Critical Conversations on Knowledge, Curriculum and Epistemic Justice:
A symposium in memory of the life and scholarship of Suellen Shay
In memory of Suellen Shay’s life and as a testament to the ongoing impact of her scholarship, colleagues from the Teaching in Higher Education journal, the University of Cape Town and collaborators
with the aim of generating broad, deep and critical contemporary engagement with her body of work and its implications for higher education scholarship and practice. Presenters hoped to generate conversations, emergent perspectives and ideas around the themes Suellen worked on and/or the theoretical resources she drew from.
This free, hybrid Symposium was hosted in Stellenbosch (South Africa), Liverpool (UK) and online via Zoom.
Suellen Shay has made a significant contribution as a scholar, a teacher and supervisor in Higher Education Studies. Driven by her commitment to working for change for greater justice and equity in higher education, Suellen contributed to student and staff development, established and led a postgraduate programme in Higher Education Studies, contributed to institutional and national policy development and served as Dean of the Centre for Higher Education Development at the University of Cape Town. She also served for almost a decade as Executive Editor for Teaching in Higher Education. For her many colleagues and collaborators, Suellen has left behind fond memories of working with her and also a rich body of scholarly work. Her scholarly career began with the completion of a Ph.D. on assessment as a socially-situated practice. Thereafter she embarked on a programme of theoretically-informed empirical research that informed policy work on assessment, access in the South African context, re-framing education development and theorizing the field of higher education more broadly. Working in the social realist tradition of sociology of education, she made a substantial contribution to researching and theorizing the differentiation and progression of curriculum knowledge, including the theorization of vocational and professional knowledge and higher education as a professional field. Through this body of work, Suellen has had an on-going impact on policy and practice in the HE field – both internationally and locally in South Africa.
https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2021-04-16-in-remembrance-professor-suellen-shay
Innovations and challenges to working for equity, access and epistemic justice in higher education, including rethinking student development, curriculum and assessment policy and practice;
Theorizing the higher education field, (as professional practice) including conversations around staff development and programmes in Higher Education Studies;
Shifts in assessment in higher education – policy and practice;
Contestations around reforming or decolonizing the higher education curriculum for epistemic justice;
The implications of institutional and /or knowledge differentiation for curriculum and pedagogy;
Theoretical conversations that engage critically with the Bernsteinian or social realist tradition of sociology of (higher) education.
The programme comprised four 90-minute sessions around the four key themes. Each session began with short video summaries of the session papers, followed by 20-minute small group discussions (both online breakout rooms and face-to-face groups in Stellenbosch and Liverpool). Participants then engaged in a collective 40-minute plenary around key questions, observations and thematic developments.
10:00 (SAST) Opening
10:30 - 12:00 Session 1
Chair: Mags Blackie
Professional knowledge and curriculum
Papers:
Muller: The shadows of "boundary" remain': Suellen Shay, coherence, and the spectre of practice
Wolmarans: Recontextualizing professional knowledge: a critique of the Bernsteinian formulation of ‘Regions’
Jacobs & Van Schalkwyk: What knowledge matters in Health Professions Education?
Wolff & Winberg: Curricula under pressure
Annala: Disciplinary Knowledge Practices in Regions - Study on Knowledge and Curriculum Structures in Cross-Institutional Curriculum
Tea/Coffee Break
12:20 - 13:50 Session 2
Chair: Peter Kahn
Theorising Higher Education
Papers:
Ashwin: Understanding educational development in terms of the collective creation of socially-just curricula
Boughey: Knowledge making in the field of Educational Development in South Africa ten years on: Not there yet
Case & Marshall: Knowledge-building in higher education research: Analysing the work of a South African scholar, Suellen Shay
McKenna et al: From affirmative to transformative approaches to academic development
Luckett & Blackie: Beyond Structural Determinism: the Challenge of Reconceptualising Knowledge in Higher Education
Lunch Break
14:30 - 16:00 Session 3
Chair: Nicky Wolmarans
Reimagining institutional structures
Papers:
Kahn: An agenda for transforming higher education in a time of crisis
Tight: The Curriculum in Higher Education Research: a review of the research literature
Yucel: Enhancing powerful knowledge in undergraduate science curriculum for social good
Klassen: Curriculum governance in the professions: where is the locus of control for decision-making?
Fox et al: Equity, diversity, and inclusion - does social justice from the top trickle down?
Tea/Coffee Break
16:15 - 17:45 Session 4
Chair: Paul Ashwin
Interrogating assessment
Papers:
Blackie & McArthur: Assessment for Epistemic Justice: the importance of knowledge fields
Walton & Wolff: The Elephant, the Room, and the Specialisation of Assessment: Revisiting Shay’s ‘Double Truth’
Forde-Leaves et al: Using Shays 2016 curriculum model as the foundation for a Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) Framework for Assessment Inquiry
Padayachee & Matimolane: Assessment practices during Covid-19: the confluence of assessment purposes, quality and social justice in higher education
17:45 - 18:00 Closing
Shay, S. & Mkwize, T. (2018) Curriculum Transformation: Looking back and planning forward. In Ashwin, P. and J. Case (eds) In Pathways to Personal and Public Good. African Mind.
Shay, S. & T.Peseta, T. (2018) (editors) Curriculum as Contestation. Routledge.
Luckett, K. & Shay, S. (2018) Reframing the curriculum: a transformative approach. Critical Studies in Education.
Shay, S., Peseta, T. (2016). Editorial: A Socially Just Curriculum Reform Agenda. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(4), 361-366.
Maton, K., Hood, S., Shay, S. (2016) (editors) Knowledge-building: Educational Studies in Legitimation Code Theory. Routledge
Shay, S., Wolff, K., Clarence-Fincham, J. (2016) Curriculum reform in South Africa: More time for what? Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, 4(1), 74-88.
Shay, S. & Steyn (2016) Enabling knowledge progression in vocational curricula: Design as a case study. In Maton, K., Hood, S., Shay, S. (editors) Knowledge-building: Educational Studies in Legitimation Code Theory. Routledge.
Burke, PJ & Shay, S (2016) (Editors). Making Sense of Teaching in Difficult Times. Routledge.
Shay, S. (2015) Curriculum reform in higher education: a contested space. Teaching in Higher Education, 20(4), 431–441.
Shay, S. (2013) Conceptualizing curriculum differentiation in higher education: a sociology of knowledge point of view. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34,4, p. 563-582.
Shay, S. (2012) Educational development as a field: Are we there yet? Higher Education Research and Development, 31, 3, p. 311-323.
Shay, S, Ashwin, P. and Case, J. (2009) Editorial: A Critical Engagement with Research into Higher Education: A call for reflexivity. Studies in Higher Education, 34, 4
Shay, S. (2008) Beyond Social Constructive perspectives on assessment: The centering of knowledge. Teaching in Higher Education, 13, 5, 595-605.
Shay, S. (2008) Researching assessment as social practice: Implications for research methodology. International Journal of Educational Research. 47, 159-164.
Shay, S. (2005) The assessment of complex tasks: a double reading. Studies in Higher Education, 30, 6, 663-679.
Shay, S (2004) The assessment of complex performance: a socially-situated interpretive act. Harvard Educational Review, 74, 3, 307-329.
Editor: Kathy Luckett, University of Cape Town, South Africa. kathy.luckett@uct.ac.za
Guest Editor: Mags Blackie, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. mblackie@sun.ac.za