The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa University of Chicago Press, 2011 This book has much to say that is perceptive about today's undergraduate higher education in the United States. It will be valuable to review the authors' insights. At the same time, it will be as instructive to note the book's weaknesses, and especially what is omitted from the discussion. It is a discussion that is truncated intellectually by the authors' close adherence to the selective awareness that so greatly typifies the mindscape of the contemporary American "establishment" in academia and throughout the commanding heights of American society. That mindscape allows a recognition of many things, but not of others. The authors are both faculty members at major American universities. Richard Arum is a sociology professor at New York University with a tie to the university's school of education. He is the author of several books on education and director of the Education Research Program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. His co-author, Josipa Roksa, is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. That the book is published by the University of Chicago Press attests to its presumptive merit. Academically Adrift furnishes an example of something that has long been common in social science writing: a rather thin empirical study serving as the work's own contribution, combined with considerable additional material coming out of the literature on whatever subject is being explored. The function of the authors' own research is thus often to serve more or less as scientistic windowdressing. The reason we say the empiricism for this book is "thin" is that the "longitudinal data of 2,322 students," while seemingly ample, involves students spread over "a diverse range of campuses," including "liberal arts colleges and large research institutions, as well as a number of historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions," all "dispersed nationally across all four regions of the country." This must necessarily mean that the "sample" from any given institution or program was quite small. We are told that the authors didn't concern themselves with the appropriateness of each sample, but left the recruitment and retention of the sample's students to each of the respective institutions. The authors acknowledge that the study included fewer men than women, and more good students than those of "lower scholastic ability." So far as this book is concerned, however, the thinness doesn't particularly hurt the content, since so much of what is said doesn't especially depend upon anything unique found by the authors' own research. A brief summary is provided when the authors say that "we will highlight four core 'important lessons' from our research." These are that the institutions and students are "academically adrift" (which is the basis for the book's title), that students gain surprisingly little from their college experience, that there is "persistent and growing inequality" in the students' learning, and that "there is notable variation both within and across institutions" so far as "measurable differences in students' educational experiences" is concerned. Following the lead of former president Derek Bok of Harvard and of the Council for Aid to Education, the authors' ideal for higher education is that it will enhance students' "capacity for critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing." These are the three ingredients measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), which the authors value most among the various assessment tools. The CLA results, they say, show that "growing numbers of students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for a large proportion of them the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent. …

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

Arthur Chickering is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Memphis State University. On leave from the Directorship of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Memphis State, he is Visiting Professor at George Mason University. Zelda Gamson is a sociologist who holds appointments at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan.

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: Faculty Inventory. Institutional Inventory.

A: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was established in 1905 and is an “independent policy and research center. Its current mission is to support needed transformations in American education through tighter connections between teaching practice, evidence of student learning, the communication and use of this evidence, and structured opportunities to build knowledge.” (http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/about-us/about-carnegie)

The carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching.

This article reviews the extant research on the relationship between students and teachers in higher education across three main areas: the quality of this relationship, its consequences and its antecedents. The weaknesses and gaps in prior research are highlighted and the importance of addressing the multi-dimensional and context-bound nature of teacher-student relationships is proposed. A possible agenda for future research is outlined.

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Teacher–student relationship at university: an important yet under-researched field

Title Mapping Existing Research Output Focused on Higher Education Teaching and Learning in Ireland 1990-2015 Authors(s) O'Sullivan, Sara; Gibney, Amanda; Guerin, Suzanne; Staunton, Michael; Kalaitzake, Manolis Publication date 2015-06 Publisher National Forum Link to online version http://www.teachingandlearning.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Project-5-Mapping-Existing-Research-Output.pdf Item record/more information http://hdl.handle.net/10197/6860

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Mapping Existing Research Output Focused on Higher Education Teaching and Learning in Ireland 1990-2015

This paper reports on an Irish study examining first year students’ recollections of their concerns, motivations, level of preparedness and perceived skills on entry to university. The study aims to investigate and understand the implications of the attitudes of first year students as they make the transition to university. It also explores students’ behaviour during their initial weeks at university. It is important to understand the anxieties of new students, their views on their abilities and their confidence in managing their new role as these factors will have consequences for their experience as first year university students. These findings are explored with a view to enhancing the quality of support for students during this key transition.

The first semester of university life; ‘will I be able to manage it at all?’

This article focuses on callers’ experiences of participating on a tabloid talk radio show. The performative dimension of calling was found to be central. This is an aspect of participation on talk...

‘The whole nation is listening to you’: the presentation of the self on a tabloid talk radio show

Introduction, Sara O'Sullivan Section I Contours of a changing Ireland 1 Population, Tony Fahey 2 Immigration, Steven Loyal 3 Mobility, James Wickham Section II Institutions, 4 Individualisation and secularisation in Catholic Ireland, Tom Inglis 5 Family, Betty Hilliard 6 Education, Patrick Clancy 7 Crime and policing in the Republic, Aogan Mulcahy 8 sport, Katie Liston 9 Media, Ciaran McCullagh Section III Governance, 10 The peace process in Northern Ireland, Colin Coulter and Peter Shirlow 11 Power and powerlessness, Mark Haugaard and Kevin Ryan 12 The environment and civil society, Mary Kelly Section IV Economy, development and the Celtic Tiger 13 Ireland and Economic Globalisation, Kieran Allen 14 Work, Sean O Riain and Peter Murray 15 Gender and the workforce, Sara O'Sullivan 16 Food and rural sustainable development in Ireland, Hilary Tovey Section V Class, equality and inequality 17 Class in the Republic, Ronnie Munck 18 Class in Northern Ireland, Goretti Horgan 19 Housing, Michael Punch Section VI Identity, diversity and culture 20 Identity, language and nationality, Iarfhlaith Watson 21 Catholic habitus and identity in Northern Ireland, Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern 22 Protestants and Protestant habitus in Northern Ireland, Ronnie Moore 23 Race and sectarianism in Northern Ireland, Robbie McVeigh Notes References Index.

Contemporary Ireland: A Sociological Map

Synopsis One of the most dramatic changes in Irish society over the past two decades has been the substantial increase in the number of women participating in the paid workforce, and the concomitant change in gender roles. This gives rise to the question of whether this change in behaviour is also associated with changes in gender role attitudes. This paper uses data from the 1988, 1994 and 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’ module to examine changes in Irish gender role attitudes over this period. The analysis presented here demonstrates a decline in support for traditional gender roles over the period. A central issue explored is the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Are increases in Irish women's labour force participation accompanied by a move away from traditional ideas about the gendered division of labour? Given the significance of ISSP as an important resource both for comparative and national level social science research, and especially given that the module is to be fielded again in 2013, the paper also critiques the wording of the questions in this survey, and the extent to which they accurately measure the complexities of gender role attitudes.

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Sara O'Sullivan

Papers

Mapping Existing Research Output Focused on Higher Education Teaching and Learning in Ireland 1990-2015

The first semester of university life; ‘will I be able to manage it at all?’

‘The whole nation is listening to you’: the presentation of the self on a tabloid talk radio show

Contemporary Ireland: A Sociological Map

‘All Changed, Changed Utterly’?1 Gender role attitudes and the feminisation of the Irish labour force