Pausing to Be Human in the Neoliberal University: Relational Pedagogy and the Politics of Presence

Although universities have undergone changes since the dawn of their existence, the speed of change started to accelerate remarkably in the 1960s. Spectacular growth in the number of students and faculty was immediately followed by administrative reforms aimed at managing this growth and managing the demands of students for democratic reform and societal relevance. Since the 1980s, however, an entirely different wind has been blowing along the academic corridors. The fiscal crisis of the welfare states and the neoliberal course of the Reagan and Thatcher governments made the battle against budget deficits and against government spending into a political priority. Education, together with social security and health care, were targeted directly. As the eighties went on, the neoliberal agenda became more radical—smaller state and bigger market—attacking the public sector itself through efforts to systematically reduce public expenditure by privatizing public services and introducing market incentives. At the

What Is the Relationship between Higher Education and Neoliberalism in the United States?

This paper explores the concept of relational pedagogy, a teaching approach that emphasises the importance of the relationship between teachers and students in fostering a meaningful learning environment in higher education. Drawing from the work of Nel Noddings and Bell hooks who highlight the significance of care and respect in the teacher-student dynamic, the paper examines how relational pedagogy surpasses traditional teaching methods by focusing on qualities like mutual trust, empathy, and collaboration. This approach is grounded in philosophical traditions, from Aristotle to contemporary thinkers like Paulo Freire and John Dewey, who underscore the transformative power of relationships in education. The paper further explores the challenges of implementing relational pedagogy in higher education, particularly in the context of massification, neoliberalism, and the post-pandemic shift to online learning. It discusses how relational pedagogy can promote inclusion, co-creation of knowledge, and a sense of belonging, crucial for student retention and success. The paper also highlights the impact of technology and AI on teaching, as well as the importance of creating an environment where teachers and students engage as "co-constructors" of knowledge. By fostering critical thinking, reflexivity, and open dialogue, relational pedagogy offers a framework for addressing the systemic barriers in higher education and preparing students for an interconnected, diverse world. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that relational pedagogy is essential for creating inclusive, empowering, and transformative educational experiences, particularly in a time when students' sense of belonging is increasingly threatened by external societal pressures.

This article critiques “care” within the neoliberal university through two questions: What is the meaning of “care” in a neoliberal university? How is the neoliberal university addressing the social and structural factors that prevent scholars from marginalized communities from succeeding in higher education? It condemns the superficial care promoted by the neoliberal university, which prioritizes competition, prestige, and productivity over genuine support. Participatory‐action research challenges these practices by centering marginalized voices. The study included 10 participants (7 women, 2 men, 1 non‐binary), all low‐income, first‐generation college students. Using PhotoVoice, a participatory‐action research method, participants documented their social connectedness, sense of belonging, and mental health in graduate education. Their narratives revealed neglect and invisibility, highlighting the negative effects of limited resources, precarious working conditions, financial instability, food insecurity, and inadequate housing on their well‐being and quality of life. The article argues that neoliberal universities perpetuate neglect and avoid addressing structural issues like structural racism and settler colonialism. It proposes self‐reflexivity, intentionality, and collective resistance as transformative care practices essential for dismantling oppressive systems. These practices offer a revolutionary approach to resisting neoliberalism and fostering community‐based care, healing the symbolic, psychological, and emotional harm caused by neoliberal policies. Transformative care is crucial to foster health equity and collective healing in higher education.

Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED WITH THE INFORMING SCIENCE INSTITUTE. Aim/Purpose................................................................................................................................................................................................. The main aim of the study is to critically examine the forces that can impede or support students to use e-learning in higher education teaching and learning environment which require not only pre-technological literacy’s but easy access to the e-learning platform and ICT devices. Background................................................................................................................................................................................................. The concept of e-learning has grown considerably in the past three or four decades, which according to Pollock and Cornford, (2003) has prompted a great deal of interest in using and integration of technology into teaching and learning environment thereby transforming the very nature of the traditional higher education system. Murphy et al (2001) have highlighted that not only does the new technologies supplement the conventional course delivery in institutions of higher learning, but they have also become a catalyst for change in higher education. South Africa as a developing nation has adopted the introduction of ICTs in the education system with the hope that it may offer some solutions to the challenges of education in South Africa. The South African Department of Education believes that developments in ICTs and its introduction to the education system creates access to learning opportunities, redresses inequalities, improve the quality of learning and teaching, and deliver lifelong learning (Department of Education, 2004). Even though internet access and ICT devices are becoming more common in South Africa, the use of them for teaching and learning purposes are limited. According to the White Paper on E-education in South Africa (SA, 2004), the Province of Eastern Cape has ranked lowest in terms of number of schools with computers for teaching and learning and as a result many students from Eastern Cape Province who enter higher education do not have adequate technological literacy levels to cope with the demands of higher education teaching and learning environment. Methodology................................................................................................................................................................................................. The design of the study was a case study and it utilized quantitative method. The number of sample units in the study was 65 students from Walter Sisulu University, University of South Africa, Pearson Institute of Higher Education (formerly called CTI) and University of Fort Hare campuses based in East London Eastern Cape Province South Africa. The data were analyzed using MS Excel spreadsheet database for conversion into percentages for the descriptive statistics. Contribution................................................................................................................................................................................................. It is essential to understand the forces that can impede or support e-learning. Possible solutions can be suggested for successfully integrating e-learning into higher education teaching and learning environment to meet 21st century students’ needs. The South Africa case study identified that a number of respondents indicated that the resources are available for e-learning on their university campuses. But these available resources are not efficiently used by most respondents to support their studies. Findings......................................................................................................................................................................................................... The results indicated that in the area of infrastructure required for e-learning, the majority of respondents indicated that the resources are available for e-learning on the campuses of the sampled universities. But these available re-sources are not efficiently utilized by respondents to support their studies. Recommendations for Practitioners............................................................................................................................................................... While universities and other institutions of higher education are encouraging integration of e-learning into the curriculum, it is also imperative that their teaching and learning strategies and policies take into account that some students are unevenly challenged in terms of technological skills and still require additional support. Recommendation for Researchers................................................................................................................................................................ There is the need to explore in depth the aspects that lead to the successful integration of e-learning into conventional lecture method of courses delivery. Impact on Society........................................................................................................................................................................................... With the dawn of 21st century digital and knowledge-based economies evolution where the integration of computers and other ICTs tools in higher education teaching and learning environments have been found to be very beneficial to students, hence not only pre-technological literacy’s of students but easy access to the e-learning platform and ICT devices are critical to higher education learning environment. Assessing students technological skills and access to e-learning platforms to which this study contributes will assist in improving quality education which has a greater impact on society. Future Research............................................................................................................................................................................................... In the context in which this study was conducted further examination of the technological skills of academic staff of the successful integration of e-learning into curriculum would be advisable.

This study examines the insights and experiences of students about the factors that enhance relational pedagogy in a South African university. To provide empirical explanations as to how these insights could be prioritised to enhance effective teaching and learning, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 1087 participants using a survey that also required them to complete an open-ended section. The quantitative data was analysed using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, while the qualitative data was evaluated using thematic analysis. An analysis of the quantitative data revealed that the most significant factors that enhance relational pedagogy were, ethical care, interpersonal communication, natural care, respect, and mattering. Conversely, factors such as academic achievement support, trust, and teacher responsiveness showed comparatively weak effects on students’ perceptions of relational pedagogy. Similarly, the qualitative data analysed revealed that participants perceived teacher-student interaction and communication, mattering and teacher immediacy, and the ethics of care as the most significant themes that serve to enhance relational pedagogy in the learning environment. The study concludes by highlighting the implications of using relational pedagogy as a tool to address the social, cognitive, and cultural gaps in the teaching and learning processes.

We are at a moment of growing critical self-reflection in the field of development studies—heightened by debates on decolonization—that is opening up difficult conversations on teaching, learning and knowledge production for development studies education. This special issue augments these conversations and revisits development studies education within the context of the ‘neoliberal university’. It is our contention that we cannot engage with the expansive project of rethinking development studies education, without elaborating on higher education institutions (HEIs) as the site where change is mediated, managed and resourced. The articles in this volume give empirically grounded and interrelated narratives that elucidate the relationships between development studies and the neoliberal university from a range of disciplinary and geographical perspectives. They allow us to make two salient contributions, firstly, on the role of HEIs as a site of engagement and entanglement between development practice and development studies, and secondly, on the ways in which the neoliberalization of higher education shapes development studies pedagogy. It is our hope that these articles are read as a timely intervention and invitation to rethink development studies education in this context.

This paper uses symbolic violence as one way of interpreting the lived experiences of early career researchers (ECRs) in the neoliberal University. We focus on marketing ECRs as business schools epitomise the highly market-mediated, performative, and managerialist ideology of the contemporary neoliberal University which facilitates symbolic violence. Specifically, marketing education, with its orientation towards market logic, has been identified as aligning with the neoliberal paradigm. We draw on qualitative narrative interviews with 16 United Kingdom and Australian ECRs in marketing to demonstrate how symbolic violence is produced and reproduced through institutions, ideology, language and discourse, and social relations. We find that while ECRs are not entirely subjugated by symbolic violence in the neoliberal University – with some participants displaying critically reflexive awareness and resistance, we also find that they can be complicit and serve to reproduce the system through seeking to learn and play the game of academia, rather than change it. We argue that symbolic violence offers a framework to help conceptualise the neoliberal University. Further, we submit that instrumental advice to marketing ECRs on how to navigate a life in academia is not enough and that critical reflexivity, resistance, and social action to oppose symbolic violence and the ideology of the neoliberal University is required to achieve emancipation.

This book review of Relational Pedagogies: Connections and Mattering in Higher Education by Karen Gravett aims to offer a compelling analysis that enhances the scholarly conversations around the importance of building relationships and connections in higher education, particularly in complex and uncertain times. By situating the book's arguments within the wider academic discourse, the review strives to provide valuable insights, meaningful connections and an assessment of the book's impact on advancing relational pedagogies in higher education. By centering the perspectives of Black women and other marginalised groups, the review offers an intersectional critique that strives to expand the discourse on posthumanism and sociomateriality. This critical review of the book may serve as a valuable resource for scholars, educators, administrators and activists interested in advancing intersectional approaches to post-anthropocentric teaching and learning. Relational Pedagogies provides a means for resurfacing often forgotten questions, thinking with different theories and encouraging us to engage various others as we work to address issues of relationality, connection and mattering in contemporary and meaningful ways.

This article provides an auto-ethnographic analysis of my spatial experiences as an undergraduate student at two different universities with contrasting systems of higher education. I compare my experiences at the University of Warwick (Coventry) and the Free University (Berlin) to unpack the effects of current changes to higher education in the United Kingdom. This provides a necessary student voice in the academic literature on the neoliberalization of higher education. It helps unpack how the introduction of tuition fees and related changes has affected the lived experience of the university in the United Kingdom, and especially the idea of learning that underpins the university. In calling for a focus on our own stories of the university, instead of the elusive ‘neoliberal university’, this article argues that it is our real student experiences that will allow us to situate ourselves and protest the changes taking place in higher education.

In a context where higher education is permeated by neoliberal practices and ideas, distance learning emerges as the most prominent model, reshaping relations between Higher Education Institutions, including business schools, and workers. Previous research on neoliberal universities has examined how workers resist control mechanisms imposed by Higher Education Institutions, but has mainly focused on workplace strategies in face-to-face education, overlooking distance learning. To address this gap, we investigate the Brazilian context of distance learning, focusing on the content provider, a position at the bottom of the model’s hierarchy. We conducted qualitative research to explore how work conditions in distance learning impact content providers’ resistance strategies. Drawing on grounded theory, we identified work conditions shaped by unilateral contracts with abusive clauses, which, combined with isolating environments, limit content providers’ ability to resist. This study contributes to the literature on neoliberal universities by introducing the concept of degrading resistance, highlighting how control mechanisms in distance learning operate through private, unilateral contracts with abusive clauses. These mechanisms, coupled with precarious work conditions, hinder collective forms of resistance and lead content providers to adopt degrading resistance as a last resort, disengaging from work and delivering low-quality content merely to meet deadlines and avoid penalties.

The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology. I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences; for example, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in grammaire generale, philology, and linguistics. Or again, in this first mode, the objectivizing of the productive subject, the subject who labors, in the analysis of wealth and of economics. Or, a third example, the objectivizing of the sheer fact of being alive in natural history or biology. In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call "dividing practices." The subject is either

Amid growing calls for relational teaching approaches in higher education to improve student learning outcomes and student and educator well-being, a need remains for effective relational pedagogies. Therapeutic-use-of-self (TUS) is an occupational therapy skill that centers the client-occupational therapist relationship, yet there is a dearth of research exploring its application as a pedagogy. This presents an opportunity for a widely used occupational therapy skill, TUS, to be adapted as a much-needed relational pedagogy. Objective. We explored the experience of TUS as a relational pedagogy in occupational therapy education from educator and student perspectives. Method. This qualitative description study borrowed from the evocative methodology of collaborative autoethnography. We, six researcher-participants, across two Canadian entry-to-practice occupational therapy programs, engaged in five discussions exploring the relationship between participant stories and contexts. Reflective memoing and reflexive thematic analysis were applied for analysis. Findings. Four themes were described: (a) education as transaction, (b) authenticity in learning, (c) experiencing TUS, and (d) relationship as resistance. Conclusion. With an emphasis on authenticity, empathy, power equity, and critical reflexivity, TUS challenges status quo approaches to education. Although neoliberalism challenges the feasibility of relational pedagogy in higher education, TUS holds promise as a relational and critical pedagogy.

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of emotions in the pedagogical relationship in Higher Education, within the context of the changes that have occurred in Portugal over recent decades. The empirical study framed in a phenomenological-interpretative perspective, was developed through 12 interviews with university and polytechnic teachers of 4higher education institutions. The findings show that most of the teachers participants have been seeking new forms and styles of pedagogical relationship, given not only the systemic changes resulting from the Bologna Process, but also from the challenges of globalization and the consequent mobility of students and teachers. Most teachers are attentive to students' emotions and derive gratification from the pedagogical relationship they establish with them. They see it as a rebalancing element in their own emotional life in face of the intensification and bureaucratization of work resulting from the dominant higher education mercantilist view in past decades.