Educational praxis in various Australian indigenous higher education contexts

This thesis critically reports on discourses that impact on the role and work practices of a non-Indigenous educator within Indigenous higher education contexts. The study uses autobiography and narrative inquiry as research methods to examine workplace contexts. The findings reveal competing influences that shape the practices of a non-Indigenous educator.

Want to know about quality in higher education? Ask an academic

How would you decide on the quality of a higher education institution? Would you (1) ask the academic registrar (or equivalent); (2) look up the most recent quality audit report; or (3) contact the teaching staff directly to discuss their perceptions about the quality of the services provided in their institution? While there is no one correct answer to the above question, the proposition underpinning the empirical research reported in this paper is: If you really want to know about quality in higher education, then ask those closest to the student-academic interface—the academics or the students. This paper focuses on the former. Using a postal survey, the views of accounting academics from 39 Australian universities about quality in accounting education were investigated from two perspectives—beliefs (what is currently occurring) and attitudes (what ought to be occurring). The findings suggest differences in those beliefs and attitudes, and an overall view that quality in accounting education has declined over recent years.

Addressing the basics : academics' views of the purpose of higher education

A number of changes have occurred in the higher education sector under the auspices of quality and quality improvement. Much of this change has resulted in a compliance-driven environment (more measures, more meetings, more form-filling and less time for the core activities of teaching and research). It is an environment that seeks to assure all and sundry of the quality of academic programs. Anecdotally, many academics are not convinced that the current systems do, indeed, assure quality. The reasons for this may be many and varied. One suggestion is that differences in perceptions about the purpose of higher education inevitably lead to differences in the definition of quality itself and consequently, differences in systems designed to assure that quality. Understanding what academics think about the purpose of higher education may provide some clues about how they consider quality should be defined.

In this research, the focus is on the views of academic accountants in Australia, defined as: academics whose main discipline area is accounting and who are involved in accounting education at an Australian university. The findings of this research show that the respondent group do, in fact, view the purpose of higher education currently promoted in their schools/departments differently from the purpose that they consider ought to be promoted. Such fundamental differences have the potential to influence the motivation and effectiveness of staff undertaking core activities in Australian universities. In addition, articulating the views of this important stakeholder group also has the potential to ensure that their views are considered in the discussions around purpose, quality and performance measures in higher education – all of which impact on the working lives of academic accountants in Australian universities.

Mobility, aspiration, voice : a new structure of feeling for student equity in higher education

There is a changed ‘structure of feeling’ emerging in higher education systems, particularly in OECD nations, in response to changed social, cultural and economic arrangements. Taking a student equity perspective, the paper names this change in terms of ‘mobility’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘voice’. It argues that (1) new kinds and degrees of mobility are now a significant factor in sustaining unequal access to and experience of higher education for different student groups, (2) despite government and institutional aspirations to expand higher education, students' desires for university are not a given among new target populations and (3) while universities are seeking to enroll different students in greater numbers, the challenge now is how to give greater voice to this difference. Drawing on these themes of mobility, aspiration and voice and taking recent changes to higher education policy in Australia as the case, the paper presents a new conceptual framework for thinking about student equity in HE. The framework extends from established approaches that focus on barriers to accessing higher education in order to focus on people's capacities in relation to higher education participation.

Appreciating aspirations in Australian higher education

Aspiration for higher education (HE) is no longer a matter solely for students and their families. With OECD nations seeking to position themselves more competitively in the global knowledge economy, the need for more knowledge workers has led to plans to expand their HE systems to near universal levels. In Australia, this has required the government and institutions to enlist students who traditionally have not seen university as contributing to their imagined and desired futures. However, this paper suggests that failing to appreciate the aspirations of different groups, understood as a collective cultural capacity, casts doubt over the ability of institutions to deliver increased numbers of knowledge workers. Moreover, inciting subscription to the current norms of HE is a weak form of social inclusion. Stronger forms of equity strategy are possible when HE is repositioned as a resource for different groups and communities to access in the pursuit of their aspirations.

Student equity's starring role in Australian higher education : not yet centre field

The field of Australian higher education has changed, is changing and is about to change, repositioned in relation to other ‘‘fields of power’’. It is a sector now well defined by its institutional groupings and by their relative claims to selectivity and exclusivity, with every suggestion of their differentiation growing. The potential of a ‘‘joined-up’’ tertiary education system, of vocational education and training (VET) and universities, has the potential to further rework these relations within Australian higher education, as will lifting the volume caps on university student enrolments. Moreover, Australian universities now compete within an international higher education marketplace, ranked by THES and Shanghai Jiao Tiong league tables. ‘‘Catchment areas’’ and knowledge production have become global. In sum, Australian universities (and agents within them) are positioned differently in the field. And being so variously and variably placed, institutions and agents have different stances available to them, including the positions they can take on student equity. In this paper I begin from the premise that our current stance on equity has been out-positioned, as much by a changing higher education field as by entrenched representations of social groups across regions, institutions, disciplines and degrees. In taking a new stance on equity, the paper is also concerned with the positioning in the field of a new national research centre with a focus on student equity in higher education. In particular, the paper asks what stance this new centre can take on student equity that will resonate on a national and even international scale. And, given a global field of higher education, what definitions of equity and propositions for policy and practice can it offer? What will work in the pursuit of equity?

Utility as a first principle for education research : reworking autonomy in Australian higher education

The focus of this paper is on the community impact of education research, as conceived specifically within a changing context of research assessment in Australia, first mooted by the previous Federal Coalition (conservative) Government within a new Research Quality Framework (RQF), and now to be reworked by the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiated by the incoming Federal Labour (progressive) Government. Convinced that a penchant for the utility of research will not go away, irrespective of the political orientations of government, our interest is in exploring: the assumption that research, particularly in areas such as education, should have an impact in the community (as this was first defined within the RQF); the difficulties much education research (despite its “applied” characterisation) has in complying with this ideal; and what a community impact requirement means for the kinds of education research that will be privileged in the future. In particular, we are concerned about the potential narrowing of education research directed at or by community impact and what is lost in the process. One potential loss or weakening is in the positional autonomy of higher education to conduct independent education research.

Alternative pathways to traditional destinations : higher education for disadvantaged Australians

In 1985, the Higher Education Equity Program was introduced by the Australian Government to improve the participation of those persons from social groups traditionally under-represented within higher education. In 1990, the program was incorporated within A Fair Chance For All which provided more specific details of the government's desire for a system-wide approach to equity issues. One result has been the proliferation of access and equity programs conducted by universities around the country and aimed at redressing the disadvantage of potential students. The alleged success of these programs is based on greater participation in and graduation from Australian universities by individuals from targeted disadvantaged groups. The research reported here, however, would suggest that such programs are prone to co-opt the language of equity and social justice, dependent as they are on satisfying statistically-orientated program performance indicators in order to receive recurrent government funding. Further, the paper argues that success in achieving equity within Australian higher education will remain limited unless the structural arrangements that work to construct social inequalities in mainstream higher education are addressed.

Just out of reach : access to equity in Australian higher education

This paper provides an account of access and equity in Australian higher education across the period of recent Federal Labor governments and specifically of the discourses and practices surrounding A Fair Chance For All: Higher Education That's Within Everyone's Reach, Labor's latest policy on equal access to Australian higher education. The paper positions such an account within Australia's changing national and global economic condition, and the influence of New Right ideologies that proffer efficient and effective public sector management practices and market freedoms that have witnessed a privatisation and peeling back of the welfare state. The paper argues that while Federal Labor has clearly established social justice on the agenda of Australian higher education, it is a justice mediated by particular economic and managerial practices which tend to limit equity to issues of access and place broader equity concerns for higher education just out of reach.

Sailing into the wind : new disciplines in Australian higher education

Much is made of the potential of lifelong learning for individuals and organisations. In this article we tend to make much less of it, certainly with respect to its use in universities to discipline academics. Nevertheless, we argue that academics now need to re-learn the positions they occupy and the stances they take in response to the marketisation of Australian universities. In particular, we suggest that the position of (pure) critique no longer commands attention in Australian contexts of higher education, although the paper does not suggest a disregard for a critical stance purely for the sake of participation. It is in understanding the interconnections between position and stance , and how they might be strategically performed during the everyday practices of academics, that a more promising way of engaging with the venalities of the market is envisaged; a strategy that could be described as 'sailing into the wind'. In discussing these matters, the paper draws on semi-structured interviews with academics located in university faculties/departments/schools of education along Australia's eastern seaboard.

Degrees of difficulty : an ecological account of learning in Australian higher education

In this article, the difficulties some Australian university students experience in academic learning environments are explored. Particular attention is given to the experiences of students whose difficulties are often portrayed as intrinsic to them, and who are diagnosed as having learning disabilities or 'disorders'. In so doing, dominant neuro-psychological perspectives on students' learning 'problems' are challenged, broadening the discussion to include sociocultural explanations of students' difficulties. Research that foregrounds these students' own accounts of their problems is reported, identifying a number of tests of time, association and dissimulation that they experience in coming to terms with the particular institutional requirements of university life. At the very least, these explanations draw attention to the need for university teaching scholars to also be learners, and to consider their own practices in the construction of learning difficulties for their students.

What counts as higher education? Pursuing intellectually compelling ideas

A few months ago I was sitting in a graduation ceremony considering the nature of universities; what it means to do academic work and how this constitutes some higher form of education. Unlike some of my more astute colleagues who had remembered to bring their current reading (copies of Giroux or Gelemter nestled within their graduation programs) to while away the time between applauds for graduates and speeches, I was confined to my own thoughts on matters of importance for universities and their constituents. The ceremony provided critical moments for reflection--for me, centred around the politics of meaningmincluding: the presentation to a colleague of the Vice-Chancellor's award for teaching excellence; the conferring of an honorary doctorate on the guest speaker, Fiji's Prime Minister Major-General Rabuka, for his involvement in restructuring Fiji's system of governance; and the celebration of his visit by the Vice-Chancellor, himself a would-be reformer of systems as a member of the West Review of Australian higher education.

Student equity in higher education : what to do when the queue is not long or diverse enough

In this paper I outline three broad propositions about or challenges to access and participation in Australian higher education, resulting from the Australian Government’s 20/40 targets for the sector and their attendant requirements for universities, such as the performance indicators for teaching and learning. While some of my analysis could be seen as speculative, in the sense that it represents our best guesses about the future, in aking these arguments I draw on publically available statistics on Australian schooling, vocational education and training (VET) and the higher education sector, as well as on recent research on outreach programs by universities in schools.

More towards the centre : searching for field position for student equity in Australian higher education

The field of Australian higher education has changed, is changing and is about to change, as it is repositioned in relation to other ‘fields of power’. It is a sector now well defined by its institutional groupings – the Go8, the IRUs, the ATN and the rest – and by their relative claims to selectivity and exclusivity, with every suggestion of their differentiation growing. Even within these groupings there are distinctions and variations. Moreover, Australian universities now compete within an international higher education marketplace, ranked by THES and Shanghai Jiao Tiong league tables. ‘Catchment areas’ and knowledge production have become global. And the potential of a ‘joined‐up’ tertiary education system, of VET and universities, will rework relations within Australian higher education, as will lifting the volume caps on university student numbers. In sum, Australian universities (and agents within them) are positioned differently in the field, although not in the stable relations imagined by Pierre Bourdieu in the France of the 1960s. And being so variously and variably placed, institutions and agents have different stances available to them, including the positions they can take on student equity. In this paper I begin from the premise that our current shared stance on this has been out‐positioned. Nation‐bound proportional representation loses its equity meaning when the Australian elite send their children to Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. The same could also be said, and has been, about equity representations by region, institution, discipline and degree. What then, also, for a new national research centre with a focus on student equity and higher education, for its research agenda and positioning in the field? What stance can it take on student equity that will resonate on a national and even international scale? And, given a global field of higher education, what definitions of equity and propositions for policy and practice can it offer? What will work in the pursuit of equity?