From pressures to become economically efficient to calls to act as an agent of progressive social change, higher education is facing a series of challenges. There is an urgent need for a rigorous and sophisticated research base to support the informed development of practices. Yet studies of educational practices in higher education remain theoretically underdeveloped and segmented by discipline and country. Building Knowledge in Higher Education illustrates how Legitimation Code Theory is bringing research together from across the disciplinary map and enabling practical change in a rigorously theorized way. The volume addresses both students and educators. Part I explores ways of supporting student achievement from STEM to the arts, from introductory courses to doctoral training, and from using new digital media to reflective writing. Part II focuses on academic staff development in higher education, reaching from curriculum design to pedagogic practices. All chapters focus on issues of contemporary relevance to higher education, showing how Legitimation Code Theory enables these issues to be understood and practices improved. Building Knowledge in Higher Education brings together internationally renowned scholars in higher education studies, academic development, academic literacies, and sociology, with some of the brightest new researchers. The volume significantly extends understandings of teaching and learning in changing higher education contexts and so contributes to educational research and practice. It will be essential reading not only to scholars and students in these fields but also to scholars and educators in higher education more generally.

From pressures to become economically efficient to calls to act as an agent of progressive social change, higher education is facing a series of challenges. There is an urgent need for a rigorous and sophisticated research base to support the informed development of practices. Yet studies of educational practices in higher education remain theoretically underdeveloped and segmented by discipline and country. Building Knowledge in Higher Education illustrates how Legitimation Code Theory is bringing research together from across the disciplinary map and enabling practical change in a rigorously theorized way. The volume addresses both students and educators. Part I explores ways of supporting student achievement from STEM to the arts, from introductory courses to doctoral training, and from using new digital media to reflective writing. Part II focuses on academic staff development in higher education, reaching from curriculum design to pedagogic practices. All chapters focus on issues of contemporary relevance to higher education, showing how Legitimation Code Theory enables these issues to be understood and practices improved. Building Knowledge in Higher Education brings together internationally renowned scholars in higher education studies, academic development, academic literacies, and sociology, with some of the brightest new researchers. The volume significantly extends understandings of teaching and learning in changing higher education contexts and so contributes to educational research and practice. It will be essential reading not only to scholars and students in these fields but also to scholars and educators in higher education more generally.

Drawing on the South African case, this book looks at shifts in higher education around the world in the last two decades. In South Africa, calls for transformation have been heard in the university since the last days of apartheid. Similar claims for quality higher education to be made available to all have been made across the African continent. In spite of this, inequalities remain and many would argue that these have been exacerbated during the Covid pandemic.

Understanding Higher Education responds to these calls by arguing for a social account of teaching and learning by contesting dominant understandings of students as ‘decontextualised learners’ premised on the idea that the university is a meritocracy.

This book tackles the issue of teaching and learning by looking both within and beyond the classroom. It looks at how higher education policies emerged from the notion of the knowledge economy in the newly democratic South Africa, and how national qualification frameworks and other processes brought the country more closely into conversation with the global order. The effects of this on staffing and curriculum structures are considered alongside a proposition for alternative ways of understanding the role of higher education in society.

Around the world, more young people than ever before are attending university. Student numbers in South Africa have doubled since democracy and for many families, higher education is a route to a better future for their children. But alongside the overwhelming demand for higher education, questions about its purposes have intensified. Deliberations about the curriculum, culture and costing of public higher education abound from student activists, academics, parents, civil society and policy-makers.

We know, from macro research, that South African graduates generally have good employment prospects. But little is known at a detailed level about how young people actually make use of their university experiences to craft their life courses. And even less is known about what happens to those who drop out.

This accessible book brings together the rich life stories of 73 young people, six years after they began their university studies. It traces how going to university influences not only their employment options, but also nurtures the agency needed to chart their own way and to engage critically with the world around them.

The book offers deep insights into the ways in which public higher education is both a private and public good, and it provides significant conclusions pertinent to anyone who works in - and cares about - universities.