The question of how the university can relate to the world is centuries old. The poles of the debate can be characterized by the plea for an increasing instrumentalization of the university as a producer and provider of useful knowledge on the one hand (cf. the knowledge factory), and the defense of the university as an autonomous space for free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake on the other hand (cf. the ivory tower). Our current global predicament, (...) however, forces us to rethink the relation between university and world. Indeed, an easy nstrumentalization of the university for the purposes of society is no longer possible in troubled times when the future of society itself seems to be at stake. Nevertheless, urgent societal concerns do need to be addressed by the university. Hence, the disinterested position seems a highly irresponsible option. The aim of this dissertation is to reconsider the relation between the university and the world from an educational perspective by addressing the question “How to situate study in the relation between university and society?” The dissertation consists of three parts. In Part One, the existing literature on the relation between university and society will be discussed. The first chapter discerns two main approaches to this issue, namely the transcendental-philosophical approach (cf. the idea of the university) and the critical-sociological approach (cf. academic capitalism) that conceive of the university, respectively, as an idea and as an organization. By means of an excursus on the emergence of the university in the Middle Ages, the case is made for an ecological approach to the university. In the second chapter, the work of two authors who have recently adopted such an ecological approach is briefly presented. Whereas Ronald Barnett’s theory of the ecological university is situated more in the transcendental-philosophical tradition, Susan Wright’s investigations of the university in the knowledge ecology can be placed in the critical-sociological tradition. Both conceptions, however, are hinged on an institutional understanding of the university. In line with recent developments in social theory, namely the focus on practices, it is proposed to work towards an ecology of study practices. Part Two presents Isabelle Stengers’ idea of the ecology of practices. The third chapter elucidates Stengers’ work on scientific practices by first situating it within the so-called Science Wars, which provided the impetus to elaborate a theoretical framework for a civilized dialogue between scientists and the broader public. The basic tenets and concepts of her approach, such as the understanding of practice as a set of requirements and obligations, are presented, explained, and discussed. In the fourth chapter, the focus shifts from scientific practices to study practices. Assisted by Stengers’ writings on Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, this chapter aims to flesh out Whitehead’s description of the university as a ‘home of adventures’ in order to come to an educational understanding of the study practices of the university. A conceptual inquiry into how study practices activate certain worldly problems and turn them into matters of study is presented. Part Three develops the conceptual work on study practices further in relation to the activities of the Palestinian experimental university Campus in Camps. Chapter Five presents the work of Campus in Camps and explains how it relates to the theoretical discussion offered in the second part. On the basis of Stengers’ conception of practice, which discerns requirements and obligations as vital ingredients, this chapter argues that life in exile is what drives the study practices of Campus in Camps, and hence, that it is the issue of life in exile that participants are obligated to when they study. Whereas Chapter Five is focused on what is being studied in Campus in Camps, Chapter Six inquires in to the specific requirements its activities need to fulfill in order to be study practices; in other words, how the participants study. Four requirements are discerned that, taken together, seem indispensable to understand the study practices of Campus in Camps; namely, storytelling, comparing, mapmaking, and using. The concluding chapter returns to the research question and again takes up the main ideas developed in the dissertation, such as the adventure of study and the cohabitation of scientific and study practices in the university. The last two sections of the conclusion deal with two remaining issues of a more practical nature; namely, how to relate to institutionalization when working from a practice-theoretical point of view, and lastly the question of what can be done. In all, and returning to the initial problem, the dissertation asks what it means to conceive of the university as situated by and engaged with worldly questions. (shrink)

Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs, has now for decades being increasingly taken into use for higher education, enabling distance learning, e-learning and online learning, mainly in parallel to mainstream educational practise. The concept Blended learning (BL) aims at the integration of ICTs with these existing educational practices. The term is frequently used, but there is no agreed-upon definition. The general aim of this dissertation is to identify new possible perspectives on ICTs and access to higher education, for negotiating the dichotomy (...) between campus-based and ICT-enabled education. The access options of BL are in focus for this dissertation, although BL is generally seen as a campus phenomenon, and shares a place perspective. The main research questions in the dissertation are 1) how BL can be understood in the context of increased access to education, moreover, (2) how time can be work as a more constructive perspective for designing ICTs in education, compared to place. The dissertation comprises five articles. The first is conceptual and concentrates on place and time in blended learning, and forms a time-based model and perspective, drawing on the tension between synchronous and asynchronous modalities instead of a place-based center-periphery model. The following article examines the differences between North American and European use of the term BL, in education and research, and finds that BL is not much used by European researchers, although the term is frequently used in educational environments. Two design and intervention studies, articles 3 and 4, make experiments using the BL time-based model. In article 3, a group of untraditional learners at a learning centre in Arvidsjaur attends a synchronous co-located study circle group and participates in an asynchronous and global Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). In article 4, nine students in a preparatory year for entering engineering studies volunteer and participate in a pilot distance course experiment, where prevention of procrastination is a high priority. For this, agile framework theory, constructivist learning theory and the time-based model are used in design and analysis. The last article (5) reconnects learning to place by discussing and adapting Triple- and Quadruple Helix theory for regional development in the knowledge society to four regional European cases. At the end of the synthesis, an outline of the access affordances with the time-based model is given, drawing on Adam’s timescape theory. The discussion of ICT integration into education is made drawing on Floridi’s Philosophy of Information, which provides many tools to view discourses of ICTs in education critically, and also envisions the concept of e-ducation in the infosphere, where other blend issues appear connected to weak artificial intelligence and the pervasive power of ICTs. (shrink)

A powerful set of projections has constructed post-apartheid higher education in South Africa. Among these is the expectation that technikons would become universities of technology, with a mission to drive the technology of national reconstruction and development. In this paper, one of the new universities of technology serves as a case study to explore organizational structure and to highlight the ethics of university management and leadership. Building a new university provides the opportunity to place ethics “upfront”, rather than as an (...) afterthought, by constructing an organizational framework that makes ethical issues integral to management and decision-making processes. In imagining the structure of a university of technology, the authors were inspired by future scripting methods developed by Bastiaan De Laat, and by Duncan Den Boer, Arie Rip and Sandra Speller. The research process firstly involved the identification of themes related to values and ethics through an analysis of the environment. These themes were incorporated into three scenarios of possible futures for this new university type. Using these scenarios, the ethical issues that emerged, are compared with the original themes. Conclusions are then drawn with regard to management structures that are hierarchical and entrench compliance, or that are traditionally collegiate and expertise-based, or that might enable mutual appreciation and allow for leaders to emerge within any functional space at a university of technology. (shrink)

Almost 40 years ago, a book appeared by J.S. Brubacher entitled On the Philosophy of Higher Education. Today, we have neither its successor nor a sense as to what such a book might contain. The argument here is that we currently lack a recognised subfield of study that might be termed ‘the philosophy of higher education’. The paper attempts to begin to remedy this situation by assembling the main planks of such a field, and identifying broadly the kinds of resources (...) that might be brought together. A particular approach is argued for that builds from a recognition of the university both as institution and as idea. This approach would understand both that the university possesses a social ontology and that the university is accompanied by a widening conceptual hinterland. An undue pessimism is noted, such that the contemporary university is sometimes seen as being subject to overwhelming global forces, which underplays the university’s potential as an agent. It is suggested that an adequate philosophy of higher education would seek to widen the conceptual landscape by identifying universal and imaginative concepts that can assist not merely in understanding the university or in defending the university but in changing it. (shrink)

This article examines the productive capacity of emotion through the concept of emotional fundamentalism. Emotional fundamentalism combines several key concepts—fundamentalism, affective labor, biopolitics, and capitalism’s contradictions—developed by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth to describe the intensified attention to the body in education. I investigate the implications of the increased organizational and corporate interest in emotion using an ongoing socio-emotional learning study and the introduction of artificial intelligence aggression detectors in schools. Doing so demonstrates the tendency (...) of Empire to manage emotions in order to ensure viable production by educating the body as data and human capital. However, though Empire depends on emotions as a resource, these same emotions display a creative unruliness that exposes potential avenues to reproduce the common and enact multitude. (shrink)

With globalisation and neoliberalism as significant phenomena impacting the function and role of higher education institutions (Barnett, 2013), the discursive practices of such institutions as mani...

ABSTRACTCritical realism is an established post-positivist philosophy applied by researchers in a number of fields and yet it is little used in educational leadership and management research. This article responds to calls from the field for a more critical approach to educational leadership and management research by offering critical realism as a way to address these concerns and it explores why critical realism has not featured more in the field, particularly as it could provide that more critical approach. The use (...) of critical realism as an analytical approach as well as a content enables the linkage of the calls from ELM to critical realist features and then to some constraints upon its use in the field. The theory around the application of critical realism is advanced providing insights for researchers in its use, though no claim is made that critical realism is the only way to do so. (shrink)

This study was conducted to address the concept of higher education curricula and its practice from an ecological perspective. First, the significance of ecology is investigated based on two streams of thought; the ecological concept of the university proposed by Ronald Barnett; and the text, The Three Ecologies authored by the Italian philosopher Félix Guattari. Second, the notion of ecology is explored, and thoughts on the ecological curriculum and its feasibility are elaborated. Third, outcome-based education is currently the predominant curriculum (...) practice applied in higher education. From an ecological perspective, this learning approach is insufficient. Finally, the practices used for achieving an ecological connection of curricula in higher education are discussed with particular regard to curriculum organisation, the learning process and students’ role as global citizens. (shrink)

This thesis contextualises academic writing in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and subjects it to an interdisciplinary (educational and philosophical) analysis in order to argue that what makes writing academic are its socio-academic practices and values, not its conventional forms. In rejecting dominant discourses that frame academic writing as a transferable skill which can be reduced to conventional forms, I show that academic writings are varied and evolve alongside changing writer agencies and textual environments. This accounts for the emergence of (...) a diverse academic writing landscape that enacts diverse socio-academic practices and that does not reduce writing to predictable static surface features. My methodology resists traditional disciplinary classifications and is in line with the reflective and interpretative approaches associated with the humanities. Rather than ‘filling a gap’ in academic writing research, I challenge writing conventions in EAP by questioning assumptions. This is because EAP is influential in shaping discourses about academic writing and, as such, it must not mislead students and practitioners about the evolving purposes, forms and possibilities for academic expression. The thesis is divided into three parts, each containing two chapters. Part 1 is concerned with explaining what academic writing is in EAP and how EAP can misrepresent it. Part 2 delves into the history of writing and literacy to tease out the ideologies shaping writing practices. Part 3 proposes a model based on philosophical theories of mind and sociology that lays the foundation for a macro theory of academic writing and a future writing pedagogy. The model re-imagines academic writing as an affordance within a non-linear, emergent and complex social open system. This system can be referred to as an organic unity and requires a shift from conceiving writing as a ‘transferable skill’. When re-imagined as an affordance, change and diversity in academic writing practices become possible. (shrink)