Higher Education Policy and the Teaching-Research Nexus

Education Not for Sale

HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY AND THE TEACHING-RESEARCH NEXUS

Society for Research into Higher Education

Date – 18 June 2014, 13.00-16:00

Venue – London Metropolitan University, 166-220 Holloway Road, London, N7 8DB

Network – Higher Education Policy

This seminar will consider the often contested relationship between teaching and research in higher education. It is particularly timely given the recent call by David Willetts, Minister for Universities, for a cultural change towards a greater emphasis on teaching. The context is one in which research reputation is critical in the global prestige economy of higher education, but where designations of academics and universities as ‘teaching-only’ are not uncommon in an increasingly diversified and stratified HE sector.
‘‘Can we speak of ‘teaching’ and ‘research’ any more, and what does this mean for academic work?”

William Locke, (Institute of Education University of London)

The separation of teaching and research is the result of policy and operational decisions made over some forty years or so to distinguish the way these activities are funded, managed, assessed and rewarded.  This separation has gone so far that institutions and individuals that wish to, must make deliberate efforts to optimise the beneficial relationships between the two core activities.  It could also be argued that the descriptive terms ‘research’ and ‘teaching’ no longer adequately capture the vast array of activities that institutions providing higher education now undertake.  Yet the processes of extension, fragmentation and disintegration, paradoxically, may be creating new spaces and opportunities for reintegrating and reinventing the core activities of higher education.

For this potential to be fully realised, however, may require a very different division of labour and, in particular, a significant reconfiguring of academic work.  This contribution will build on an international study of the academic profession, current evidence of changes in the academy during the recession and studies undertaken for the HEA.

 

“Re-Rethinking links between research, teaching and educational agendas: Should we?”

Dr. Vicky Gunn, (University of Glasgow)

This presentation will note the discursive re-valuing of teaching agendas within research-intensive institutions as part of an apparent shift in emphasis within UK (in different ways depending on the devolved funding regime) and European contexts.  In such a renewed policy focus, pragmatic questions about what this might mean in actuality have yet to be answered.

As this discursive shift is also happening at a time of change in the way academic career pathways are developing, the links between the researcher roles and teaching responsibilities are being embodied through reward and recognition criteria which do not necessarily align with the more centrally driven agendas outlined in the policy statements.  Indeed, reward and recognition criteria tend to focus on individual activity and are not necessarily underpinned with a problematised understanding of the orientations towards aspects of research as well as education that seem present in the academic community.

This paper will outline two sets of orientations: those related to being a researcher as identified by Hakali & Ylijoki (2001) and Åkerlind (2008) and those related to the educational outcomes academics ascribe to what a university education is about (Gunn & Fisk, 2013).  It will suggest that from these, within research-intensive contexts in particular, we might need a new frame of reference for research-teaching linkages, one that encompasses the discussions and practices of the last decade, but reorients curricular activity towards the spaces of researcher development as it is now constructed.

The discussion will draw on the presenter’s work relating to the development of graduate attributes through research-teaching linkages (QAA Scotland) and her recent HEA commissioned review, Considering Teaching Excellence in HE since 2007.
Lunch will be available at 1pm and the event will start at 1.40. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over tea or coffee.
For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Prof. Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University, c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk

To reserve a place: http://www.srhe.ac.uk/events/

Note: Unless otherwise stated SRHE events are free to members, there is a charge of £60 for non-members.

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Interrogating the Higher Education Research / Policy Interface

ICCE IV

INTERROGATING THE HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH / POLICY INTERFACE

Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)

Date – Wed 2nd April 2014, 13.00-16.00pm

Venue – London Metropolitan University

Network – Higher Education Policy Network

 

Higher education researchers often want their research to make a difference, and policy makers often profess a commitment to evidence-based policy-making, but how easy is it to communicate across these different communities? This seminar will provide an opportunity to explore these issues.

 

‘Bearing bad news’ Dr. Vikki Boliver (DurhamUniversity)

Reflecting on her attempts to publicise research showing that White and privately educated applicants are more likely to be offered places at Russell Group universities than equally well qualified applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds and state schools, Dr. Boliver considers ways to foster productive engagement with bad-news research findings.

‘Can researchers and policy makers speak to each other, or are they always looking the other way?’: Professor Jim Gallacher (GlasgowCaledonianUniversity)

Professor Gallacher draws on his experience of working both as an active researcher and co-director of the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning (CRLL), and an adviser to the Scottish Parliament and a member of the board of the Scottish Funding Council, to consider whether the policy and research communities can have meaningful dialogues.

Lunch will be available at 1pm and the event will start at 1.40. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over tea or coffee.

For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Prof. Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, LondonMetropolitanUniversity, c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk

Note: Unless otherwise stated SRHE events are free to members, there is a charge of £60 for non-members.

Reserve a place: http://www.srhe.ac.uk/events/

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

The Creative University – First Call for Papers

THE CREATIVE UNIVERSITY – FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
Faculty of Education, Office of Teaching and Learning, Waikato University

School of Creative Arts, James Cook University

THE CREATIVE UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE

Hosted by 

Universityof Waikato, Te Whare Wananga O Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

15-16 August, 2012

First Call for Papers

Deadline for submission:  

Abstracts due: May 1^st 2012

Full papers due: July 1st 2012

Education and research have been transformed in the development of knowledge economies. The knowledge, learning and creative economies manifest the changing significance of intellectual capital and the thickening connections between on one hand economic growth, on the other hand knowledge, creativity (especially imagined new knowledge, discovery), the communication of knowledge, and the formation and spreading of creative skills in education. Increasingly economic and social activity is comprised by the ‘symbolic’ or ‘weightless’ economy with its iconic, immaterial and digital goods. This immaterial economy includes new international labour markets that demand analytic skills, global competencies and an understanding of markets in tradeable knowledges. Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) not only define globalisation they are changing the format, density and nature of the exchange and flows of knowledge, research and scholarship. Delivery modes in education are being reshaped. Global cultures are spreading in the form of knowledge and research networks. Openness and networking, cross-border people movement, flows of capital, portal cities and littoral zones, and new and audacious systems with worldwide reach; all are changing the conditions of imagining and producing and the sharing of creative work in different spheres. The economic aspect of creativity refers to the production of new ideas, aesthetic forms, scholarship, original works of art and cultural products, as well as scientific inventions and technological innovations. It embraces open source communication as well as commercial intellectual property. 

All of this positions education at the centre of the economy/ creativity nexus. But are education systems, institutions, assumptions and habits positioned and able so as to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges? 

This conference investigates all the aspects of education in (and as) the creative economy.The conference objective is to extend the dialogue about the relationship between contemporary higher education and the changing face of contemporary economies. A number of terms describe the nature of the contemporary capitalism of advanced economies: ‘cognitive capitalism’, ‘metaphysical capitalism’, ‘intellectual capitalism’, ‘designer capitalism’. The conference will explore the relationship between the arts and sciences and this new form of capitalism. It will look at the global reach and international imperatives of aesthetic and scientific modes of production, the conditions and character of acts of the imagination in the range of fields of knowledge and arts in this period, and the role of the research university in the formation of the creative knowledge that has a decisive function in contemporary advanced economies.  

Please send title and abstract as an expression of interest to Professor Michael A. Peters: mpeters@waikato.ac.nz

Details at: http://tcreativeu.blogspot.co.uk/p/first-call-for-papers.html

The Creative University: http://tcreativeu.blogspot.co.uk

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

For a Public University – Call for Papers

Universities

FOR A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY – CALL FOR PAPERS

Call for Papers – For a Public University

The transformation of Higher Education in the UK is at full speed. The cuts in government funding and the simultaneous increase in tuition fees of up to £9000 per year have dramatic implications. While universities emphasise the need to attract private finance, students are pushed towards courses with direct employment possibilities. At the same time, employers ask for closer co-operation with universities not only in relation to research but also in terms of the development of teaching curricula. The main focus is clear; education should be directed towards business interests in order to strengthen the UK economy.

One outcome is that Higher Education is increasingly commodified as universities exist in the shadow of the market. The space for critical thinking about society has been eroded; students’ ability-to-learn gives way to consumers’ ability-to-pay. Academics have themselves become subject to the charge of irrelevance unless direct policy-relevance is embraced. The critical theoretician is cast adrift as indolent and idle in the race to inform statesmen, to become prophets for science, to make profits for business.

This workshop has the purpose to analyse the underlying dynamics of the transformation of Higher Education in and beyond the UK, to reflect on the social function of Higher Education, as well as develop alternative ways of thinking about how best to deliver Higher Education in the future. The goal is to re-assert ways in which Higher Education can be retained as a public good, available to all.

Papers are invited for the following themes: 

–    Analyses of the current transformation of Higher Education; 

–    Discussions about the social function of Higher Education; and

–    Interventions on how to organise the future of Higher Education.

This one-day workshop is jointly organised by the Local UCU Association at Nottingham University and the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ). It will be held at NottinghamUniversity on Friday, 15 June 2012.

All paper proposals should be sent to Andreas Bieler at Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk by no later than Friday, 27 April. 

The maximum number of workshop participants will be 25 people, 10 to 12 paper givers plus additional participants.

People who want to participate without giving a paper should also contact Andreas Bieler at: Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk as soon as possible. There is no registration fee and two coffee breaks and lunch are provided free of charge by the organisers.

 

Original source: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cfp-for-a-public-university-nottingham-15-june-2012  

 

***END***

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub,Bangor, northWales)  

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Life in the Higher Sausage Factory

Glenn Rikowski

LIFE IN THE HIGHER SAUSAGE FACTORY

Dr. Glenn Rikowski, School of Education, University of Northampton

Guest Lecture to the Teacher Education Research Group

Glenn Rikowski will talk about Capital in a Crisis of Higher Education, and Higher Education in a Crisis of Capital

22nd March 2012, 5.00pm, The Cass School of Education and Communities, Room 2.02, University of East London, Water Lane, London E15 4LZ

“Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus-value. The labourer produces, not for himself, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that he should simply produce. He must produce surplus-value. That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, and thus works for the self-expansion of capital. If we may take an example from outside the sphere of production of material objects, a schoolmaster is a productive labourer, when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, does not alter the relation. Hence the notion of a productive labourer implies not merely a relation between work and useful effect, between labourer and product of labour, but also a specific, social relation of production, a relation that has sprung up historically and stamps the labourer as the direct means of creating surplus-value. To be a productive labourer is, therefore, not a piece of luck, but a misfortune” (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I).

 

UPDATE, 5th March 2014: The paper can now be downloaded from Academia. There are many other of my papers there too. See: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Universities and the State

Higher Education

UNIVERSITIES AND THE STATE

SRHE Higher Educational Policy Network

Monday 19th March, 4-6.30pm, Room GC1-08

London Metropolitan University, Holloway Road, London N7

Changing Expectations of Universities and the Role of the State: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis

This seminar will explore changing expectations of universities through two different but complementary papers. Questions of the relationship between universities and society as well as issues of governance, purpose, participation and equality are raised.

Andrew M Boggs, University of Oxford    

Changing Concepts of ‘The University’ and Oxford’s Governance Debates, 1850s-2000s

This paper offers a historical exploration of changing ideas of the university and wider higher education policy debates through an analysis of the Universityof Oxford’s governance structures over a 150 year period. It offers a narrative of wider changes in the relationship between the university and society over this period.

 

Professor Penny Jane Burke, Roehampton University

Examining the im/possibilities of widening participation

This paper moves the focus on to the present where the relationship between universities and the state is undergoing a new period of change and uncertainty. The paper explores possibilities for maintaining a commitment to social justice, equality and widening participation in a policy context characterised by increased marketisation and competitiveness.

Tea and coffee will be available at 4pm and the event will start at 4.15. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over a glass of wine or juice.

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.  SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non-members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance.

For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Professor Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University: c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk  

 

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit, SRHE Event Manager, Society for Research into Higher Education, 73 Collier Street, London N1 9BE, Telephone 0207 427 2350; Fax number 0207 278 1135; srheoffice@srhe.ac.uk; http://www.srhe.ac.uk

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor

Cognitive Capitalism

COGNITIVE CAPITALISM, EDUCATION AND DIGITAL LABOR – MICHAEL PETERS & ERGIN BULUT

Michael A. Peters & Ergin Bulut (eds.)
Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor 
Year of Publication: 2011 
Peter Lang Publishing Group
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien,
2011. XLII, 341 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4331-0981-2 pb. 

http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=54297&concordeid=310981

Contents: 

Antonio Negri: Foreword 

Michael A. Peters & Ergin Bulut: Introduction 

Timothy Brennan: Intellectual Labor 

George Caffentzis: A Critique of Cognitive Capitalism

Silvia Federici: On Affective Labor 

Christian Fuchs: Cognitive Capitalism or Informational Capitalism? The Role of Class in the Information Economy 

Jonathan Beller: Cognitive Capitalist Pedagogy and Its Discontents 

Ergin Bulut: Creative Economy: Seeds of Social Collaboration or Capital’s Hunt for General Intellect and Imagination? 

Mark Coté / Jennifer Pybus: Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: Facebook and Social Networks 

Emma Dowling: Pedagogies of Cognitive Capitalism – Challenging the Critical Subject 

Alex Means: Creativity as an Educational Problematic within the Biopolitical Economy

Toby Miller: For Fun, For Profit, For Empire: The University and Electronic Games 

Michael A. Peters: Algorithmic Capitalism and Educational Futures 

Alberto Toscano: The Limits of Autonomy: Cognitive Capitalism and University Struggles 

Nick Dyer-Witheford: In the Ruined Laboratory of Futuristic Accumulation: Immaterial Labour and the University Crisis 

Tahir Wood: The Confinement of Academic Freedom and Critical Thinking in a Changing Corporate World: South African Universities 

Cameron McCarthy: Afterword. The Unmaking of Education in the Age of Globalization, Neoliberalism and Information

About the author(s)/editor(s)

Michael A. Peters is Professor of Education at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) and Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the executive editor of Educational Philosophy and Theory and editor of two international e-journals, Policy Futures in Education and E-Learning. His interests are in education, philosophy and social policy and he has written over fifty books, including Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy (Lang, 2009) (with Simon Marginson and Peter Murphy).

Ergin Bulut is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is interested in political economy of labor and its intersection with education, communication and culture. 

Reviews

“Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor’ provides us with a series of very thoughtful and provocative analyses of the relationship among political economy, education and new forms of knowledge and labor. It is definitely worth reading and then discussing its implications at length.” (Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

“This volume is a ‘tour de force’. Through its chapters, a new space is opened for understanding education in the contemporary world. With an magisterial introduction by its indefatigable editor, Michael A. Peters, and his colleague Ergin Bulut, ‘Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor’ implicitly shows the limitations of postmodernism and offers a large conceptual framework that will surely be mined and critically examined for some years to come.” (Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, Institute of Education, London)

“‘Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor’ is extraordinarily instructive in studying the living bestiary of capitalism, a provocative text that enervates capitalism through helping us cultivate our critical faculties creatively and exultantly in the service of its demise. An important advance in our understanding the production of subjectivity in capitalist societies.” (Peter McLaren, School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland)

“This valuable, lithe volume explores the ever-evolving, mutating forms of capitalism. It is a work of craft, intelligence and provocation. It reflects on some of the most important subterranean trends in contemporary societies. These unite the material and the immaterial, biology and power, economics and education. The contributors parse the intersections of intellectual and physical labour, paid and unpaid work, labour and pedagogy, research and gaming, free information and multi-national corporations, autonomy and liberalism, accumulation and enclosure, class and creativity. They do so with verve, steel and tenacious insight.” (Peter Murphy, Professor of Creative Arts and Social Aesthetics, James Cook University)

“If you read just a single book in the field of educational theory this year, make sure it’s this one. Drawing on the rich tradition of Marxist autonomism, the contributors pinpoint what the transmutation of labor and opening of new domains of class struggle under cognitive capitalism mean for education. The editors have assembled an impressive team, all accomplished scholars adept at envisioning changes in the sites and forms of knowledge-making, acquisition and contestation. For anyone interested in the educational implications of technologically-driven shifts in capitalism’s socio-economic structures, this is the volume to buy. Brimming with insight, balanced and lively – it will attract attention from scholars and students well beyond the confines of education faculties.” (James Reveley, Associate Professor, Faculty of Commerce, University of Wollongong)

“We have now for some time been undergoing intense technological and social revolutions that transformed the nature of labor, education and the capitalist economy. Peters and Bulut and their collaborators in ‘Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor’ chart out the changes in the new economy and social life and explore its consequences for education. All educators and those concerned with transformations of contemporary culture and society should be concerned with these issues and learn from this book.” (Douglas Kellner, UCLA; Author of ‘Guys and Guns Amok’ and ‘Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy’)

“The mainstream discourse of the knowledge economy is empty. The digital-Taylorist routinisation of much of the work that was once the preserve of knowledge workers and the offshoring of knowledge jobs to countries where skilled labour is much cheaper have given the game away. But it would be wrong to assume that the electronic/IT revolution has not changed our lives and our labour when it clearly has. This outstanding collection raises fundamental questions about knowledge, the role of education and labour in the digital world. It brings current debates to a new level and should be read by students, academics and policy makers across the globe.” (Hugh Lauder, Professor of Education and Political Economy, University of Bath)

“’Cognitive Capitalism, Education and Digital Labor’ presents a new theory of capitalism and digital labor. It is a very valuable resource and will spark an industry of debate and elaboration. This book presents such a wealth of diverse material that any reader will find something new and challenging, and each chapter in this collection makes a welcome contribution to the growing literature in the field.” (George Lazaroiu, Principal Research Fellow, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, New York)

“Cognitive capitalism is a crucial category for conceptualizing the workings of contemporary globalization. Using the theories of the Italian Autonomist Marxist tradition, or ‘operaismo’, Peters and Bulut along with the other authors in this collection present important, fascinating insights into capitalism, education and labor today. It should be read immediately by anyone concerned about how the daily practices of education prepare the multitude for the travails of their immaterial and material labor.” (Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University)

“Peters and Bulut have provided us with a brilliant set of papers that take us to the heart of the political economy. Under ‘cognitive capitalism’ subjectivity is both the realm of freedom and the source of value, raising the stakes in control (governmentality). Hence the continuing fecundity of interpretations at the intersection of Marx/Foucault/Deleuze. We experience both larger productive community and heightened public surveillance, together with unsolvable tensions in education and research. But this book also reminds us that the circuits of cognitive capitalism continue to rest on a mountain of physical commodities, generated largely in the emerging economies and subject to more traditional (and more traditionally Marxist) forms of manufacture, energy consumption and hyper-exploitation of labour.” (Simon Marginson, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Australia)

“Education cannot be understood outside of the diverse national and global forces in which it is situated, including the increasing separation of power from local politics. This book brings together a number of first-rate theorists in making clear the relationship among knowledge, power and digital labor. The book is a tour de force for anyone interested in the new registers of power that are now shaping education on a global level. This is an important book and should be put on the class list of every educator who views education central to politics.” (Henry A. Giroux, Global Television Network Chair Professor, English and Cultural Studies Department, McMaster University)

“The exceptional contributions assembled for this timely volume carefully anatomize – and critically question – the category of cognitive capitalism and its composition. This book is a major resource for a generation of academic workers with a very real stake in developments, conflicts and debates surrounding the edu-factory.” (Greig de Peuter, Co-author of  ‘Games of Empire’).

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a new song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Higher Education Identities

Higher Education Identities

HIGHER EDUCATION IDENTITIES, CULTURES AND PRACTICES

SRHE Higher Educational Policy Network

Tuesday 11th October 4-6.30pm, Room T1-20, London Metropolitan University

Higher education identities, cultures and practices: a changing policy context

The higher education sector in the UK is experiencing dramatic change. The financial crisis, a change of government and ongoing developments in the positioning and role of higher education institutions present new challenges for those who work in universities. This seminar will explore the implications of these changes for academic and professional identities, cultures and practices.

 

Dr Celia Whitchurch, Institute of Education, University of London    

Reconstructing Identities in Higher Education – Expanding the Parameters of Academia

In a context in which academics are increasingly working across multiple constituencies and with internal and external partners, this paper explores the factors that influence individuals to take on such work. It considers the impact on academic identities and career paths and the implications for institutions of more complex roles and relationships.

Dr Jill Jameson, University of Greenwich

Changing Leadership Identities: the Role of Trust and Organisational Cultures in a Recessionary UK Higher Education Policy Context

This paper considers how changing leadership values, trust and organisational cultures impact upon the identities of academic, professional and corporate leaders in HE. It also explores how the academic and intellectual aspects of HE leadership identities can be strengthened and trust rebuilt to fulfil the complex purposes of universities.

Tea and coffee will be available at 4pm and the event will start at 4.15. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over a glass of wine or juice.

For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Professor Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University, c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk.

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at http://www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.  SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will  be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance.

Interested in joining the HEP Network – but not able to attend this event? To receive details of future events in this series and to join the mailing list, please email nmanches@srhe.ac.uk

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit, Society for Research into Higher Education, 44 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4LL, Tel: +44 20 7447 2525, Fax: +44 20 7447 2526

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

What is the Student Experience?

Student Experience

WHAT IS THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE?

SRHE Student Experience Network

Friday 21st October 2011

Registration 11.00am – 11.30am

Seminar 11.30am – 4.30pm

SRHE, London.

 

What is the student experience?

In light of the changes to Higher Education in the UK and in Europe, this seminar focuses on definition(s) of the ‘student experience’, asking how they are used to frame, discuss and package HE. With input from the NUS and the European Students’ Union, this seminar examines the concept in the discourse on HE and projects its relevance to the future.

 

The impact of national context on student experience: A comparison of France, Sweden and the UK

Nicolas Charles, University of Bordeaux

Nicolas Charles is a doctoral student in sociology at the Centre Emile Durkheim (University of Bordeaux, France). Focusing on justice in higher education, he compares student experience, HEIs and social representations of HE in France, Sweden and the UK.

Abstract

In the UK, the ‘student experience’ represents more than a sole research concept; it is a widespread notion among higher education institutions and students. The student experience has however taken a specific meaning in the UK context, far beyond its broad sense of a relation of a student to their studies. Based on a comparison of France, Sweden and the UK, this presentation will draw on a combined analysis of student practices and representations, institutional organisation at particular universities and national policy contexts. If the student experience remains heterogeneous in each country, my material suggests that strong national patterns in higher education which translate into very diverse student experiences. This discussion thus frames a more global picture of the many ways students can relate to their studies, and the specific issues they consequently face.

 

 

Student Charters: formalising consumption?

Joanna Williams, University of Kent

Joanna Williams lectures in higher education and academic practice at theUniversity ofKent.  She is interested in the impact of government policies upon education in general and higher education in particular.  Joanna’s PhD used techniques of critical discourse analysis to explore New Labour’s policies for promoting social inclusion within post-compulsory education.  More recently Joanna has been writing about the transformation of students into consumers of HE and the effect this has upon what it means to be a student, attitudes to learning and relationships with lecturers.

Abstract

The 2011 White Paper ‘Students at the Heart of the System’ states the government’s intention that ‘each institution should have a student charter … to set out the mutual expectations of universities and students’ (p. 33).  There is an assumption behind the call for charters that students are to be considered as vulnerable consumers in need of formalised protection from institutions that may provide a poor service in return for the students’ money.  Through an analysis of the Student Charter Group Final Report (January 2011), other recent higher education policy documents, contracts and charters already in use by institutions, as well as interviews with students, this paper questions whether the student experience is enriched by the use of such agreements.  Is it in the best interests of all students for their University experience to be increasingly contractualised, regulated and uniform?

 

What’s wrong with ‘the student experience’? The politics of student voice and public information

Duna Sabri, King’s College London

Duna Sabri is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Policy, King’s College, London and an independent researcher.  Her research interests are in the sociology of higher education, pedagogy, institutional and (inter)national policy relating to HE, and the use of social theory in empirical research.

Since completing her DPhil at the University of Oxford’s Department of Educational Studies in 2007 on the assumptive worlds of academics and policymakers, she has undertaken a range of commissioned institutional research projects on topics such as students’ departure and persistence in HE, assessment practices, and the social and political functions of students’ evaluations of teaching, with a particular focus on the NSS.  Her publications have included the theoretical development of the concept of assumptive worlds, and analyses of the policy discourses that relate to academics and students.

Abstract

This paper gives an account of the ‘production, accumulation, circulation and functioning’ (Foucault 1994:31) of a discourse that surrounds ‘the student experience’.  Following Fairclough (2003) I explore how ‘the student experience’ has come to prominence in key policy texts.  I attempt to explain how it acquired such salience in the sector as a whole, and what work it does in sustaining and developing the market-oriented disciplining of higher education.  In the UK, but less so elsewhere in Europe, ‘the student experience’ has become a mantra, apparently used to give students ‘a voice’ and at the same time constraining that voice by isolating it from other voices around it, and from the complex environment that enables us meaningfully to interpret those voices. 

The role of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) in structuring ‘the student experience’ is explored. Moving away from questions of statistical reliability and validity, I take SET results as social objects in their own right.  Using the framework of analysis proposed by de Santos (2009) of statistics as fact-totems, I explore the production and consumption of the results of the UK National Student Survey (NSS): the convergence of the public gaze upon them, their articulation with identity narratives, and capacity to provoke drama, anxieties of anticipation and emotion.  The paper draws on a pilot study that demonstrates how the consumption of NSS results through league tables has had the effect of defining ‘problems’, redistributing resources and transforming higher education work in ways that ultimately impoverish the higher education experiences of students.

 

Panel members

Allan Päll

Chairperson of the European Students’ Union

Allan Päll is a political science student fromEstonia and the Chairperson of the European Students’ Union (ESU) since July 2011, having previously been Vice-Chairperson. He has previously in 2007-09 led social policy and student financing policy and research in the Federation of Estonian Student Unions (EÜL) and has also been closely involved in the EUROSTUDENT project inEstonia. Before being elected Chairperson, he has been coordinating the work of ESU on EU policies and Quality Assurance and has been leading ESU’s project “Quest for Quality for Students” which looks into information provision and aims to build a quality concept from the students’ perspective.

Graeme Wise

Assistant Director (Policy), National Students’ Union

Graeme is responsible for supporting the elected officers in political policy development. He is the author of many of NUS priority campaign publications including ‘Broke and Broken’ and the ‘NUS Blueprint for HE Funding’. He also leads on NUS Widening Participation work and is supporting the National President in the development of work around student charters with Universities UK.

 

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at http://www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.   SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non attendance will  be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non attendance has been given in advance.

Interested in joining the Network-but not able to attend this event? To receive details of future events in this series and to join the mailing list, please email nmanches@srhe.ac.uk

 

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit, Society for Research into Higher Education, 44 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4LL, tel: +44 20 7447 2525, fax: +44 20 7447 2526

 

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

An International Examination of Teacher Education: Exposing and Resisting the Neoliberal Agenda – JCEPS Special Issue + Call for Papers

End the Damage

AN INTERNATIONAL EXAMINATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION: EXPOSING AND RESISTING THE NEOLIBERAL AGENDA – JCEPS SPECIAL ISSUE + CALL FOR PAPERS

The Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies
Special Issue: Spring 2012
An International Examination of Teacher Education: Exposing and Resisting the Neoliberal Agenda
Chief Editor: Professor Dave Hill, Chief/Managing Editor and Founding Editor, Professor Dave Hill, Professor Peter L. McLaren Editor, North America, Professor Pablo Gentili Editor, Latin America

Guest Editors: Dr. Brad Porfilio, Lewis University & Dr. Julie Gorlewski, SUNY at New Paltz

In recent decades, the transnational capitalist class has wielded power and influence to gain control over elements of social life that were once considered vital domains to fostering the social welfare of global citizens. Affected public domains include natural resources, health care, prisons, transportation, post-catastrophe restoration, and education. The chief linchpin in the elite’s corporatization over social affairs is its effective propaganda campaign to inculcate the global community to believe that neoliberal capitalism ameliorates rather than devastates humanity. According to political pundits, free-market academics, and corporate leaders, economic prosperity and improvements in the social world emanate from “unregulated or free markets, the withering away of the state as government’s role in regulating businesses and funding social services are either eliminated or privatized, and encouraging individuals to become self-interested entrepreneurs” (Hursh, 2011).

Since neoliberalism is a term rarely uttered is most dominant (mainstream) media outlets, most citizens are not cognizant of how it is linked to many deleterious economic and social developments at today’s historical juncture, such as massive unemployment, the swelling of home foreclosures, homelessness, militarism, school closings, maldistribution of wealth, and environmental degradation (Hill, 2008; Hursh, 2011; McLaren, 2007; Ross & Gibson, 2007; Scipes, 2009). Equally important, many global citizens fail to recognize how the transnational elite have spawned a McCarthy-like witch hunt to eliminate academics, policies, and programs that have the potential to engage citizens in a critical examination of what is responsible for today’s increasingly stark social world – as well as what steps are necessary to radically transform it.

In this special issue of The Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies, we call on progressive scholars from across the globe to provide empirical research, conceptual analysis, and theoretical insights in relation to how corporate policies, practices, and imperatives are structuring life in schools of education.

Since the impact of neoliberal capitalism on programs, policies, relationships, and pedagogies in schools of education is not uniform, as local histories and politics structure how macro-forces come to impact people in local contexts (Gruenwell 2003), the issue will be integral in understanding and confronting the social actors and constitute forces gutting the humanizing nature of education. Additionally, we call on critical scholars and pedagogues who have found emancipatory fissures amid corporatized schools of education to share policies, pedagogies, and cultural work that have the potency promote critical forms of education, democratic relationships, and peace, equity and social justice across the globe.

Manuscripts are due by December 1, 2011 and should be submitted as email attachments to porfilio16@aol.com and gorlewsj@newpaltz.edu.

Papers submitted for publication should be between 5,000 and 8000 words long. While we would hope that papers would be submitted in accordance with the Harvard Referencing Style, we do accept those written in any commonly accepted academic style, as long as the style is consistent throughout the paper.

Please direct all inquires about this special issue to the guest editors at Porfilio16@aol.com and gorlewsj@newpaltz.edu

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

International Professional Development Association Conference 2011

Glenn Rikowski

INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE 2011

 

 

IPDA 2011 International Conference

Aston Conference Centre, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Learning: a Public Good or a Private Commodity?

November 25^th – 26^th 2011

Welcome to the professional development conference of the year. We are in Birmingham UK again for two days of stimulating debate, high quality research reports, critical discussion and to share ideas, issues and concerns with colleagues from many countries.

Our conference title reflects widespread international interest in discussing the values and purposes of individuals and organisations involved in professional formation and learning at a time of shifting ideologies and value change.

The conference aims to develop a culture of openness, trust and critical friendship amongst IPDA members. Our international keynote speakers will address the conference themes and participants will have the opportunity to follow up issues and challenges in workshops and roundtable discussions.

By the end of the conference we intend to have reportable outcomes that can be developed and acted upon through regional seminars, website interaction and personal networking.

Conference sub themes are:

• The nature and role of learning communities

• Teaching schools: Implications for CPD

• Top Down or Bottom Up? The policy/practice interface

• Values, CPD and the concepts of effectiveness and sustained improvement

• The role of Higher Education in CPD

IPDA 2011 Conference Programme

Friday 26th November

0930- 1000: Registration

1000- 1005: Welcome by IPDA Chair, Cliff Jones

1005- 1100: Formal Opening of Conference and First Keynote Address

Glenn Rikowski, Senior Lecturer, University of Northampton *

Session Chair: Helen Mitchell

 

1100- 1130: Coffee/Tea Break

1130- 1300: Research Papers: Session 1

1300- 1400: Lunch

1400- 1445: Second Keynote Address

Tony Finn, Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland

Session Chair: Jim O’Brien

1445-1530: Round Table Responses

1530-1600: Coffee/Tea Break

1600-1700: Research Papers: Session 2

1700-1800: The IPDA Trial

This year the charge is: ‘Educators stand accused of forgetting that they are shaping the values of society’

1930: Conference Dinner followed by presentation of IPDA Prizes & Fellowships

 

Saturday 26th November 2011

0915- 1000: Third Keynote Address

Jackie Main, Director of Learning and Development, Kaplan International Colleges

Session Chair: Cliff Jones

1000 – 1030: Keynote related Workshop

1030- 1100: Coffee/Tea Break

1100–1200: Research Papers: Session 3

1200–1330: Research Papers and Workshops: Session 4

1330-1415: Lunch

1415-1515: Parallel Seminars

Share your research with your peers and a panel of experts and receive constructive responses

How to Get Published Seminar offered by Members of the PDiE Editorial Board

‘Bring us your research issues/problems’ Seminar with Kit Field & Roger Levy

 

1515: Close of Conference: Professor Ken Jones, IPDA President

 

IPDA: http://www.ipda.org.uk/

IPDA 2011 International Conference: http://www.ipda.org.uk/conferences.html

 

END                                     

* I shall speak to the title of ‘Higher Education in Crises of Capital and Labour’. This will be part of my ‘comeback tour’. For three years (since my Rhodes paper in June 2008), I did not write anything substantial or speak in public (apart from my father’s eulogy, and, of course, lectures / seminars with my own students): no conferences, no papers, articles etc. of note – I just wrote blogs in the form of adverts for events I did not attend, but supported and thought interesting and worthwhile. I performed a service.

The first part of my ‘comeback tour’ was my talk on ‘Capitorg: Education and the Constitution of the Human in Contemporary Society’, at the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) in Dublin, on 25^th May 2011.

See https://rikowski.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/capitorg-education-and-the-constitution-of-the-human-in-contemporary-society-glenn-rikowski/ and http://www.gradcam.ie/glenn_rikowski.pdf   

 

Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

The Ethics of Widening Participation Seminar Series

Capitorg

THE ETHICS OF WIDENING PARTICIPATION SEMINAR SERIES

UALL Widening Participation and Social Inclusion Network

Convenor: Annette Hayton, Head of Widening Participation, Goldsmiths, University of London

SRHE: Access and Widening Participation Network

Convenor: Penny-Jane Burke, Roehampton University

 

Venue: SRHE, 44 Bedford Way London WC1R 4LL

Date: Thursday 14^th July 2011

From 1pm- 4pm (lunch available from 12:30pm)

 

The Ethics of Widening Participation Seminar Series

 

Ethical dilemmas in widening participation: issues of pedagogy and identity

Dr Jacqueline Stevenson, Leeds Metropolitan University

For more than a decade various governmental policy initiatives have been implemented in the UK to increase the number of students attending higher education. However, whilst these initiatives have been widely critiqued there has been almost no consideration as to the ethical implications of widening participation. This is a significant omission since both WP policy and practice give rise to serious ethical concerns, not least being whether we should continue to increase access to HE at all knowing that many widening participation students are more likely to drop out, get worse degrees, graduate with higher levels of debt and be less employable post-graduation than their peers. Drawing on issues of pedagogy, student support and both staff and student identities, this presentation will act as a ‘think-piece’ offering an opportunity to consider the implications of widening participation from both an ‘ethics of justice’ and ‘ethics of care’ perspective. 

 

Widening Participation and the Capability Approach

Dr Michael F. Watts, University of Cambridge

This paper uses the capability approach to address the ethics of the widening participation agenda.  The capability approach de-emphasises the significance of commodities (including educational commodities) in favour of the opportunities they enable in pursuit of the good life.  It demands a context-based understanding of how the socio-cultural circumstances of young people influence the real opportunities they have to recognise the value of and engage with higher education.  This more nuanced engagement with the concept of well-being recognises that the inevitability of human diversity generates different realisations of the good life.  It also enables engagement with the adaptation of preferences that continue to bedevil attempts to increase access to higher education.  The focus on freedom, illustrated here with reference to a number of empirical studies, frames a more just approach to widening participation that is concerned with what young people have rather than what they lack. 

 

 

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please email Nicola Manches at: nmanches@srhe.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.   Please include the name of your institution and whether you are an SRHE or UALL member.

Cost:

SRHE members: free

UALL members: £25

All Non members: £40

Payment can be made by cheque (made payable SRHE and sent to SRHE, 44 Bedford Way London WC1R 4LL ) or phone through with credit card details.  Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non attendance if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non attendance given by 7 July 2011.

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit

Society for Research into Higher Education

44 Bedford Row

London WC1R 4LL

Tel: +44 20 7447 2525

Fax: +44 20 7447 2526

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk