Abstract
The paper explores the type and quality of students’ classroom engagement and draws from the conference theme of “serving students” needs/challenges in pedagogy and curriculum and Knowledge ecologies: linking research and teaching in higher education. This is particularly relevant in South Africa where students have highlighted their sense of alienation form university discourses. Of interest is the extent to which students experience some measure of parity of participation (from the work of Nancy Fraser) in these engagements. Such “participatory parity” broadly refers to students being able to act on a more or less equal footing with their peers and lecturers, and is in response to increasing diversity of students and the importance of ‘hearing’ their voices. Though much has been written about student engagement and its educational value (e.g. Tinto), such engagement is not typically examined through Fraser’s parity lens. Such parity matters because students are able to experience themselves as valued participants in the social world of the university. However, as what is being discussed is the university classroom, parity of participation in itself is not the only outcome, it is also gaining access to disciplinary knowledge through such participation. In order to examine the nexus between participatory parity and knowledge access a methodology for examining participation drawn from activity theory is mobilised. The paper then concludes with reflecting on the usefulness of using this theory and also the usefulness of promoting participatory parity in classroom engagement, as the research is taken back to the lecturers concerned.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Teaching Learning Institutions
