This article describes a successful academic development programme in a Commerce faculty at a relatively elite, historically white university in South Africa. The writers argue that the programme has managed to achieve good results in recent years by moving away from deficit models of academic development for students from disadvantaged…

In 1986 (first published 1983) Clark's triangle of coordination compared national higher education systems according to the dimensions of state authority, market and academic oligarchy. The picture was of a particular time, one in which those three factors could be ably used to illustrate major differences in how coordination took place.…

Much grading of student work is based, overtly or tacitly, on assumptions derived from scientific measurement. However, the practice of grading and the cumulation of grades into an overall index of achievement are socially constructed activities that fall a long way short of what is expected of scientific measurement. If scientific measurement is…

The "knowledge economy" has been received with considerable scepticism by scholars within the fields of political economy, social and political philosophy, and higher education. Key arguments within this literature are reviewed in this article to suggest that, despite policy claims, "knowledge economy" does not describe a "new" mode of economic…

Universities have focused on teaching and learning at a time when quality has become the marker of distinction in international higher education markets. Education markets have meant pedagogical relations have become contractualised with a focus on student satisfaction, exemplified in consumer-oriented generic evaluations of teaching. This article…

This article is a response to Haggis's injunction to "know differently" if we are to grow our understandings of student learning. It identifies concerns that have arisen in the course of research into engagement (conceived of as "ideological becoming") in first year lectures in the humanities at a South African university. These issues include:…

Academic development has emerged as an important new site of practice in higher education internationally over the past 40 years, and has been influential in shaping the terms of debate about teaching and learning in higher education. Academic development has shifted its focus from the individual teacher to strategic interventions at institutional…

Since 1994, the South African state and various social actors have sought to realise far-reaching and extensive institutional change in higher education. This article posits a framework for the theorisation and analysis of institutional change in South African higher education during the post-1994 period, and then analyses the contexts,…

"Approach to studying" research focuses on the "manner" (deep, surface, etc.) in which studying is grasped. This is the Husserlian "noesis", the mental orientation, to studying. In this article, it is argued that attention must also be given to the subjective meaning of studying and of what is studied--the Husserlian "noema". However, the…

This article reflects on the experience of one UK higher education institution in its efforts to develop more effective support mechanisms for the growing numbers of students with Asperger syndrome and autism, in collaboration with a specialist support organisation. Case studies are used to illustrate the complex needs of this group of students.…

Increased attention to the support of individual, group and institutional development in UK universities has led to the growth of communities of development practitioners. An explanatory model is proposed that characterises communities, locating them in relation to four dimensions: integration, strategy, inclusion and scholarship. The model…

The article argues that we make best use of learning technologies if we begin with an understanding of educational problems, and use this analysis to target the solutions we should be demanding from technology. The focus is to address the issue from the perspective of teachers and lecturers (the "teaching community"), and to consider how they…

The relationship between research and teaching has been the focus of much scholarly debate. Recently, the very existence of such a relationship has been questioned. In addition, government policies are undermining this defining feature of the modern university, creating an ontological crisis for those working in the academy. In order to understand…

Caring about others is a virtuous act but is it compatible, or indeed advisable, in academic research? This article considers the locus of ethical responsibility for work-based practitioners, and considers ethics for researchers undertaking research within their own organisations. The authors argue that, as practitioner researchers, they are…

The controlling strategies of neo-liberalism, designed to constitute academics as economic units supporting the designs of government, are contrasted here with the creative and transgressive elements of a more Deleuzian approach to writing that opens things up, that brings thought to life, that makes the familiar, predictable order tremble. The…