CFP: New Contexts in Learning and Teaching – International perspectives

CALL FOR PANELS AND PAPERS

Nov 23rd –25th 2005, Jury’s Inn, Birmingham, UK
A major conference hosted by Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP)

The restructuring of the world university system continues apace. Public sector reforms, commoditisation, and expanding student numbers are all redefining higher education. What impact are these changes having on learning, teaching and academic practice, and how are students and academics responding? Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP) invites contributions from students and staff to an international conference on these new contexts for university education.

Globalisation: Is the notion of ‘globalisation’ a useful shorthand for understanding the economic and political forces reshaping higher education? How are the demands for financial and academic ‘accountability’ changing the pedagogic values and cultures of universities? In what ways are these mediated by national policy contexts?

Higher Education Policy: How are national policy agendas – such as those around vocationalism, widening participation and employability in the UK - reshaping teaching and the ‘student experience’ in the social sciences? At the European level, what is the impact of the Bologna process?

E-learning: What are the long-term implications of e-learning for ‘borderless’ education and the student experience? Will we see the rise of the mobile ‘global’ student? How is a reliance on commercial software affecting student learning?

Pedagogy and pedagogic research: As student expectations of and responsibilities for learning change, are faculty attitudes shifting too? Will disciplinary identities and pedagogies become less significant? Can pedagogic research document these changes?

Activism: What place is there for activism within universities? Can faculty and students work to challenge prevailing status hierarchies, whether within a global ‘knowledge economy’ or their own institutions? What role do scholarly and teaching linkages between universities have in mitigating the growing stratification of the social sciences in the global ‘North’ and ‘South’?

Keynote speakers include Michael Apple, Robert Burgess, Chacha Nyaigotti-Chacha and Peter McLaren.

Proposals for papers, panels, posters and ‘hands-on’ workshops addressing these and related themes are warmly welcomed. Papers outside the above theme will be considered for inclusion in an Open Stream. Send 300-word abstracts to Frances.Thompson@c-sap.ham.ac.uk by Friday 25th February 2005.

David Mills
Anthropology Co-ordinator,
Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP)
The Higher Education Academy
University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT

Phone 01865 793328
Fax 0121 414 7920
Email: d.mills@bham.ac.uk
http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk