Language and Decoloniality in Higher Education brings together a collection of diverse papers that address, from various angles, the issue of decoloniality, language and transformation in higher education. It reflects the authors' cumulative years of experience as educators in higher education in different southern contexts. Distilled as case studies, the authors use a range of decolonial lenses to reflect on questions of knowledge, language and learning, and to build a reflexive praxis of decoloniality through multilingualism. Besides a number of decolonial persepectives which readers will be familiar with, this volume also explores a conceptual framework, Linguistic Citizenship, developed over the past two decades by scholars in southern Africa. In this collection, Linguistic Citizenship is used as a lens to 'think beyond' the inherited colonial matrices of language which have shaped this region (and many other southern contexts) for centuries, and to 're-imagine' multilingualism - and semiotics, more broadly - as a transformative resource in the broader project of social justice. Although each chapter has firm roots in the South African context, these studies have much to offer others in their 'quest for better worlds'. Of particular interest to global scholars are the authors' recounts of how they have grappled with leveraging the country's multilingual resources in the project of promoting academic access and success in the face of historical hierarchies of language and social power.

A volume in Contemporary Perspectives in Race and Ethnic Relations Series Editors: M. Christopher Brown II, Alcorn State University and T. Elon Dancy II, University of Oklahoma As the U.S. focuses on positioning itself to retain and advance its status as a world leader in technology and scientific innovation, a recognition that community colleges are a critical site for intervention has become apparent. Community colleges serve the lion's share of the nation's postsecondary students. In fact, 40% of all undergraduate students are enrolled in community colleges, these students account for nearly 30% of all STEM undergraduate majors in postsecondary institutions. These students serve as a core element of the STEM pipeline into four-year colleges and universities via the community college transfer function. Moreover, community colleges are the primary postsecondary access point for non-traditional students, including students of color, first-generation, low-income, and adult students. This is a particularly salient point given that these populations are sordidly underrepresented among STEM graduates and in the STEM workforce. Increasing success among these populations can contribute significantly to advancing the nation's interests in STEM. As such, the community college is situated as an important site for innovative practices that have strong implications for bolstering the nation's production and sustenance of a STEM labor force. In recognition of this role, the National Science Foundation and private funding agencies have invested millions of dollars into research and programs designed to bolster the STEM pipeline. From this funding and other independently sponsored inquiry, promising programs, initiatives, and research recommendations have been identified. These efforts hold great promise for change, with the potential to transform the education and outcome of STEM students at all levels. This important book discusses many of these promising programs, initiatives, and research-based recommendations that can impact the success of STEM students in the community college. This compilation is timely, on the national landscape, as the federal government has placed increasing importance on improving STEM degree production as a strategy for America's future stability in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Informed by research and theory, each chapter in this volume blazes new territory in articulating how community colleges can advance outcomes for students in STEM, particularly those from historically underrepresented and underserved communities

Consuming Higher Education explores the status of students within the university and society, and the funding and purpose of higher education, drawing on empirical data, UK and USA government policy documents, speeches by policy makers and media representations of students. Joanna Williams moves beyond the debates surrounding fees to consider the impact of the consumption model on universities, learning, knowledge, and student identity. While consumer status initially appears to empower students, Williams argues that it ultimately erodes students' autonomy and reduces learning to an instrumental focus on credit accumulation. At the same time, in giving students consumer status, lecturers are encouraged to avoid intellectually or emotionally challenging content so as not to upset student consumers, which could promote dissatisfaction. Williams draws these themes and arguments together to consider what it means to be a student and to explore alternative conceptions of higher education.

Critical thinking is a major and enduring aspect of higher education and the development of criticality in students has long been a core aim. However, understandings of criticality are conceptually and empirically unclear. The book combines a well developed conceptual discussion of the nature of criticality appropriate for the twenty-first century, the extent to which it is attainable by arts and social science undergraduates, and the paths by which it is developed during students' higher education experiences. Drawing upon empirical accounts and case studies of teaching and learning in different disciplines, this book critically analyses higher education curriculum and policy documentation to explore higher educational processes, encouraging a re-evaluation of practice and educational values, and enabling the development of curricula which incorporate systematic attention to the development of student criticality. This book proposes a rounded conceptual vision of criticality in higher education for the twenty-first century.

This is a comprehensive introduction to the nature of contemporary education policy, its purposes and political formation which supports readers to engage in contemporary policy analysis. "Education Policy Unravelled" examines the nature of contemporary education policy, its purposes and political formation. It charts the continuity of policy development along neo-liberal lines, moving from New Labour to the emerging position of the Coalition government. Contrary to popular belief about recent radical change in education policy, the author team draw attention to the fact that there have been strong similarities and nuanced disagreements between successive modern governments. Written in an accessible style, the book contains a number of pedagogical features designed to appeal to students as a means to inform thinking and understanding around key policy issues. It is an invaluable guide for students engaging with education policy as it uses a variety of key elements of policy theory in order to support students through some of the complexities involved in contemporary policy analysis and critique.

This is a thorough investigation of the research, development, policy and practice of teaching and learning in Higher Education. Whilst current research into teaching and learning offers many insights into the experiences of academics and students in higher education, it has two significant shortcomings. It does not highlight the dynamic ways in which students and academics impact on each other in teaching-learning interactions or the ways in which these interactions are shaped by wider social processes. This book offers critical insight into existing perspectives on researching teaching and learning in higher education and argues that alternative perspectives are required in order to account for structure and agency in teaching-learning interactions in higher education. In considering four alternative perspectives, it examines the ways in which teaching-learning interactions are shaped by teaching-learning environments, student and academic identities, disciplinary knowledge practices and institutional cultures. It concludes by examining the conceptual and methodological implications of these analyses of teaching-learning interactions and provides the reader with an invaluable guide to alternative ways of conceptualising and researching teaching and learning in higher education.

This title offers an engaging look at the debates surrounding the benefits and dangers of the increasing use of technology in education. "New Technology and Education" explores the benefits and dangers of the increasing use of technology in education, drawing on different cultural perspectives from across the globe to consider a variety of viewpoints. The reader is encouraged to engage with each facet of the debate considering the philosophical, psychological and sociological implications of the relationship between technology and education. Recent debates and developments are considered, including: What is the relationship between creativity, education and new technology? Are subject boundaries blurred by the use of new technologies? And how do we plan for technologies becoming redundant? Reflective exercises, interviews, chapter summaries and useful websites encourage and support student learning and the application of new concepts. This series presents an authoritative, coherent and focused collection of core texts to introduce the contemporary issues that are covered in Education Studies, and related programmes. Each book develops a key theme in contemporary education, such as: Multiculturalism; The social construction of childhood; Urban education; eLearning and multimedia; And, language and literacy. A key feature of this series is the critical exploration of education in times of rapid change, with links made between such developments in wider social, cultural, political and economic contexts. Further, contextualised extracts from important primary texts, such as Bourdieu, Piaget and Vygotsky, will ensure students' exposure to dominant contemporary theories in the field of education. Grounded in a strong conceptual, theoretical framework and presented in an accessible way with the use of features such as case studies, activities and visual devices to encourage and support student learning and the application of new concepts, this series will serve well as collection of core texts for the Education Studies student and lecturer.

"The Future of Higher Education" coursebook comprehensively explores policy, pedagogy and the student experience. "The Future of Higher Education" explores policy, pedagogy and the student experience at a conceptual level, enabling university staff to place their own work within a wider theoretical framework and to develop their own understandings of some of the key controversies that surround teaching and learning in higher education.The book is divided into three parts: part 1 explores key policies that have shaped higher education since the late twentieth century, and traces the impact that these policies have had on the extent and nature of higher education provision; part 2 explores how these emerging policies, and the need for higher education institutions to respond to them, have produced a radical reevaluation of what higher education is and how it might best be delivered at an institutional level; and, part 3 gives consideration to pedagogy and the student experience in contemporary higher education. "The Future of Higher Education" will be invaluable to all university staff, especially those following the PGCertHE and other programmes within institutional CPD frameworks. It will also be of interest to researchers in this field.

This book provides a detailed examination of the processes that lead to unsustainable growth of nonessential personnel in the modern university. It explores administrative bloat, a major contributor to the rising costs of a college education, comprehensively detailing its development through the examination of case studies. After defining bloat and considering many of the factors that contribute to it (and its associated consequences), a number of case studies are used to elaborate and expand on the themes developed in the initial chapter. The first case focuses on the complex infrastructures being developed to promote the strategically ambiguous focus on student success. Universities have developed a number of information dissemination programs in recent years. One such program that is also explicitly targeted at the commercialization of university research is the development of technology transfer offices. Relatedly, the next case focuses on the institutional pressures brought by various stakeholders to emulate the success of the famed Research Triangle in North Carolina by developing technology incubators and research and development parks that promote entrepreneurship. The final case study focuses on the promise of technology, particularly in the form of distance learning. The final chapter summarizes the book and addresses some more general issues, asking questions such as: What is success? What are the ethical concerns raised by bloat? How do they relate to the individual interests? What manifest and latent functions does it serve?