Artificial intelligence and student-teacher relationships: Reflections on a conversation across the contexts of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Australia

This reflective essay examines the student-teacher relationships in the context of recent advancements in artificial intelligence. The essay draws on a conversation between the authors from an online event which brought together over 90 participants from South and Central Asia, East Africa, and Australia. By presenting these reflections, the essay encourages further dialogue within the IJSaP community about the role of AI in education. It invites readers to consider the implications of AI on student-teacher relationships and to explore ways to navigate the complexities introduced by AI in higher education, while remaining committed to human-centered pedagogical practices

The Esquire and the Pettifogger: Reintroducing James Cobbe and Rethinking his Alopichos

This article reexamines an overlooked manuscript play titled Alopichos and dated 1623. Composed by ‘Iames Cobbe Esquior’ while studying law at Gray’s Inn, the document warrants interdisciplinary reconsideration as a remnant of England’s changing legal and playing professions, in light of its ambiguous status as a piece of amateur law-school drama or aspirational entry to the commercial theatre. In staging the exploits of an ‘old crafti pettyfogger’ named Versuto, Alopichos offers an occupational spin on city comedy befitting an Inns of Court audience. That story, however, does not explain why the manuscript play advertises a performance at the Globe

Guest Editorial: The Gig Economy and Women Workers in the Middle East

What is the impact of the so-called gig economy on women workers in the Middle East? Does digitalisation represent a catalyst for female labour participation in the region or a burden leading to further financial insecurity and invisibility? How are ordinary women gig workers re-imagining their tech lives and challenging unwritten rules, patriarchy and lack of access to the labour market? Featuring articles analysing case studies in Egypt, Iraq, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, this special issue addresses the abovementioned questions, directly speaking to the academic debate on the global gig economies. Proving a regional and local perspective, it contributes to a more plural understanding of gig work in a multiplicity of contexts, practices and experiences. It investigates the relationship between the daily and the digital to explore the role of platforms in shaping female labour participation and women’s empowerment, as well as issues of precarisation and marginalisation. By proposing a collection of original and pioneering research on an understudied topic as applied to specific contexts in the Middle East, the special issue broadens the analysis of the so-called gig economy beyond a mere economic lens, bringing together multi-disciplinary insights and approaches from sociology, political economy and digital anthropology. It shows that online gig work is neither a crystallised nor monolithic dimension. Instead, platforms - in some instances - have become vectors of formalisation instead of leading only to informality, such as in the case of taxi driving app and home cooking/food delivery, where apps have enhanced more regulation as formality was not the norm before. Women gig workers are re-imagining their roles in their everyday practices of working from home, blurring the lines between the public and the private spheres. They adapt to neoliberal conditions of flexibilisation to sustain their needs in contexts where processes of labour informalisation have long permeated the development of labour relations

Book review of Gender Pay Gap: Vom Wert und Unwert von Arbeit in Geschichte und Gegenwert

The gender pay gap is a persistent global labour issue, one that still has not been solved. In Gender Pay Gap: Vom Wert und Unwert von Arbeit in Geschichte und Gegenwart, the editors and contributors tackle historical and contemporary gender pay gaps (and the relationship between them) by addressing issues that leave the reader exclaiming: “Wow, I never thought about [issue]!” The issues the book examines range from the more-than-full-time work of “pastor wives” to the “digitisation” of work

Student Partnership Impact Awards (SPIA): Recognising and rewarding students as leaders

In 2022, the Staff Educational Development Association (SEDA) developed the Student Partnership Impact Award (SPIA), providing students and recent alumni with an opportunity to be professionally accredited for their leadership abilities through partnership. SEDA is a professional association for educational developers based in the UK. The SPIA award aims to expand SEDA’s community of educational developers by reaching out to other national and international students and staff working in partnership. SEDA’s development team, of which I am part of, carried out a review of the award procedures for quality assurance purposes.  The review process found a lack of leadership narrative in unsuccessful applications. This stemmed from applicants not being ultimately responsible for a project and, as a result, these applicants subsequently seemed unable to claim any leadership, which set the tone of applicants being subordinates to the staff project lead. These findings raised for me and the development team further questions about students’ exposure to leadership skills development and students’ ability to recognise their own leadership skills as part of their employability skills development. This case study explores thematic factors affecting students’ ability to confidently articulate themselves as leaders in a student partnership setting and what we can do as staff to support students in developing those graduate attributes. It also provides reflections and ideas for colleagues considering putting students forward for professional accreditation or potentially developing their own awards scheme

Exploring possibilities for student-staff partnerships and beyond in discipline-based education research

Discipline-based education research (DBER) uses researchers’ disciplinary background to inform investigations into university teaching and learning. The terms of student involvement in DBER are often dictated by the researchers, with student choice limited to whether or not they will contribute data. This is counter to the ethos of active student participation in which students can directly influence their university studies. While examples of DBER projects with students as collaborators rather than as informants or subjects exist, such opportunities are usually available to a few students. This paper explores where, why, and how students could contribute to DBER projects by exploring different roles students can take and examining the possibilities for student input to the process of educational research when viewed as an investigative cycle. This identifies places where students can influence research work while being able to disengage as necessary. Going beyond individual students, whole-class contributions also appear practical, opening up the possibility to “co-create DBER.

Designing an AI policy: An experiment in co-creation

We present a case study of co-creating a policy for the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in a writing course at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Students and faculty in two sections of a required 1st-year writing course worked to draft and respond to a policy about AI and then reflected on the experience. Student reflections suggested that the experience not only engaged students in a meaningful inquiry into AI, but also introduced them to key threshold concepts in both student partnership work and writing studies

The Gig Economy and Its Impact on Women in Iraq

The gig economy has significantly transformed Iraq’s labour market, creating new opportunities for women while also exposing persistent inequalities. This paper traces the experiences of Iraqi women in the gig economy, drawing on both individual and collective insights grounded in the authors’ work in this context. These experiences reveal the dual nature of the gig economy: providing flexible work options while perpetuating vulnerabilities such as discrimination and economic insecurity. By situating our analysis within Iraq’s unique socio-economic conditions, including women’s low workforce engagement and infrastructural challenges, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics shaping women’s participation in this emerging labour market. The paper explores the types of gig work available to Iraqi women, alongside the structural barriers they face, such as limited digital infrastructure and inadequate legal protections. We conclude by highlighting actionable pathways for improving economic outcomes for women and fostering inclusive growth in the gig economy

Carnap\u27s Scientific Humanism

Scientific humanism is the formula by which Rudolf Carnap positions science as the best tool for improving life. Science allows us to maximize the rational character of human decisions on the basis of meta-values that include epistemic values and values for rational decision making. These values are politically neutral in that they are not tied to any partisan political position, but deeply political because they allow us to avoid irrational reasoning and to make the right use of science for our political and moral decisions. Maximizing rationality does not mean, for Carnap, that we must think and calculate before every action. Rather, the overall noncognitive character of values and decisions leads to a decisionist momentum, which means that we must find the right balance, both personally and politically, between sharp thinking and following our attitudes, because science is a signpost, not a leader, in life. Carnap’s views are rooted in the intellectual currents of early twentieth-century Central Europe, including Max Weber’s scientific value-neutrality, the German Life Reform and Youth Movement, Lebensphilosophie, the decisionism of the 1920s, and the empiriocriticist branch of Austrian social democracy

Joseph Mansky. Libels and Theater in Shakespeare’s England: Publics, Politics, Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

This review considers Joseph Mansky\u27s Libels and Theater in Shakespeare’s England: Publics, Politics, Performance