‘Wasting talent’? Gender and the problematics of academic disenchantment and disengagement with leadership

Confronted with the processes of massification, commercialisation, internationalisation and reduced funding, universities also face an ageing academic workforce, with implications of a shrinking pool from which to recruit managerial and research leaders. A feminist analysis suggests that the policy problematic has been wrongly conceptualised as disengagement with leadership due to the characteristics of the academic workforce. Instead, it is argued that the corporatisation of the academy has produced academic disenchantment due to managerial dominance, commercialisation and privatisation and disengagement with the dominant values, practices and images of university leadership. Furthermore, the intensification of academic labour and the lack of diversity in leadership discourage many women from aspiring to or achieving leadership.

Exploring the Australian Science Curriculum : A way forward?

There is considerable international concern about science education based on the number of students engaged with science and mathematics, and research showing student disenchantment with school science curricula. ln this presentation I will trace through a history of concerns with school science, and describe the recommendations and curriculum responses to these concerns internationally and particularly in Australia. The new Australian Science Curriculum is based around ideas related to scientific literacy and inquiry curriculum, and includes science inquiry skills and science as a human endeavour' as major strands. I will describe the features of the course and raise the question - does it represent a productive way forward? The various aspects of the course are related to current directions in science education research, and examples will be given of my own involvement in national curriculum initiatives, into school-community links, and Deakin research into a pedagogy that focuses on student generation of representations, as examples of ways forward for improving student engagement with learning science.

Market subjectivity and neoliberal governmentality in higher education

Using an interpretive case study in a business school in India, this research examines student behaviour and offers an understanding of a marketisation process in higher education. The study deploys Foucault's conceptualisation of governmentality and uncovers processes through which market subjectivity is fostered among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. The subject position is attributed to several governmental discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism that prevail in the business school. The study further highlights the roles of English language and preference for western corporations which are unique to postcolonial India. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students.