Re-framing student academic freedom: a capability perspective

The scholarly debate about academic freedom focuses almost exclusively on the rights of academic faculty. Student academic freedom is rarely discussed and is normally confined to debates connected with the politicisation of the curriculum. Concerns about (student) freedom of speech reflect the dominant role of negative rights in the analysis of academic freedom representing ‘threats’ to academic freedom in terms of rights which may be taken away from a person rather than conferred on them. This paper draws on the distinction between negative and positive rights and the work of Sen (1999) to re-frame student academic freedom as capability. It is argued that capability deprivation has a negative impact on the extent to which students can exercise academic freedom in practice and that student capability can be enhanced through a liberal education that empowers rather than domesticates students

The performative turn in the assessment of student learning: a rights perspective

Active learning and group-based processes in higher education are central to student engagement strategies. Forms of assessment regarded as evidencing student engagement, including attendance, class participation grading and group-based projects, have become commonplace in the university curriculum on an international basis. Whilst the literature has focused on evaluating such forms of assessment in terms of learning gain, analysis of their impact from a student rights perspective has been largely overlooked. This paper will analyse student perspectives of three forms of assessment entailing the measurement of observable student attitudes and behaviour: attendance, class participation and group work grading. The evidence from a survey of undergraduates based in a Hong Kong university suggests that the majority of students are concerned about whether such practices are appropriate and fair, potentially undermining their freedom of choice to learn as adults

The paradox of collaboration

Collaboration is a modern mantra of the neoliberal university and part of a discourse allied to research performativity quantitatively measured via co-authorship. Yet, beyond the metrics and the positive rhetoric collaboration is a complex and paradoxical concept. Academic staff are exhorted to collaborate, particularly in respect to research activities, but their career and promotion prospects depend on evaluations of their individual achievements in developing an independent body of work and in obtaining research funding. This central paradox, among others, is explored through analysing collaboration as a moral continuum. At one end of this continuum are other-regarding interpretations of collaboration involving the free sharing of ideas for the common good of scientific advance (collaboration-as-intellectual generosity), nurturing the development of less experienced colleagues (collaboration-as-mentoring) and disseminating knowledge claims via a range of scholarly platforms (collaboration-as-communication). However, other forms of collaboration are essentially self-regarding illustrating the pressures of performativity via increased research output (collaboration-as-performativity), through practices that reinforce the power of established networks (collaboration-as-cronyism) and the exploitation of junior researchers by those in positions of power and seniority (collaboration-as-parasitism). Whilst collaboration has always been at the heart of academic labour its paradoxes illustrate how individual and collective goals can come into conflict through the measurement of academic performance and the way in which such audits have perverted the meaning of collaboration