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- Convenors:
-
Brendan Harrison
(Commonwealth Scholarship Commission)
Paul Jackson (University of Birmingham)
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- Formats:
- Roundtables Synchronous
- Stream:
- Shaping the future of development teaching and research
- Sessions:
- Friday 19 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Higher Education is a site where normative political and economic values are both reproduced and contested; values that directly impact development. Are students (particularly international students) merely learning these values through Higher Education, or learning to challenge them?
Long Abstract:
What is the role of Higher Education in providing leadership in a development context? Higher Education can mean both the personal transformation that students experience at Higher Education Institutions, as well as the institutions themselves.
University graduates are expected to provide leadership across all sectors of society where normative political and economic values are entrenched, while many current students are in conflict with Higher Education Institutions over issues stemming from those same values: tuition fees; a lack of representation of students' identities; and, the absence of climate change within the curriculum, among others. Consequently, Higher Education plays a complex role as a site of both the reproduction and the contestation of these normative values: values which also play a significant role in the political economy of development.
International students also occupy a complex space in this dynamic, particularly those who travel from developing to developed countries to study development-related issues. These students experience a similar dynamic whereby they are exposed to these normative values while also challenging them through their own experiences.
Panellists will debate these complexities, engaging with how Higher Education provides students with leadership skills through both regular pedagogical routes, and the experience of challenging Higher Education Institutions. What role do international students play in this dynamic, particularly students from developing countries who are studying in a developed country? Does this experience simply replicate problematic political economies across borders, or does it leave these students better equipped to engage with them at a critical level?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 19 June, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
This qualitative study addressed the experiences of international Black and Asian Minority Ethnicity (BAME) students in Scottish universities. This study looked at BAME students' engagement with Eurocentricity of the curriculum, language, and racism in the context of inclusion and diversity policy.
Paper long abstract:
This study sought to understand how decolonization of the curriculum could impact the experiences of international students in Scotland. By drawing on postcolonial and decolonial theories to analyze higher education (HE) curriculum and internationalization policy while interrogating these documents on issues relating to (neo)colonial and neoliberal forces and how they impact experiences of students from the Global South. In this study, higher education curriculum was conceptualized through the lens of critical race theory, to explore the relationship between knowledge, pedagogy, and power in different and unequal higher education contexts. A major focus is to bring postcolonial and decolonial analyses to the 'marketisation' processes and economic values underpinning policies and practices related to internationalisation and HE curriculum in the context of Scotland. The study argued for critical approach towards internationalization in order to bring to light the need for the rethink of the curriculum, pedagogy, and classrooms. In the areas of curriculum internationalization, international student experience, and global citizenship, this study tried to identify Eurocentric epistemological and ontological assumptions about the world and the purposes of higher education as often situated by what is possible and desirable within the frames of colonial modernity and its promises of security, prosperity, and universality. Focusing on the question of how policies in Scotland have 'dealt with' international students and what factors played a role in establishing certain 'attitudes' towards international students, which concludes that internationalization policies remain highly politicized and give little attention to epistemic freedom of international students.
Paper short abstract:
The purpose of this study is to provoke a candid discussion of ID curriculum development. Does 'embedding employability' obstruct a critical approach to development? Is dialogic learning an appropriate framework for curriculum decisions? If so, who should have a voice in this dialogue, and why?
Paper long abstract:
In the last decade there has been a rapid expansion in the number of International Development (ID) programmes being offered in the UK. There is no definitive QAA Benchmark Statement to guide curriculum content, and emphasis on subjects varies by institution. Should fee-paying students with aspirations of leadership expect training and employability to take precedence, or must development be understood in its political, historical and normative context? Does one contradict the other? Which stakeholders should decide, and on what basis?
The purpose of this study is to provoke a candid discussion of ID curriculum development. It assesses the appropriateness of Freirian dialogic learning, as opposed to the 'banking model' of education, as both a theoretical and pedagogical solution to developing critical leaders. ID students aspire to take on leadership roles in development, but curriculum choices made in the absence of theoretical grounding risk simply reflecting current research interests or replicating what is accepted as relevant subject matter from previous iterations of the programme.
Does 'embedding employability' stand in direct contradiction to a critical approach to the study of development? Is it possible, or even appropriate, to pursue a dialogic approach at a time of marketisation in Higher Education? An increasingly diverse student body might lack sufficient academic confidence to engage with such an approach without sufficient scaffolding.
The author is Programme Director of an established BSc in International Development, currently reviewing the curriculum. If a dialogic approach is appropriate, who should have a voice in this dialogue, and why?
Paper short abstract:
As a CIRCLE Programme participant and Commonwealth Scholarship alumnus, Dr Antwi-Agyei, now a leading climate change researcher, will reflect on his experiences with such programmes, and provide recommendations for future programmes which aim to produce research leaders.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2014, the Climate Impacts Research Leadership and Capacity Enhancement (CIRCLE) Programme has worked with African climate change researchers and their home institutions to help address the low contribution of global climate change publications produced by African academics, and to support the next generation of climate change research leaders.
As a participant of the programme, Dr Philip Antwi-Agyei conducted a one-year Fellowship at the University of Ghana, and later contributed to the delivery of the Institutional Strengthening Programme at his home institution, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. Dr Antwi-Agyei is also a Commonwealth Scholarships alumnus, and an active participant in various training schemes and global leadership initiatives. Now a leading climate change researcher, and Lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ◦C, Dr Antwi-Agyei can offer personal experiences of support he received, and perspectives on how he is developing into a global research leader. It will also be an opportunity to discuss any gaps in capacity which were not addressed via higher education programmes, where support was obtained from other sources, and how development needs have changed over time.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents an analytical framework for building critical mass of leaders that can challenge entrenched inequalities in power relations between men and women in Nigeria. This is necessitated by the failure of current education system to raise leadership that will tackle power asymmetries
Paper long abstract:
In sub-Sahara Africa, transformative higher education systems are crucial for fostering sustainable human capital development which can enhance the capacities of the different individuals to participate and contribute meaningfully to the development process in their societies. Gender inequalities remain a common phenomenon in ensuring transformative changes in many societies in patriarch countries like Nigeria. Therefore, gender sensitive higher education system can be a powerful catalyst to achieving inclusive development. Despite the potential of higher education systems in building people's agency to challenge bias cultural norms, stereotypes and beliefs, there is still a somewhat silent but prevalent notion that the country still has a dearth of leaders that can challenge deep-seated gender stereotypes and structures that continue to malign issues important to women. Critics argue that gender stereotypes, sociocultural factors, home environment, lack of skilled trained teachers, especially to act as role models, and inability to integrate gender issues in the existing higher education curriculum and pedagogy limits the capacity of the education system in serving as an effective tool to enhance the bargaining power of individuals to challenge unequal power relations. Based on the foregoing, using case studies and in-depth desk review, this paper explores gender inclusiveness in higher education system in the country. The paper identifies key weaknesses in the current higher education system to facilitate the development of leaders that can challenge power asymmetries within families, communities, work-place and society at large. The paper proposed a framework for gender-inclusive education system that can empower people to challenge entrenched patriarchy at all levels.