Adventures in meaning making: Teaching in Higher Education 2005–2013

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the forms of meaning making in Teaching in Higher Education between 2005 and 2013. Unlike other papers which have reviewed higher education journals the analysis was based on reading full papers. Previous analyses of journals have commented on the a-theoretical nature of much research into higher education. As we encourage critical work it was important to read in order to identify the practices of authors. Exemplars of different forms of meaning making were identified and these are discussed in greater depth. They included: description, reflection and reflexivity, explicit theorising and diverse forms of theoretically informed empirical analyses. The paper argues for a view of theorisation as an active, agentic, social practice. The paper suggests that there are rich knowledge making practices in the field. Rather than an a-theoretical activity analysing and theorising teaching in higher education in its all its necessary relations appears to be flourishing.

Keywords:

• theory
• reflection and reflexivity
• methodology
• data analysis
• knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I did not include Points of Debate/Departure because these are intended as shorter interventions and refereed via a different process, but I did include Essays as they are full papers.

2. There are some notable absences: few African writers, other than from South Africa and a lack of work from India, China and South America. Language undoubtedly plays a role here and Teaching in Higher Education remains anglophone. So while Teaching in Higher Education is international in its scope it is important to recognise the geographical limitations of meaning making represented here.

3. I have chosen not to digress too far into the philosophy and sociology of science, but my influences are from within critical realism, notably in this instance Roy Bhaskar, and also with the turn to considering knowledge questions by authors such as Michael Young and Lisa Wheelahan.

4. I chose papers which seemed good examples of the types of meaning making I was highlighting. I did not try to make them representative of particular years or of the nationality of the authors as this would have been more appropriate for a different sort of review article.

5. The authors might not agree with this characterisation which is based on my reading and the description is in relation to the papers not the academic identities of the authors. It is also possible that the ‘disciplinary’ authors might see themselves primarily as academic developers in a disciplinary context as this is not an uncommon positioning.

6. All the refereeing in Teaching in Higher Education is done by members of the Board and my gratitude to them is enormous.