#HE SCHOLARS RESEARCH NETWORK
Supporting higher education researchers in the Sydney region
ABOUT
The #HE Scholars Research Network was established by academic staff in the Learning Transformations (now Learning Futures) team at Western Sydney University who were keen on connecting with other higher education researchers in Sydney-based universities. Acknowledging the difficulty that many staff in learning and teaching / academic development units face in producing high quality research and sustaining lives and careers as researchers, the Network is a space to talk ideas, possible collaborations, researcher identities and to puzzle our way through the field of higher education: our desires about it, our frustrations with it, and our contributions to it. Perhaps unusually, this is a Network focused on building our capacities and extending our thinking as researchers. Typically, this is not a Network focused on advancing the agendas of particular research topics; rather, it is a place to bring your current research into dialogue with others.
The first meeting was hosted in June 2017 to coincide with (then) visiting PhD researcher Mayke Vereikjen, Leiden University. Since then, generous friends and colleagues at Macquarie, Sydney, Wollongong and UTS have each hosted Network meetings.
You don’t have to be in a L&T or academic development unit to come along but you should be curious about the field of HE research, want to learn about it, and make a contribution to it. The Network meets roughly 3 times a year, and we aim to rotate our meetings around different universities where the agenda is determined by the host. If you are interested in hosting, chat to Tai.
We use #HEscholars on twitter.
For further inquiries, email Dr Tai Peseta, Learning Futures, Western Sydney University.
ON A BREAK UNTIL 2023.
MEETING 10 - FRI 27 NOV 2020
Theme: Doing things with theory in higher education research
Theme: Doing things with theory in higher education research
Online via Zoom (from 9.30am-1.00pm, AEST)
Hosts: A/Prof Agnes Bosanquet (Macquarie) Dr Karina Luzia (Macquarie), Dr Vanessa Fredericks (Australian Catholic University) and Dr Tai Peseta (Western Sydney University)
Following our meeting in May in which we read about theorising and developing theories (Ashwin, 2012; Swedberg, 2016), this session explores the uses and abuses of theory in higher education research. We take a look at writing from two prominent theorists, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler.
We have chosen these two scholars and these particular works for several reasons. They are highly cited in higher education research, but neither specifically address higher education in their writing. The chosen primary texts deal with questions of selfhood, our relations to others, systems and institutions, and the construction of ontologies and epistemologies. These are challenging theoretical works to think with, so this is a session where we explore the limits of our understanding, and collectively think through our unknowingness and the uses of theory in higher education research.
PRE-READING
Participants have the option of joining Team Butler or Team Foucault.
Team Butler:
In the chosen primary text, Judith Butler argues that sex and gender are performative. The gendered self, and subjectivity more broadly, is an illusion, a stylization of the body, a regulatory fiction, a strategy for survival, reinforced through repetitive practices. In the secondary text, Emily Henderson analyses academic conferences using Butler’s (1997) work on naming and vulnerability to language.
Butler, J. (1990). Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire (Chapter 1, pp. 1-34). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Henderson, E.F. (2015.) Academic conferences: representative and resistant sites for higher education research, Higher Education Research & Development, 34(5), 914-925, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2015.1011093
Team Foucault:
In the chosen primary text, Michel Foucault conceptualises subjectivity through power relations (to be self-aware and to be subject to) and resistance. He offers a useful list of five considerations for analysing power relations. In the secondary text, Farzaneh Haghighi uses Foucault's concepts of heterotopia and the will to know to examine university lecture theatres.
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777-795.
Haghighi, F. (2020). Heterotopic sites of knowledge production: Notes on an architectural analysis of lecture halls. Cultural Dynamics, 32(4), 307-327. DOI: 10.1177/0921374020907111
Questions for consideration
Primary text
1. What was your experience of reading this? Was it your first time or a reread?
2. Is there a particular quote that resonated for you? Your work?
3. Or a quote that confused/ confounded you?
4. Can you make links with your research in higher ed? Can you see ways in which you could apply this to your HE Research?
Secondary text
1. What is the role of theory in this article? Is this explicitly stated?
2. How is the theoretical work aligned with the other parts of the paper (e.g. method, data, discussion)?
3. Why this particular theoretical work?
4. Does it add to the theory?
5. Is it helpful in extending your understanding of the theory and/or your lived experience of higher education/ subjectivity/ power/ knowledge etc?
INVITATION TO PRESENT
For this meeting, we are really keen for you to share an example of higher education research that works with theory in an interesting way. This might be:
work you have already published and want to flag with others the way you have done theory
work in progress for presentation
someone else’s research in higher education that you are puzzling over and would like to discuss.
If you are keen to present something (no more than 10 mins presentation with 10mins conversation), we are asking you to do the following:
Send us a title, a 250 word abstract that summarises the theoretical work you are grappling with, and two or three questions you’d like to focus discussion on. Email it to Agnes by agnes.bosanquet@mq.edu.au by COB on Wednesday 18th November.
Prepare no more than 2 PPT slides for the day (no need to send to us; you prepare and present from your screen)
Be there, present, engage, think and discuss.
Once there is a program, we will ask you to indicate your preferences so we can be efficient about how the morning will run.
PROGRAM
You can now download the program for the morning. The program contains the timing and sessions for you to choose from. We will ask you to choose Team Butler or Foucault in advance, and to choose the sessions you'd like to attend in advance so that the morning will run smoothly (look for an email from Tai).
REGISTER
Registrations are now closed. If you would like to be added to the email list for future meetings, reach out to Tai (t.peseta@westernsydney.edu.au).
MEETING 9 - FRI 1 MAY 2020
Theme: Keeping our researcher identities alive and our research community connected
Online via Zoom (from 9.30am-1.30pm, AEST)
Hosts: Dr Tai Peseta (Learning Futures, Western Sydney University), Dr Giedre Kligyte (Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, UTS), Dr Lilia Mantai (Sydney Business School, University of Sydney), Dr Vanesssa Fredericks (Learning and Teaching, Aust. Catholic University) & Associate Professor Amani Bell (Faculty of Health & Medicine, University of Sydney)
For this meeting, we are really keen for you to bring a piece of HE research you are working on to the Network for conversation and feedback. If you are keen to present something - akin to a Work-In-Progress (no more than 5 mins presentation with 15 mins conversation in and around it), we are asking you to do the following:
Send us a title, a 250 - 300 word abstract, two of three questions you’d like us to focus our feedback on by COB Fri 24 April. Email it to amani.bell@sydney.edu.au
Prepare 2 PPT slides for the day
Be there, present, engage, get feedback, give feedback, take the next step
Preparatory reading
Ashwin, P. (2012). How often are theories developed through empirical research into higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 37(2), 941-955.
Swedberg, R. (2016). Before theory comes theorizing or how to make social science more interesting. The British Journal of Sociology, 67(1), 5-22.
Register
Registration has now closed.
Contact Dr Tai Peseta t.peseta@westernsydney.edu.au
MEETING 8 - FRI 15 NOV 2019
Theme: Re-imagining a field: what should a new research centre for Higher Education do?
University of Technology Sydney
Hosts: Dr Tai Peseta (Learning Transformations, Western Sydney University), Giedre Kligyte (Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, UTS), Dr Agnes Bosanquet (Faculty of Human Sciences) & Dr Karina Luzia (Learning Innovation Hub, both Macquarie University)
Preparatory reading
Clegg, S. (2012). Conceptualising higher education research and/or academic development as ‘fields’: a critical analysis, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(5), 667-678.
Harland, T. (2012). Higher education as an open-access discipline, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(5), 703-710.
When you register, we will also ask you to engage in one more task. Please look out for the email.
MEETING 7 - FRI 19 JULY 2019
Theme: Mind the Gap: Contemplating power, privilege and pedagogy
The University of Sydney
Hosts: Dr Vanessa Fredericks, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education) Portfolio, The University of Sydney, Dr Lilia Mantai, Business School, The University of Sydney, A/Prof Elaine Huber, Business School, The University of Sydney
Abstract | Program | Participants | Slides | Quick feedback from the day
Preparatory reading
Shahjahan, R. A. (2015). Being ‘Lazy’ and Slowing Down: Toward decolonizing time, our body, and pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47 (5), 488–501.
hooks, b. (1994). Theory as Liberatory Practice. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York & London: Routledge.
MEETING 6 - FRI 8 FEB 2019
Theme: The Puzzles, Problematics and Prospects of Research in University-wide Strategic Education Projects
Western Sydney University
Hosts: Learning Transformations team: Dr Tai Peseta, Dr Jenny Pizzica, Dr Georgie Avard, Dr Carol Russell & Gina Saliba
Program | Participants | Resource Suggestions| Quick feedback from the day
Preparatory reading
Sandberg, J. & Alvesson, M (2011). Ways of constructing research questions: gap spotting or problematization? Organisation, 18(1), 23-44.
Alvesson, M. (2012). Do we have something to say? From re-search to roi-search and back again? Organisation, 20(1), 79-90.
MEETING 5 - FRI 12 OCT 2018
Theme: Making Place in Higher Education Research
University of Technology Sydney
Hosts: Jan McLean & Giedre Kligyte
Reading:
Grant, B. (2018). “Going to see”: An academic woman researching her own kind. In A.L. Black & S. Garvis (Eds). Lived experiences of women in academia: Metaphors, manifestos and memoir (pp.45-54). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Macfarlane, B. (2012). The higher education research archipelago, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(1), 129-131, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2012.642846
MEETING 4 - FRI 8 JUNE 2018
Theme: Conducting risky research
Wollongong University
Hosts: Dr Alisa Percy, Dr Bonnie Dean, Dr Janine Delahunty & Jade Kennedy
Agenda | Reflection from The Slow Academic
Reading:
Sikes, P. (2006) paper, ‘On dodgy ground? Problematics and ethics in educational research’, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 29(1), 105-117.
MEETING 2 - FRI 19 OCT 2017
Theme: Making space for HE research
Macquarie University
Hosts: Dr Lilia Mantai, Dr Agnes Bosanquet & Dr Karina Luzia
MEETING 3 - THUR 8 FEB 2018
Theme: Quality in HE Research
The University of Sydney
Hosts: A/Prof Amani Bell, Dr Kate Thomson & Delyse Leadbeatter
MEETING 1 - THUR 22 JUNE 2017
Learning the field of Higher Education Research
Western Sydney University
Host: Dr Tai Peseta
Agenda | List of recommended readings for new researchers to HE
Reading:
Macfarlane, B. (2012). The higher education research archipelago, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(1), 129-131, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2012.642846
Tight, M. (2003). Researching Higher Education. Routledge: NY & Oxon.