Considerable resources and intellectual attention have focused on seeking to raise the status of teaching in higher education over the last two decades. Initiatives at an institutional level have included the funding of pedagogic research, teaching awards and the creation of teaching professorships. In a broader context, the scholarship of…

A plea is made for increased field studies in education. Some of the problems are outlined: time and working hours, conflicting research paradigms, interpersonal relations in institutional settings, and financial and moral support. Examples are drawn from studies in South Australia. Solutions to the problem of reciprocal…

This paper examines research in science education, making a case for the interpretive researcher to value both reason and emotion for generating a reflective and reflexive understanding of the classroom experiences of teachers and students. It discusses the role of rationality and emotions in fieldwork, and presents two impressionistic…

Issues concerning the professional development of university administrators in Australia are discussed, including the lack of a body of knowledge about university administration; the need for a well-defined level of expertise, theory supporting administration's role, and political pressures for professionalization; and resistance to change. A slow…

International and comparative trends in higher education since the mid-1960s throughout the world are addressed in two essays, and a bibliography of some 7,000 works of higher education worldwide is presented. The essays were commissioned by the European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES), a decentralized unit of UNESCO. Philip G. Altbach's…