Space Of Higher Education Research Articles

Presence, Absence, and Alterity: Fire Space and Goffman\u2019s Selves in Postdigital Education

The literature on space in higher education has arguably been dominated by the concept of ‘learning spaces’. In this paper, I will argue that this construct, while appearing student-focused and creative, is ideologically circumscribed by an underlying social constructivism. Following Bayne et al. (2014), I draw on science and technology studies to consider social topologies, in particular regional space, network space, and their proposed fluid space, and the work of Law and colleagues on the category of fire space, derived from Bachelard’s (The Psychoanalysis of Fire, 1964) disquisition on the nature of fire. I work with this construct in an analysis of postdigital education, in particular looking at synchronous interaction via video conferencing software such as Zoom. Linking this analysis to the work of Goffman and his concept of the lecturer selves (Goffman in Forms of Talk, 1981), I argue that the concept of fire space may allow for a more nuanced and accurate account of the flickering, contingent nature of (co) presence, absence, and alterity, allowing for a more immanent account of digital interaction in ‘distance’ or ‘online’ education.

Student Satisfaction with Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study at State Universities in Sri Lanka

This quantitative study investigated the determinants of students’ satisfaction with their online learning experience at Sri Lankan universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was collected from 1376 undergraduates enrolled in various courses in humanities and social sciences at three state-owned universities in the country. The results of the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed that the independent variables of the model, namely perceived learner motivation, perceived challenges of e-learning, and interaction significantly affected students’ satisfaction with their new online learning experience. Out of the three variables, learner motivation exerted the strongest effect on students’ satisfaction, implying the crucial role self-regulated learning—characterized by motivation—plays in online learning environments. The study has several implications for both creating and ensuring the long-term sustainability of productive and student-friendly online learning spaces in higher education.

Physical Spaces in Higher Education as Scenarios of Learning Innovation: Compositional and Formative Synergies among Architecture, Music, and Fashion.

Learning innovation is a positive approach on the contemporary higher education international stage. This article stresses the need to devise physical spaces that are also innovative. For that purpose, using a qualitative methodology, we investigated recent trends based on the synergies between certain creative disciplines: architecture, music, and fashion. The comparison was based on compositional features and formative dimension. Using a qualitative methodological comprehensive approach, a set of case studies was analysed. The findings show the usefulness of activating these synergies as effective strategies when enriching educational processes in different ways. Six cases of excellence wherein university physical spaces reached levels of innovation were studied, representing relevant transfers among the three disciplines. The text presents examples that show the educational consequences in the establishment of those synergies, in terms of both composition (music–architecture) and the activation of heritage sites in the city as venues of learning innovation (fashion–architecture). The basic conclusions were based on the fact that the increase in teaching and spatial creativity that emanates from said synergies among the three disciplines can be potentially extrapolated to other areas of knowledge.

Walking in the Ivory Tower: Differential Belonging and the Architexture of Home

Deploying Carrillo Rowe’s concept of differential belonging and extending McCune’s notion of architexture to encompass transnational sensory registers, affective valences and intensities, relational patterns, and ideological and political textures, I describe and examine the complexities of home as a racial, gender, and sexual non-normative transnational subject in the U.S. academy. More specifically, I narrate two scenes of my autoethnography to make sense of my transnational experiences of academic home in U.S. spaces of higher education. In the article, I first discuss the concept of differential belonging and the architexture of home before I embark on my autoethnographic scenes and conclude with an exploration of how people “back home” imagine my life as a faculty member of a major U.S. university.

University Medialabs: New Learning Spaces for Educational Innovation

Higher Education Institutions, like many other organizations, are facing pressure from the development of digital technologies as a push towards the digitization of their activities and towards a type of change that some describe as disruptive and that forces them to review their processes and structures. This article describes the case of the medialab of the University of Salamanca, MEDIALAB USAL, as an experience of new learning space in higher education. Its origin is explained from the experiences of citizen technology laboratories and experimental laboratories at the point of intersection between Art, Science and Technology. Its structure and working methods are explained, and its activities are illustrated through the description of four educational innovation projects based on different digital technologies: a mathematics didactics project using AppInventor, Wikipedia as a tool for knowledge generation, Arduino for innovation in the teaching of Fine Arts and a university Hackathon as an activity to introduce students to social and entrepreneurial innovation processes.

Disability Sensitivity and Sensibility: A Nondisabled Lecturer Perspective on Inclusive Lecturing Opportunities

Disability is a social force that arguably creates more education problems for students with disabilities than their impairments. Understanding it as a form of social oppression can lead to less exclusionary teaching and learning attitudes, beliefs, expectations and practices. Numerous studies have looked at the experiences of staff and students with disabilities as well as the experiences of teaching students with disabilities. However, more studies are needed to better understand and address disability in higher education. Nondisabled perspectives have a role to play in opposing disabling educational practices and cultures to make higher education more inclusive. Many opportunities especially exist for nondisabled lecturers to contribute to addressing the higher education barriers and discrimination which often affect students with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to use a disability perspective to present my lecturing practices during the move to emergency remote teaching and learning in response to COVID-19 while working at an HDI. An autoethnographic method was used. Content analysis of my accounts exposed the exclusionary nature of my practices in terms of how they facilitated ableism and suppressed disability discourse. Recommendations are made, in light of the results, on ways to not only make higher education spaces more accommodating but counter a wider societal culture that oppresses and even seeks to eradicate the value of those who live with impairments.

Categorical structure of the armenian image among russian students with different types of ethnic identity

Introduction.The article analyzes the specificity of the categorical structure of the Armenian image among Russian students of Barnaul with different types of ethnic identity. Representatives of the Armenian ethnic group are one of the numerous ethnic groups living in Russia, and the space of higher education seems to be one of the platforms where you can meet them. Thus, among modern students, the need to adapt both to the new educational space and to its multinationality is becoming actual. The process of such adaptation includes a number of difficulties that students of different nationalities face. In our opinion, such difficulties are also associated with the specifics of categorization by the indigenous population of members of different ethnic groups.Materials and Methods.The specificity of the categorical structure of the Armenian image is presented in the form of a structure of categories identified on the basis of the prevailing type of ethnic identity of the respondents. To achieve the goal of the study, the following methods were used: free associations, subjective scaling, factor analysis of data, the questionnaire "Types of ethnic identity" by G.U.Soldatova and S.V. Ryzhova. The selection consisted of 187 students of different specialties and different universities in Barnaul.Results.Four models have been obtained that reflect the categorical structure of the image of an Armenian in groups of Russian students with different types of ethnic identity. All groups of respondents categorize the Armenian on the basis of emotionality, sociability, strategy of behavior in the conflict, and the prevailing position in the group. The fullness of the selected categories is distinctive. Thus, Russian students with a pronounced normal ethnic identity note negative qualities of an Armenian, but positive characteristics prevail in the structure of the image (cheerful, talkative, expressive, compliant). Russian students with a pronounced hyperidentity also represent the Armenian in a complex way, highlighting their positive and negative characteristics, where the latter are mostly represented (competing, impulsive, cunning). In the structure of the image of an Armenian, the majority of respondents with predominantly ethnic indifference have negative characteristics, and the group of students with pronounced ethnonihilism almost completely represents the Armenian in a negative light.Discussion and Conclusions.Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that it is necessary to form a positive ethnic identity among students. It is assumed that the specificity of the categorization of a member of the Armenian ethnic group by Russian students will determine their nature of communication with a representative of this nationality.

How Ba Space can be applied in Maker space in Higher Education

As modalidades de Ensino presencial e Ensino a distância tem procurado seguir as transformacoes nos metodos de ensino. Uma dessas e o conjugar aplicacao de praticas da metodologia ativa em um ambiente construido para promover uma melhor troca de conhecimento possibilitando uma melhor a aprendizagem dos alunos, denominado espaco Maker. Devido a esta conjugacao de ensino e aprendizagem para construcao de ambientes de ensino diferenciados, o espaco BA tem se salientado por visar a criacao de conhecimento. O objetivo desta pesquisa e compreender como o espaco BA pode contribuir no aprimoramento do movimento maker aplicado em propostas pedagogicas de metodologia ativa para Instituicoes de Ensino Superior. Para tal foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliografica exploratoria com abordagem qualitativa seguindo protocolo RSL. O resultado e uma sintese das propostas que utilizam o Movimento Maker e/ou o espaco BA em praticas de metodologia ativa em Instituicoes de Ensino Superior.

(Re)discovering Pedagogy of the Oppressed

This article chronicles a crisis of alignment regarding Critical Pedagogy due to the top-down power structures of White authority that is pervasive in the theory’s North American academic environment. Contesting the often touted “radical” or “revolutionary” nature of Critical Pedagogy in higher education spaces, the author questions his relationship with Paulo Freire’s work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, ultimately abandoning the content of writing over the way the theory/philosophy is lived in academia. Through the lived experience of engaging with community in the James Bay Cree territories and Malawi, the question is asked as to who owns Freire’s rebellious call to action.

Research of the readiness of university teachers to implement inclusive educational practice with students with disabled hearing opportunities

Introduction. This article discusses the problems of the readiness of university teachers to implement inclusive educational practice with the students with hearing disabilities.Materials and Methods. We used questionnaire on diagnostics of teachers' readiness for inclusion; "Scale of emotional response" (Ваlаnced Emotional Empathy Scale - BEES), (A. Mehrabien, N. Epstein); the questionnaire "Diagnostics of teachers' orientation towards the educational-disciplinary or personal model of interaction with children" (VG Maralov).Results. Thus, the results of the ascertaining experiment make it possible to identify the problems of personal readiness that arise among higher school teachers who have different experience of “implementing” an inclusive culture and practice, and on the basis of this to build programs of psychological (methodological, educational) support in accordance with their request. However, 80.8% of respondents do not see themselves as the center of changes in the educational space of higher education. Only 17.6% of the respondents demonstrate awareness in the aspect of psychological and physiological characteristics of development, the specifics of the communicative and cognitive activity of the deaf and hard of hearing people. 88.2% of the respondents could not name any special educational needs in means of adaptation and rehabilitation of the latter.Discussion and Conclusions. Problems were identified that hinder the development of teachers' readiness to work in an inclusive education. There was a fragmentation of knowledge in the aspect of psychological and physiological characteristics of development, a lack of understanding of the specifics of the communicative and cognitive activity of the deaf and hard of hearing people, pedagogical technologies of working with the hearing-impaired, special educational needs for means of adaptation and rehabilitation. The problems of implementation by teachers of a personality-oriented approach in education, which is a prerequisite for inclusion, have been diagnosed. Thus, the results of the ascertaining research make it possible to identify the problems of personal readiness that arise among higher school teachers who have different experience of “implementing” an inclusive culture and practice, and on the basis of this to build programs of psychological (methodological, educational) support in accordance with their request.

Informal Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Student Preferences and Activities

Informal learning spaces play a significant role in enriching student experiences in learning environments. Such spaces are becoming more common, resulting in a change to the spatial configuration of built environments in higher education. However, previous research lacks methods to evaluate the influence of the spatial design characteristics of informal learning spaces on student preferences and their activities within. This paper aims to tease out the spatial design characteristics of informal learning spaces to examine how they shape students’ preferences in terms of their use of the spaces and what they do within them. The two case studies selected for this study, both in the UK, are the Diamond at the University of Sheffield, and the Newton at Nottingham Trent University. A mixed-methods study is applied, including questionnaires, observation, interviews, and focus groups. Six significant design characteristics (comfort, flexibility, functionality, spatial hierarchy, openness, and other support facilities) that influence student use of informal learning environments are identified. These can be used to inform future design strategies for other informal learning spaces in higher education.

The SEAAster Scholars Collective: A Story of Homemaking in Academia

How do we make a home in spaces not built for us? What does an academic home for Southeast Asian American (SEAA) women look and feel like? This is the story of how a collective of SEAA women came together to create an alternative space in higher education. Continuing the radical act of resistance modeled by other Black, Indigenous, and women of color scholars, the SEAAster Scholars Collective uses a feminist epistemological approach to further their mission—to advance knowledge and understanding of the postsecondary educational experiences of SEAA students, staff, and faculty.

Coloniality prints in internationalization of higher education: The case of Brazilian and Chilean international scholarships

In this article, we argue that efforts to internationalize higher education that do not make visible the colonial legacy in the higher education space become catalysts that intensify and reproduce the power asymmetries among countries, universities, and ways of knowing. To support and illustrate our argument, we carried out an analysis of two of the largest international scholarship programs implemented by Latin American countries, namely, the Brazilian ‘Science without Borders’ and the Chilean ‘Becas Chile’ programs. Our analysis shows that Brazil and Chile, aiming to enhance their position in the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, implemented strategies of internationalization that assumed, naturalized, and possibly biased the intrinsic benefits of internationalization at the expense of local needs and realities. We also found that Brazil and Chile embrace a concept of internationalization equated with academic mobility to (almost exclusively) Western/European industrialized countries of the global North.

Coloniality prints in internationalization of higher education: The case of Brazilian and Chilean international scholarships

In this article, we argue that efforts to internationalize higher education that do not make visible the colonial legacy in the higher education space become catalysts that intensify and reproduce the power asymmetries among countries, universities, and ways of knowing. To support and illustrate our argument, we carried out an analysis of two of the largest international scholarship programs implemented by Latin American countries, namely, the Brazilian ‘Science without Borders’ and the Chilean ‘Becas Chile’ programs. Our analysis shows that Brazil and Chile, aiming to enhance their position in the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, implemented strategies of internationalization that assumed, naturalized, and possibly biased the intrinsic benefits of internationalization at the expense of local needs and realities. We also found that Brazil and Chile embrace a concept of internationalization equated with academic mobility to (almost exclusively) Western/European industrialized countries of the global North.
 Key words: Internationalization of higher education, Coloniality, Brazil, Chile, International scholarships
 How to cite this article: Chiappa, R. & Finardi, K.R. 2021. Coloniality Prints in Internationalization of Higher Education: The Case of Brazilian and Chilean International Scholarships. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. 5(1): 25-45. DOI: 10.36615/sotls.v5i1.161.
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Academic freedom and the fallacy of a post-truth era

The belief that we are living in a post-truth age raises a number of complex, paradoxical questions. Does it suggest, for example, that truth no longer matters? Or, that the idea of truth no longer exists? The university, of course, has long been associated with the interests of truth – not only in searching for truth, but in telling the truth. This is made evident in its emphasis on logic, rationality, deliberation, debate, reason, contemplation, reflection and academic freedom. Truth, and its ensuing perspectives, perceptions, agreements and conflicts, are what makes a university what it is. As such, the university is as enmeshed in versions of truth, as it is in versions of power – which serves only to confirm the necessity for a continuous interrogation of these truths, and hence, power. In principle, academic freedom infers that both members of staff and students at universities have the right to engage in intellectual engagement and debate, without fear of censorship. In practice, however, when we take stock of academic freedom in spaces of higher education, we see growing patterns of shutting down, and closing off, rather than opening up. The interest of this article, therefore, is to consider how the university can remain discursively open to that which is new, unfamiliar and unpopular, while simultaneously, doing no harm – either to itself or its students.

Talanoa vā: indigenous masculinities and the intersections of indigeneity, race, and gender within higher education

ABSTRACT Indigenous scholars constantly contend with deficit tendencies associated with the value and place of their cultural knowledge and practices within higher education. When gender is imbued through a racialised view of indigeneity or the indigenous scholar, the proposition of ‘other’ and ‘othering’ becomes a struggle of power relations which necessarily shapes the critical encounters in higher education spaces. This article utilises ‘talanoa vā’, a Pacific indigenous critical analytical framework for understanding how academics comprehend indigenous masculinities through negotiating and interrogating the intersections of indigeneity, race, and gender. Captured through talanoa, we story our lived experiences as Pacific and indigenous scholars within New Zealand universities. We argue that, although ‘indigenous or indigeneity’ discourses have inspired and empowered minority scholars, utilising Pacific concepts enables a closer interrogation and negotiation of indigenous masculinities centred on spirituality and good relations, which is often overlooked when considering race, gender, colourism, and power within university settings.

Governance of Somali Tertiary Education Systems: A Case Study in Complexity

Governance of Tertiary Education Systems (TES) in Somalia and how the system of coordination described by Clark (1983) which tries to introduce order of the three dominating forces of educational system: “the state, the market and oligarchy”, is examined in this paper. How comparatively Higher Education Systems (HES) is structured, or inadvertently coordinated, arranged and rearranged since the formal Higher Education (HE) has been introduced into Somali nation state will also be examined from a vantage point of whether this trend is in line with other nations’ conventional TES. In the first twenty years, the dynamic system of coordination, which according to Clark introduces order into the three dominating forces of the Somali educational system, could not have been possible, as only the state owned and bank-rolled all Higher Education Institutions (HEI) that existed at the time. Thus the “academic oligarchy and the market” took a secondary role. The incentive of job guarantees for the new graduates by the authority made difficult to estimate the ‘quality of the education’, which in turn, could have compromised their ability and efficiency in their professional contexts. In post-conflict Somalia, the higher education system has dramatically increased with over one hundred universities now open throughout the country with no or little regulations. This time round though, the other two educational forces, the market and oligarchy are playing pivotal roles while that of the government has disappeared. Over the years since the collapse of the state in 1991, the national government’s influence decreased ceding so much higher education space, to the five Federal Member States (FMSs). Thus, the situation fits with Clark’s dynamic model showing that it is a system capable of reflecting upon ongoing change within the overall socio-political situation. What seems to be developing in the Somali higher education context therefore, is a system in which each force is autonomous with no clear goals shared within the larger structure. As for tertiary education in general, complemented by the rapidly changing world of work, the consensus is 'Having the right qualifications, in the right subjects, from the right institutions' that will benefit all sectors of the economy. It is with that in mind that the disparity between the way in which HE is delivered and the world of work is also examined in this paper. If this important complementarity is not analyzed in the current situation of Somalia, it could pose huge problematic consequences for tertiary education in the country. It is the case that HEIs did not give deserved attention to job market demands as they hardly study that to better serve the needs of employers. collaborative initiatives between the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) and the private sector to support HE is being examined in the final part of this paper.

Психолого-педагогические основы профессионального становления педагога-психолога

We consider the issue of personal and professional development of future educational psychologists. We present theoretical approaches of Russian and foreign scientists to the issues of the correlation of professional training and the professional development of a person. We consider the process of professional formation in general and in the psychological and pedagogical sphere of activity in particular. We focus on the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation – the master’s degree in psychology and pedagogy, and on the corresponding professional standard as a normative basis for the organization of the educational process in a modern university. The expediency of modernizing the modern educational system in higher education, the reasonableness of the transition to the current competence-based approach as a methodological basis for the organization of the educational process in higher education is argued. The development of professionalism and, most importantly, socially important personal qualities is essential when organizing a developing educational space in higher education. We analyze the volume of the personal component of a specialist as an important component in the concept of professionalism. In conclusion, the expediency of taking into account the basic psychological and pedagogical conditions when designing the professional development of a future educational psychologist is proved.

Аналіз національного рівня інтернаціоналізації вищої освіти: приклад України

It is shown that the internationalization of higher education attracts significant attention of researchers and participants of higher education space. It is emphasized that the internationalization of higher education is a multilevel phenomenon and covers supranational, continental, national, institutional, and individual levels. The national level of internationalization of higher education is analyzed in detail. The organizational strategies of the national level of internationalization, which are implemented through national policies and programs are considered. It emphasizes that national level involves policies related to education, science and technology, culture, trade, social development, employment, foreign relations, migration, industry, and the programs can be seen as the way policy is translated into action. Important rationales driving internationalization at the national level are revealed. It also considers the approaches to internationalization at the national level, which describe the dominant features of the general ways that a country has decided to proceed with internationalization. It is shown that Ukraine has significant achievements in internationalization of higher education and in integration into the world and European higher education space due to the implementation of the Bologna reform and European reform in higher education management and governance, gets new opportunities for higher education through current international scientific and educational projects and projects of cooperation with international organizations.

Search for an optimal model for using online education in higher education in the context of sustainable digitalization

The relevance of the presented article is determined by the widespread use of online distance learning technologies in the educational space of higher education in Russia. This process is supported and initiated, among other things, by the modern Russian authorities, whose actions are based on the presumption of the ability of online education to provide the same quality of the educational process that takes place in the classroom-contact format. The authors ‘ hypothesis is based on the fact that the widespread introduction of online education cannot be evaluated positively, since its quality has not been tested empirically. Institutionalization should be carried out only after it is scientifically confirmed “where”,” for whom”,” by whom “ online education can be implemented. For this purpose, the authors study the types of online education, its content, and assess the readiness of students to study online. The goal is formulated as determining the segments of the educational process in higher education in which online education will improve the quality of training of qualified specialists.