Education Research and Development 31(6) pp. 859-71..

Kahn P.E. (2009) 'On establishing a modus vivendi: the exercise of agency in decisions to participate or not participate in higher educatiot', London Review of Education, 7(3) 261-70.

Kahn, P.E., Young, R., Grace, S., Pilkington, R., Rush, L., Tomkinson, C. B. and Willis, I. (2008) 'A practitioner review of reflective practice within programmes for new academic staff' International Journal for Academic Development, 13: 199–211.