1st Edition
Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education Learning to Transgress
Higher education has been presented as a solution to a host of local and global problems, despite the fact that learning and assessment can also be used as mechanisms for exclusion and social control. Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: Learning to Transgress demonstrates that even when knowledge may appear to be the solution, it can be partial and disempowering to all but the dominant groups. The book shows the need to contest such knowledge claims and to learn to transgress, rather than to conform. It argues that transformative spaces need to be found and that these should be about the creation of new opportunities, ways of knowing and ways of being.
Working in and through spaces of transgression, the contributors to this volume develop frameworks for the possibilities of transformative spaces in learning and teaching in higher education. The book critiques the ways in which Western higher education culture determines the academic agenda in relation to dialogue on social differences, minority groups and hierarchical structures, including issues of representation among different groups in the population. It also explores the personal and political costs of transgression and outlines ways in which transitions can be transformative.
The book should be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of higher education, education studies, teacher training, social justice and transformation. It should also be essential reading for practitioners working in post-compulsory education.
Table of contents:
Preface
Sue Jackson
Section 1 - Identities and border crossings
Section editor: Sue Jackson
Introduction to section : Sue Jackson
Chapter 1 - Spaces of Identity -Transgressions and Transformations in Multicultural Encounters in Israel
Miriam Schildkraut and Mueen Fakhereldeen
Chapter 2 - Crossing expected and unexpected borders in the way to higher education: The "Window to the Academy" programme
Idit Katz and Hanoch Flum
Chapter 3 - Transitional, transformative and transgressive spaces in university education
Linden West
Conclusion to section 1: Sue Jackson
Section 2 - Knowledges, truths and stories
Section editors: David Owen and Juliet Millican
Introduction to section 2: David Owen and Juliet Millican
Chapter 4 - ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: The Role of Higher Education within Conflict Societies
David Owen, Juliet Millican, Waleed Dallasheh, and Ihab Zubeidat
Chapter 5 - Contested Spaces: Power and authority in an introductory undergraduate course
Uzi Zevik Brami and Iris Tabak
Chapter 6 - ‘Sometimes it’s appropriate to Scream at them’: The University as a platform for Resistance and Free Speech
Peter Watts and Ruth Rogers
Conclusion to section 2: David Owen and Juliet Millican
Section 3 - Transformative pedagogies
Section editors: Ihab Zubeidat and Waleed Dallasheh
Introduction to section 3: Ihab Zubeidat and Waleed Dallasheh
Chapter 7 - The Development of Higher-Order Cognition Skills: the contribution of a teacher training programme in the Excellence track
Yaser Awad, Ibtesam Azaiza, Mahmood Khalil and Varda Bar
Chapter 8 - Transforming Curriculum: Case studies on International Collaboration for Curricular Reform in Multicultural Education and Cultural Diversity
Rhonda Sofer and Hava E. Vidergor
Chapter 9 - Transgressing power structures in Assessment: not a step too far, just far enough
Maddalena Taras
Conclusion to section 3: Waleed Dallasheh and Ihab Zubeidat
Section 4
Transgression and transformation: the role of universities
Section editor: Maddalena Taras and Roxana Reichman
Introduction to section 4: Maddalena Taras
Chapter 10 - The university challenge: students' transformation
Roxana G. Reichman
Chapter 11 - Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: An Epistemological Rationale
Nurit Basman Mor
Chapter 12 - Telling tales: a transformative space for alternative discourses in research
Hazel Reid
Conclusion to section 4: Roxana Reichman
Final words: Sue Jackson
Biography
Sue Jackson is Professor Emerita of Lifelong Learning and Gender at Birkbeck University of London, where she was Pro-Vice-Master Learning & Teaching and Director of the Centre for Transformative Practice in Learning and Teaching until she retired in September 2016.
"This outstanding collection brings together the voices of a diverse group of scholars deeply committed to working together across the politics of difference to address ongoing social and ontological injustices. Drawing on critical pedagogies, it creates dialogic spaces of and for transgression and transformation. This book provides a timely and significant set of reflections for our struggles towards social justice, reminding us of the generative power of collective commitment to change across and through difference."
Professor Penny Jane Burke is Global Innovation Chair of Equity and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
