Against the backdrop of teaching being downplayed in higher education, this study unravels how the university faculty members' implementation of teaching excellence is influenced by the interplay of objective structural conditionings and subjective internal deliberations, drawing upon Margaret Archer's social realist framework and her distinction…

Activity theory is a relatively young methodology for researching higher education teaching practices. Beyond systemic analyse of workplace activities and their development, activity theory used in its full interventionist capacity can foster practitioners' transformative agency to initiate practice change. Nevertheless, this is not an easy…

This study explores university educators' perspectives on their alignment with artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, considering activity theory (AT), which forms the theoretical underpinning of this study. To do so, 37 educators from a higher education institution were selected to write their metaphors about AI ethics alignment, out of which 11…

This inquiry into the nature of feminist solidarity in the academic sciences is guided by the intra-activity of gendered bodies in teaching-intensive faculty positions. It uses diffractive methodology to examine how response-able research practice can account for enactment of social discourse through agential cuts. Over the course of a two-year…

Office of Social Innovation undertakes transformative initiatives that challenge systemic issues and create a space to imagine alternative pathways and perspectives. Our team of staff, students, and faculty has undertaken an intentional process to reflect on these initiatives and elaborate a scholarly approach: one that enters into dialogue with…

For several decades, Western universities have been subject to wide-ranging structural, financial and ideological changes. These changes have problematised afresh the meaning of academic identity as evidenced by the emergence of a substantial, international, anglophone research literature. This article examines how the idea of academic identity…

This article reviews available research literature in the field of lecturer self-efficacy beliefs produced between 1988 and 2020. Given the growing interest in lecturer self-efficacy beliefs in recent years, and the global challenges the Higher Education sector will face following the current COVID-19 pandemic, the time to conduct such a review…

This paper considers queer feminist interruptions as a way to halt, reverse and rethink internationalisation in UK higher education (HE). These points of intervention are situated within the queer development studies literature, which provides a framework for understanding internationalisation practices alongside other strategies of Western…

In this essay, the author reflects on her teaching as a site in which to analyse the pedagogical tensions produced by foregrounding disability in the study of gender and sexuality and by allowing students to see her vulnerability. Analysing a moment in class, the author thinks through a queercripistemological vulnerable pedagogy of care that…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the affordances of the e-assessment system Numbas from an Activity Theory perspective. The study follows a qualitative research design combined with semi-structured interviews with six students and two teachers. The findings reveal that the students were able to perceive and actualise several affordances…

In our political and cultural climate, where America is recovering from a pandemic, affirmative action is no longer the law of the land, DEI programs are being cut, and African American history and heritage are being denied and eradicated; how do African Americans navigate white spaces? How do African American leaders obtain a seat at the table?…

Purpose: This article responds to the topic of 'postcolonial social science education' by exploring strategies for decolonizing the social science 'archive'. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes a decolonial-critical social science approach to explore the limit and test cases for decolonizing social science education, using two examples: a…

Against the backdrop of prevalent student attrition in engineering education, this study draws upon Margaret Archer's social realistic theory and offers a close-up analysis of how structural and cultural factors interplay to affect Chinese university engineering faculty members' perceptions of and agency in practicing 'scholarly teaching'.…

In the era of knowledge economy, knowledge sharing has become a crucial social behavior that underpins the existence and development of a knowledge society. Encouraging university teachers to actively share their knowledge is essential for fostering strong teacher teams and enhancing school development. Transformational leadership plays a…

Scholarly articles on international academics have been weighted towards understanding their broad personal and professional challenges related to teaching. Limited research is conducted with international women academics in Australia in, especially, exploring their leadership-related challenges and opportunities. Using an intersectionality lens,…