Learning, Teaching and Social Justice in Higher Education

"This book brings together a wide range of higher education practitioners from across disciplines. Their chapters suggest innovative approaches to learning, teaching and delivering a tertiary education experience that centres social justice as a core mission of universities. The authors address the ways in which universities grapple with the challenges involved in the selection processes, administration, teaching and learning and student support associated with an increasingly large student population drawn from a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, including many students who will be returning to live overseas. Some of the specific challenges of these developments have included those of selection, academic literacy, independent learning, student support and student engagement. A second dimension is the traditional role of the universities as sources of independent intellectual and ethical critique of social institutions, both in terms of research and public intellectual contribution to political and social policy debates, and in terms of the formation of students in their capacities as critical, ethical, citizens and professionals. This social-ethical critique has traditionally been built into the humanities and the social science disciplines and the 'helping professions' but has now found its way into other disciplines and professional areas, such as business and engineering. As well, broader social policy and political discourse has more explicitly embraced social-ethical agendas of inclusiveness and marginalisation of social groups; recognition of the damage to the overall society of enduring and increasing social inequality." -- BOOK JACKET.