1,721,066 research outputs found

    Decolonising the curriculum: Southern interrogations of time, place and knowledge

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    Despite decades of postcolonial, Indigenous and feminist research, dominant Northern knowledge continues to claim universality across time and space in many academic disciplines and continues to ignore geopolitical power struggles over knowledge. This has taken on a particular urgency in South Africa since the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall student campaigns beginning in 2015. The international Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) field has only begun to grapple with the implications of Southern theory for teaching and learning. In this article, I focus on Southern interrogations about time, place and knowledge and what they offer us in terms of decolonising the curriculum and southernising SOTL. I apply these theoretical resources to the need to trouble taken-for-granted knowledge hierarchies between Northern and Southern knowledge and argue for a truly dialogic knowledge exchange and redistribution of epistemological privilege. I illustrate how these theoretical resources can be applied to the site of intercultural postgraduate supervision and conclude by extrapolating the implications of this theoretical work to efforts to decolonise the undergraduate and postgraduate university curriculum. How to cite this article: MANATHUNGA, Catherine. Decolonising the curriculum: Southern interrogations of time, place and knowledge. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, v. 2, n. 1, p. 95-111, Apr. 2018. Available at: http://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=23   This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

    Prising open the cracks through polyvalent lines of inquiry

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    This book outlines the creative responses academics are using to subvert powerful market forces that restrict university work to a neoliberal, economic focus. The second volume in a diptych of critical academic work on the changing landscape of neoliberal universities, the editors and contributors examine how academics ‘prise open the cracks’ in neoliberal logic to find space for resistance, collegiality, democracy and hope. Adopting a distinctly postcolonial positioning, the volume interrogates the link between neoliberalism and the ongoing privileging of Euro-American theorising in universities. The contributors move from accounts of unmitigated managerialism and toxic workplaces, to the need to decolonise the academy to, finally, illustrating the various creative and counter-hegemonic practices academics use to resist, subvert and reinscribe dominant neoliberal discourses. This hopeful volume will appeal to students and scholars interested in the role of universities in advancing cultural democracy, as well as university staff, academics and students. [Book Synopsis

    Prising open the cracks in neoliberal universities

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    In light of the overwhelming presence of neoliberalism within academia, this book examines how academics resist and manage these changes. The first of two volumes, this diptych of critical academic work investigates generative spaces, or ‘cracks’ in neoliberal managerialism that can be exposed, negotiated, exploited and energised with renewed collegiality, subversion and creativity. The editors and contributors explore how academics continue to find space to work in collegial ways; defying the neoliberal logic of ‘brands’ and ‘cost centres’. Part I of this diptych illuminates the lived experiences of changing academic roles; portraying institutional life without the glossy filter of marketing campaigns and brochures, and revealing generative spaces through critical testimony, fiction, arts-based projects, feminist and Indigenous critical scholarship. It will be of interest and value to anyone concerned with neoliberalism in academia, as well as higher education more generally. [Book Synopsis

    Generic skill development for research higher degree students: an Australian example

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    While the development of undergraduate generic skills has become a significant issue in universities in Australia and the UK, identifying research higher degree students' generic attributes have been ignored until recently. This paper reviews the list of generic skills the Council of Australian Deans and Directory of Graduate Studies would like research students to develop. A number of approaches that seek to develop research students' generic attributes are explored, including an innovative learning partnership between the Australian Technology Network (ATN) Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (DDOGS), working on, among other things, a series of online generic skills modules for ATN research students that will cover topics such as project management, entrepreneurship, leadership and communication, technological and commercial development and understanding public policy

    Success: A measure of what we value?: An exploration of the discursive construction of educational success in the public domain

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    In a time of rapid technological and social change, questions are being asked about whether current notions of education can adequately prepare students for a future that is often described as uncertain and complex. Public debates arising from these questions suggest that while education is generally highly valued, the ideals and purposes, or indeed, what is considered successful education, is neither clearly defined nor commonly understood. This is reflected in a public discourse that consists of fragmented issues, short-term solutions and apportioning blame. Based on the premise that language both reflects and constructs aspects of society, this thesis analyses a range of contemporary public discourses to examine the concept of success in education, at the school level. The data includes foundational educational documents from the Ministry of Education, press releases, and reported newspaper articles. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, in the style of Fairclough, Wodak and van Dijk, I examine linguistic constructions associated with success in detail, and consider these in a wider social and historical context. My research reveals seemingly innocuous language features that undermine deeply held democratic views of education and reconstructs them to fit within managerial mechanisms of neoliberal ideology. I argue that the resulting conflicts between the social and economic values underlying educational discourses are reflected in the lack of coherence across the wide range of complex issues in the public discourse. Furthermore, this conflict contributes to diminishing engagement with these issues, a sense of confusion about what is desired for education, and increasing indifference to inequities in New Zealand education today. The conclusion I draw from this is that such conflict makes it impossible for key participants in educational debates to make progress towards a coherent and effective educational framework for the future

    Intercultural doctoral supervision: The centrality of place, time and other forms of knowledge

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    In order to wrestle effectively with the problems facing our world in the 21st century, we need to draw together the vast array of knowledge systems that all human cultures have produced. This means creating space for Southern, Eastern and Indigenous knowledge in universities and developing more effective forms of intercultural communication. In a recent book, I argued that intercultural doctoral supervision could be a key site for the recognition and ongoing development of Southern, Eastern and Indigenous knowledge. In order for this to become possible, I suggested that there needs to be a serious commitment to understanding how place, time and knowledge play out in supervision across and between cultures. The purpose of this essay is to briefly outline my attempts to (re)read a range of 'Southern' theoretical resources pedagogically and through interview data in order generate a series of implications for intercultural doctoral supervision. © The Author(s) 2015
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