What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts. Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters - who should be considered and valued - and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.

This book examines the dominant discourses in higher education. From the moment teachers enter higher education, they are met with dominant discourses that are often adopted uncritically, including concepts such as teaching excellence, student voice, and student engagement. Teachers are also met with simplistic binaries such as teaching vs. research, quantitative vs. qualitative research, and constructivists vs. positivists. Kinchin and Gravett suggest that this may present a distorted view, contributing to the disconnect between the aims and observable practice of higher education. Rather than celebrating difference, dominant discourses tend to seek similarities in an attempt to simplify and manage the environment. In this book, the authors share their belief that teaching and learning should be a thoughtful endeavour. Thinking with a breadth of theories, the authors explore the overlaps between different perspectives in order to offer a richer and more inclusive interrogation of the dominant discourses that pervade higher education. Offering methodological approaches to explore these perspectives, the authors bring together academics working in different parts of the university and examine the concept of a ‘rich cartography’, considering how this can offer meaning within higher education research and practice.

This book explores student-staff partnerships through a breadth of co-authored research projects. There is a significant gap in current literature regarding student-staff partnerships, both in the sharing of examples as well as in the examination of partnership working and its impact. Organised into four thematic sections, the editors and contributors highlight the diversity of routes students and staff can take to work in partnership, as well as how research, learning and teaching can be co-created. Written by both university staff and student researchers, the chapters consider the benefits of student-staff partnerships as an antidote to consumerist visions of higher education, and a way of celebrating the potential of students and their voices. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of student-staff partnerships.

This book explores student-staff partnerships through a breadth of co-authored research projects. There is a significant gap in current literature regarding student-staff partnerships, both in the sharing of examples as well as in the examination of partnership working and its impact. Organised into four thematic sections, the editors and contributors highlight the diversity of routes students and staff can take to work in partnership, as well as how research, learning and teaching can be co-created. Written by both university staff and student researchers, the chapters consider the benefits of student-staff partnerships as an antidote to consumerist visions of higher education, and a way of celebrating the potential of students and their voices. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of student-staff partnerships.

This book examines the dominant discourses in higher education. From the moment teachers enter higher education, they are met with dominant discourses that are often adopted uncritically, including concepts such as teaching excellence, student voice, and student engagement. Teachers are also met with simplistic binaries such as teaching vs. research, quantitative vs. qualitative research, and constructivists vs. positivists. Kinchin and Gravett suggest that this may present a distorted view, contributing to the disconnect between the aims and observable practice of higher education. Rather than celebrating difference, dominant discourses tend to seek similarities in an attempt to simplify and manage the environment. In this book, the authors share their belief that teaching and learning should be a thoughtful endeavour. Thinking with a breadth of theories, the authors explore the overlaps between different perspectives in order to offer a richer and more inclusive interrogation of the dominant discourses that pervade higher education. Offering methodological approaches to explore these perspectives, the authors bring together academics working in different parts of the university and examine the concept of a ‘rich cartography’, considering how this can offer meaning within higher education research and practice.