This article presents an understanding of the context, nature and significance of Mary Gurney's educational career during the years 1863 to 1917. It is assisted in part by the conceptual lenses of feminist thinking and network theory. Despite neglect by past historians, Gurney's work was seen by contemporaries as equal in significance to that of…

The paper investigates internationality as an academic virtue that is highly relevant for research biographies. The discursive trajectory of this virtue is assessed by comparing ascriptions of internationality in 216 academic obituaries from the US, UK and Germany, from physics, sociology and history, and from the 1960s, 1980s and 2000s. Our…

Five teachers of higher education (HE)-level courses working in the further education (FE) sector recalled critical moments which helped to form their self-concepts. The researchers used life history method to encourage the teachers to be open about their lives and how they formed their personal and professional selves. Three common themes were…

Inspired by Bourdieu's ("Homo Academicus, Polity," Cambridge, 1988; "The Logic of Practice, Polity," Cambridge, 1990) ideas of knowledge reproduction, the article presents an empirical mapping of knowledge geographies, as manifest in the curricular practices found within a single international MA programme in Denmark. Following…

This article brings together two studies which contribute to the examination of the nature of professionalism in education by focusing on the perspectives of two under-researched groups namely "teaching assistants" and teacher educators working "either side" of the school teacher. The projects were conducted in, and framed by,…

This study investigates the experiences of academics who became department heads in a post-1992 UK university and explores the influence that being in the position has on their planned future academic career. Drawing on life history interviews undertaken with 17 male and female heads of department, the paper constitutes an in-depth study of their…

In the UK, and in many other countries, policy makers and funding bodies emphasise the importance of the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), as opposed to the HASS disciplines (humanities, arts and social sciences), in higher education. Yet an examination of the biographies of UK members of parliament (MPs)…

Learners' biographies affect their engagement with knowledge and shape how their learning is understood. This article uses an educational life history approach to investigate how students' social and cultural educational experiences affect their engagement with their university. Qualitative evidence is presented from interviews with students with…

A year-long longitudinal study was conducted to gain insight into the lives of eight students who had a label of Asperger's syndrome during their transitions into higher education in the UK. Reflecting on life history data, the findings suggest that universities might actually be maintaining and (re)producing barriers that perpetuate the exclusion…

This volume contains a collection of selected papers submitted to the 19th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) held in June 2021. The 19th BCES Conference theme is "New Challenges to Education: Lessons from around the World." The book includes 40 papers written by 66 authors from 15…

I explore the question of men's participation in higher education (HE) in relation to shifting, discursive and intersecting masculine subjectivities by drawing on qualitative interviews with men participating in HE. The paper contributes to a sociological understanding of the impact of masculine subjectivities on higher educational participation…

This article introduces the notion of the "educational franchise" of Australia's public universities established in the mid-nineteenth century. In his recently published study of the public university and social access in the United States, John Aubrey Douglass suggests that from the mid-nineteenth century a social contract was formed…

This paper draws on life history interviews with young adults in the UK to consider Manuela du Bois-Reymond's claims about the increasing prevalence of "trendsetter learners" across Europe. Du Bois-Reymond has argued that certain groups of young adults are at the forefront of developing new forms of learning in response to what they…

This study considers the influence on British education (particularly schools) of Alan Bullock, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1969 to 1973 and distinguished contemporary historian. It quotes extensively from Bullock's own writings, including his developing personal views on education, and reflections on his own experiences. Following a…

The Research Institute for Higher Education (RIHE) in Hiroshima University started a program of research on the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) in 2005. This research is funded by the Ministry of Education and Science as a grant-in-aid for scientific research headed by Professor Akira Arimoto, Director of the Research Institute for Higher…