Thurs 21st March 4.30-6.00pm
Julie Hall and Jo Peat, Roehampton University
Empowering students: Troublesome Knowledge and the Student Voice
UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury Campus
Recent years have seen an increasing focus on engaging university students in teaching enhancement, and on their role as co-researchers and co-creators of knowledge. Writers such as Mann (2001), however, warn us that power differentials mean that students can be estranged from the language culture and practices of their HE context, finding themselves positioned as subject/object, and thus alienated from a pre-existing discoursal world. In this seminar, Julie Hall and Jo Peat discuss the participatory methodological approach taken in their Gender and Pedagogies NTFS project, which was carried out at the London Paolo Freire Institute at Roehampton, and further developed in the ‘Re-imagining Attainment for All’ project. They also present some interim findings from both projects and explore the disjuncture between dominant pedagogic practices and academic discourses in HE, and how these are experienced by students.
Julie Hall is a sociologist and the Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the University of Roehampton; she is also co-chair of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA).
Jo Peat teaches on the BA Education and is a senior lecturer in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Roehampton.