The Australian Universities' review 

About: The Australian Universities' review is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Higher education & Public policy. It has an ISSN identifier of 0818-8068. Over the lifetime, 477 publications have been published receiving 5757 citations.

Difference, globalisation and the internationalisation of curriculum

Abstract: The idea of internationalisation of curriculum has become entrenched in Australian higher education. Almost every university in Australia now professes to the need to transform its curriculum to reflect the goals of internationalisation. According to a national study conducted in 1995, 37 out of 38 Australian universities included a policy of internationalisation in their corporate plans. Furthermore, its was found that over 70 per cent of universities had strategies for the internationalisation of form and content of their curricula. (IDP 1996) The problem with these findings is that they do not tell us how the idea of internationalisation is understood. Even a cursory glance at policy documents suggests a diversity of meanings. In 1995, Australian universities claimed over 1000 different internationalised curriculum development initiatives. (IDP 1996) This number is most likely to have increased in the past four years, as universities experiment with new initiatives and plans in response to a changing educational environment. An international comparative study conducted by the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) defined international curricula as “an international orientation in content, aimed at preparing students for performing (professionally/socially) in an international and multicultural context, and designed for domestic students as well as foreign students.” (OECD 1994, p. 9) Current mainstream understandings of internationalisation of curriculum in Australian universities are broadly in line with this definition, though most people in Australian higher education continue to view internationalisation as curriculum designed to broaden the vocational and life options students are provided. Thus,

Theorising postgraduate pedagogy

Abstract: Introduction In all the clamour of recent and growing concern about postgraduate studies in higher education, there has been a persistent and perhaps surprising lacuna: the question of pedagogy. Much has been made of the importance of ‘research’ in the burgeoning political economy of the university and the nation––moreover, of research and training, as a new unholy alliance, or even research as training––, and new emphases are evident everywhere on matters of accountability, performativity, and instrumental rationality. More and more, there is debate about completion rates, supervisor-student relationships, financial assistance and other forms of support, infrastructural provision, ethics, examination protocols and procedures, and the like. Arguably, however, this remains firmly within a familiar frame and is entirely consistent with a pervasive and longstanding institutional and metaphysical logic, in accordance with which ‘research’ and ‘knowledge’ continue to be privileged over ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’, and within which ‘education’ as such is devalued, or realised rather as an (un)necessary supplement to the real work of the Academy. That, to reiterate, is emphatically ‘research’ rather than ‘teaching’. As in other educational and schooling sectors, teaching as such is curiously positioned in a subordinate, service role––the superordinate figures vis-a-vis the ‘teacher’ being the ‘administrator’ and/or the ‘researcher’. Moreover, this is always a highly gendered set of relations and positions: males statistically outnumber females with regard to this division of labour and privilege––the more so, higher up the institutional hierarchy; and it can be argued, further, that the structure of knowledge and disciplinarity is characteristically masculinist. But at the same time, ‘teaching’ is necessary not just to the continued viability of universities in increasingly difficult economic times but also to postgraduate work, at least in the sense that regulations throughout the university system require formal supervision. ‘Supervision’, however, would appear to be something other than ‘teaching’; or rather, it is to be understood more in terms of ‘research’ than as ‘teaching’. More broadly, a pervasive binary logic (re-)emerges, with ‘pedagogy’ hereby set against ‘disciplinarity’ and systematically subordinate to it, as we argue in this paper. This is, of course, to enter into the (un)familiar territory of feminist and poststructuralist critiques of Reason and the Academy (Hekman, 1990; Luke and Gore, 1992). Over a decade ago now, Connell (1985a: 38) argued that “[s]upervising a research higher degree is the most advanced level of teaching in our education system”. Moreover, as he indicated, “it is certainly one of the most complex and problematic” forms of teaching, and yet, curiously, “[t]his complexity is not often enough acknowledged”. As he further suggested, many academics simply “don’t see supervision as teaching”, or perhaps at least as teaching in the usual sense. Connell was adamant, however, that this constituted a major problem vis-a vis the quality and effectiveness of postgraduate education:

Academic Zombies: A Failure of Resistance or a Means of Survival?.

Abstract: Successive waves of neoliberal reforms to higher education have taken their toll on the academy. This paper uses the zombie metaphor to discuss the causes and consequences of organisational change on Australian academics as a background to exploring zombiefication as a form of passive resistance and survival. The paper uses the literature and empirical research to chronicle the disintegration of the academic workforce and with it, the idea of a university as a social institution. The paper concludes with the author's reflection of her own desire to be emancipated from zombiedom.