Abstract
University education can play a vital role in perpetuating or transforming wider patterns of justice or inequality. Capitalising on this transformative potential requires an understanding of the factors that influence academic decision-making, and purposeful engagement with the kinds of philosophical resources that can underpin a genuine desire to labour for change. This chapter outlines an educational philosophy fundamentally motivated by a desire to create university contexts in which diverse learners feel themselves to be included, valued, and safe.
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Notes
- 1.
A haiku instead:
When will you be finished, mum?
When I’m done, sweetheart.
Right. So. Is the wi-fi on?
- 2.
Approximately 14 years ago a group of colleagues and I planned to present a symposium titled “You ought to think yourself lucky my girl: you’re alive and you’ve got a job”. The title came from a piece of ‘advice’ given by a senior university administrator to a staff member suffering serious effects tied to workload and harassment. Our aim within that symposium was to unpack some of the ongoing ways in which universities continued to allow spaces to develop in which people in power could discriminate against, marginalise, punish, and harass various women in various roles. Ironically or otherwise, the symposium was cancelled as, one by one, the women who intended to participate had to withdraw due to combinations of personal and professional demands.
- 3.
I use these terms here to reflect the distinction that is found within Australia between universities that have been created at different times, and which are associated with different levels of prestige. A sandstone university may consider itself at the top of a list claiming prestige associated with age, income, and prestige. “Cement-block” universities are generally those that have emerged through various attempts to widen participation. Built on a shoestring and operating without access to the same forms of cultural and economic capital associated with universities held in higher esteem, these life-changing institutions often began life as colleges of technical or further education. They are often located in rural or marginalised areas. For this reason they may transform more lives than elite and prestigious universities while receiving almost none of the associated status and glory.
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Rowan, L. (2019). The Transformative Potential of Higher Education: Engaging with Educational Philosophy to Labour for Justice and Freedom. In: Higher Education and Social Justice. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05246-1_1
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