Higher education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faces a number of challenges. There are many calls for STEM education to make significant changes moving forward, including calls for competency-based learning and greater integration of the humanities. These efforts require systemic change. Systemic change has significant…

Boundary ambiguity occurs when members of a family are confused or uncertain regarding roles, responsibilities and subsystem configurations within the family. Research suggests that perception of boundary ambiguity is associated with family stress despite internal and external resource availability. It has been suggested that research on family…

In this article, I seek to explore the tensions of what it means to be a "deserving" native researcher. I begin by experimenting with the meaning of a "borderland love ethic" as a theoretical framework that centers on: nurturing our strength to love in spaces of contention, tolerance of ambiguity as a revolutionary virtue, and…

Privileging elite academic pedigrees in graduate admissions preserves racial and socioeconomic inequities that many institutions say they wish to reduce. To understand this preference, I integrate across perspectives on trust in rational choice, social capital, and social network theories, and use the resulting framework to interpret 68 interviews…

Over the past decade, a wealth of UK government initiatives have provided opportunities for higher education institutions to increase student numbers by engaging more with defined groups of students who do not traditionally participate in post compulsory education. Within the creative arts subjects, the success of these politically sensitive…

The paper is based on an analysis of interviews with individuals engaged in systemic reform of higher education (HE) in Poland. The reform is perceived as controversial: it is supported by the media and claimed to be in line with the expectations of external stakeholders of HE, as well as being congruent with Poland's international commitments; at…

We explore how the participatory, literary arts-based methodology of collective poetic inquiry can facilitate awareness of, and insight into polyvocality in educational research. Using found poetry and haiku poetry, we present a poetic performance in which we engage with diverse voices that manifest in multiple data sources: a student…

Students' satisfaction with feedback and assessment has historically been low. This is confirmed by the most recent National Student Survey where feedback and assessment still remain the area of least satisfaction. Such projects as Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) attempt to tackle the issue by providing a channel…

This study is based on interviews with 25 programme leaders at two universities in England. Programme leadership is ubiquitous and essential to effective university operations, yet there is surprisingly little research on the role. It is an ambiguous and complex form of leadership, existing as it does in the space between standard academic and…

The physical sciences, mathematics and technology subjects in Zimbabwe, like in most other African countries, are still male dominated. This is despite numerous efforts over the years directed towards gender equality in these disciplines. Many studies point at teacher education as not doing enough to assist future teachers in these disciplines…

The use of coaching as a developmental methodology has been instituted as a way to develop leadership in schools in Scotland as elsewhere in the UK. While there are studies that examine the skills and impact of coaching, there is only limited discussion of the process of coaching and the role and experiences of the coaches. This article examines…

At the heart of learning and teaching in studio based design subjects lies the engagement by students and tutors in activities which are based on practical work simulating design professionals' work. We report here on a research project which explored the student/tutor relationship in design pedagogies across a range of academic levels and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cohort of university faculty leaders in Canadian universities conceptualize sustainable development, sustainable universities, the role universities play in achieving a sustainable future, key issues facing the university, and the barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives on campus.…

This paper presents selected findings from a wider study on the expression of health within physical education (PE) curricula in secondary schools in England and Wales. The study revealed that the expression of health in PE broadly reflected ideologies associated with promoting "fitness for life" and "fitness for performance"…

This study explored the perceptions of the staff and faculty of one writing program in a large western university, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The Writing Program had experienced significant changes including budgetary reductions since 2008 as well as turnover in leadership. These changes have impacted the culture of the…