This article explores ways in which higher education (HE) slogans, together with related frameworks and policies, increasingly invade the personal, cultural and positional values of individual staff and students. After a quick exploration of examples of embedded university values that are expected to be 'lived', the article outlines some epistemic…

The historical appropriation of epistemological values is the theme of the article. Bachelard, one of the pioneering thinkers on epistemological evolution, presupposed that historical epistemology will culminate in the end of its history. Scientific imagination should be decluttered from human sentimentalities, Bachelard observed. For that, it is…

Transformative learning (TL) goals are becoming commonplace in higher education, continuing education, and other adult learning contexts; however, valid and reliable assessments of TL are not so common. This imbalance begs the development of assessment methods that allow for a deeper understanding of how, when, and why deep reshaping of self takes…

Internationalisation of curriculum (IoC) practices promote students developing knowledge of other cultures, attitudes, values and ethics. This conceptual article argues that embedding critical reflection in the IoC program -- through integrating insights from both IoC thinkers and critical reflection literature -- may allow educators and students…

Since its beginnings in the late 1970s, punk culture has been associated with counter-mainstream ideology and anti-institutional antagonism. In particular, formal education has been criticised in punk for sustaining oppressive social and conceptual orders and associated behavioural norms. Drawing on literature and interviews, this paper focuses on…

How does higher education contribute to finding workable and lasting solutions to complex social issues that face communities globally today? How does higher education contribute to global sustainable development goals? The scholarship of engagement encourages faculty, scholars, and students to work together with communities on solutions to…

This article considers how a contribution based on Rorty's philosophy can help in the understanding of quality and its assurance in higher education. The suggestion is that if quality has an edifying purpose, then it should be seen as an ongoing process and might be aptly judged as being just "good enough". This position is argued for it…

Schon contends that Boyer's vision for a new paradigm of scholarship, which includes research, teaching, application and integration, requires a new epistemology of practice that would take the form of action research. This article explores the validity of Schon's assertion through the use of a living theory approach to teaching "active…

In this publication ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) has taken the opportunity to bring together two distinct but related reports. Part 1 examines the language of European quality assurance. It grew out of the debates and discussions at an ENQA workshop in Warwick in June 2006. The success of the workshop…

An ethnographic account of the community of professional historians constructs a picture of what history is like as a discipline, what features of its epistemology differentiate it from others, and what characterizes the profession in career structure, value system, and preferred modes of communication. (Author/MSE)

Discuses how societies differ in how they define illness, how they explain the lack of health, and in how they apply local values to problems of health. (Author)

This paper presents a study that used narrative inquiry to explore staff experiences of learning and teaching in immersive worlds. The findings introduced issues relating to identity play, the relationship between pedagogy and play and the ways in which learning, play and fun were managed (or not). At the same time there was a sense of imposed or…

Examines three techniques to overcome relativism: (1) a hierarchical view, in which the socially constructed view is superior; (2) a belief that a true understanding of personal experience will lead to political awareness; and (3) an assertion that the socially constructed view is more ethical than other views. Argues that first two approaches are…

The dominant conception of knowledge in modern consciousness and culture is examined, and some of its consequences are explored. Implications of the gap between knowledge and values with regard to our understanding of education are discussed. (RM)

Community is seen as a capacity for relatedness within individuals--relatedness not only to people but to events in history, to nature, to the world of ideas, and to things of the spirit. Objectivism, the dominant epistemology in higher education, is seen as anticommunal. (MLW)