Alternative futures for alternative higher education

Economic uncertainties have unsettled the status of higher education as an assured means to social mobility, raising questions of how students orient themselves to life after graduation. In this context, how does religion (a neglected aspect of student identity) shape students’ attitudes and plans? This article examines the future aspirations of Christian students, theorising Christian identity as an inter-subjective resource through which ‘alternative’ futures are imagined, a resource variously framed by classed assumptions about propriety. It analyses data from 75 interviews with undergraduates at five English universities, and explores emerging aspirational paradigms structured around hetero-normative domesticity, the formation of Christian counter-narratives to contemporary capitalism and positive submission to God.

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Why French Academic Journals are Protesting

Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences ◽

10.1163/25903276-bja10015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 375-386

Author(s):

_ _ ◽

Camille Noûs

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Student Teacher ◽

Employee Benefits ◽

Academic Journals ◽

Unique Form ◽

Alternative Futures ◽

Administrative Reforms ◽

Academic Labor ◽

The World ◽

The University

Abstract Written by an anonymous collective of academics as well as an alliance of academic journals on strike, “Why French Academic Journals are Protesting” firstly operates as an archive of struggles unfolding in the world and on the future of research and higher education in France. Documenting a wave of transformations, from the bureaucratization of student-teacher relations and the commodification of university diplomas to the contractualisation of academic labor and cuts to employee benefits, the article exposes the loss of autonomisation and the diffusion of precarity in French academia. More than merely chronicling devastating legislative and administrative reforms, it acts as a testament of a unique form of scholarly disobedience or scholar-activism. In doing so, the author-activists open up a space of hope for alternative futures or perhaps even a sanctuary, wherein the university-as-it-were might be salvaged from or imagined beyond neoliberalism.

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Re-imagining the Role and Function of Higher Education for Alternative Futures Through Embracing Global Knowledge Futures

European Higher Education at the Crossroads ◽

10.1007/978-94-007-3937-6_51 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 1019-1037 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jennifer M. Gidley

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Global Knowledge ◽

Alternative Futures ◽

And Function ◽

Role And Function

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From response and adaptation to learning, agency and contribution: making the theory of practice architectures dangerous

Journal of Praxis in Higher Education ◽

10.47989/kpdc114 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 78-94

Author(s):

Nick Hopwood

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Alternative Futures ◽

Theory Of Practice ◽

Changing Practice ◽

Practice Architectures ◽

Transformative Activist Stance

What is higher education praxis in a world beset by crises? Sjølie et al. (2020) explore this in relation to academics’ learning during the, using the theory of practice architectures, to highlight key responses and adaptations to the Coronavirus pandemic. I offer a re-reading of their cases of changing practice, challenging a sense of being accepting of, resigned to, and unfolding ‘under’ given circumstances. Instead, I highlight agentic, transformative praxis, where people act individually and collectively towards alternative futures. Drawing on Stetsenko’s transformative activist stance, I point to ways the theory of practice architectures might be put to work ‘dangerously’, as part of a struggle for a better world. Envisioning a reinvigoration of a politically charged theory of practice architectures, I argue the it offers particular value through the concept of learning as coming to practise differently, sharpened through a notion of contribution rather than participation.

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