The doctorate: international stories of the UK experience

This is a collection of stories written by non-UK students about their experience of studying for their doctorate in a number of different UK institutions. The stories are personal ones, in which they outline the barriers they have overcome and the feelings they encountered on the way

Facing our whiteness in doing Ubuntu research:Finding spatial justice for the researcher

In this article, the two authors, academics from different contexts and both aware of their whiteness, focus on their own vulnerable selves. The aim is to reflect on their specific agency in this project and to create awareness for subjectivity in research. What are the challenges of two white academics – the one from a first world country with a baggage of colonialism, and the other from South Africa with the apartheid baggage? On the one hand, they are not ‘vulnerable’ selves but indeed very privileged selves. On the other hand, there is an awareness of the fact that this very privilege puts researchers in a vulnerable situation, especially in doing research on Ubuntu in an African context

The Call of Stories: Using Narrative Inquiry in Cross-Cultural Research in Higher Education

La investigación narrativa está ganando popularidad en el marco de los estudios educativos y multiculturales. En este artículo, cuento la historia de cómo descubrí la investigación narrativa y de qué forma la asumí como el enfoque metodológico más apropiado para mi investigación sobre las experiencias de enseñanza y aprendizaje en el contexto de la enseñanza superior multicultural. El artículo relata la investigación narrativa, su idoneidad para la investigación multicultural y de la entrevista narrativa como método de investigación. Se ofrece un breve extracto de una conversación de investigación como ilustración de la entrevista narrativa y del uso del análisis dialógico/interpretativo para “narrar” los datos.Narrative inquiry is gaining in popularity in educational and cross-cultural research. In this article, I tell the story of how I came to encounter narrative inquiry and to settle on it as the most appropriate methodological approach for my research into experiences of learning and teaching in a multicultural higher education context. The article discusses narrative inquiry, its suitability for cross-cultural research and the narrative interview as a research method. A short extract from a research conversation is offered as illustration of a narrative interview and of using dialogic/performance analysis to ‘story’ data.Grupo de Investigación FORCE (Formación Centrada en la Escuela) Universidad de Granad

Facing our whiteness in doing Ubuntu research. Finding spatial justice for the researcher

In this article, the two authors, academics from different contexts and both aware of their whiteness, focus on their own vulnerable selves. The aim is to reflect on their specific agency in this project1 and to create awareness for subjectivity in research. What are the challenges of two white academics – the one from a first world country with a baggage of colonialism, and the other from South Africa with the apartheid baggage? On the one hand, they are not ‘vulnerable’ selves but indeed very privileged selves. On the other hand, there is an awareness of the fact that this very privilege puts researchers in a vulnerable situation, especially in doing research on Ubuntu in an African context.This article is part of the Special Collection titled ‘Spatial Justice and Reconciliation’, sub-edited by Stephan de Beer, of the Department of Practical Theology and the Centre for Contextual Ministry, University of Pretoria.The Templeton World Charity Foundationhttp://www.hts.org.zaam2017Practical Theolog

Women in powerful conversation: collaborative autoethnography and academia

Working as women in academia may still be regarded as “complex and fraught with myths, gross generalisations and mixed emotions” (Barakat, 2014:1). In this paper we articulate the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged over some time and through which we have challenged generalisations, explored emotions and illuminated further our complex identities as women in academia. Sharing and making visible our collaborative autoethnographic conversations and writing to other readers is risky and exposes us to possible censure. We realise that we are susceptible to being disparaged for being self-indulgent – a common criticism of autoethnography – yet we contend that our conversations and writing are both self and socially luminous as we connect our ‘selves’ with the UK higher education context. The paper’s main focus is the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged. Examples from our conversations and writing are included in order to demonstrate the power of this process and its potential and wider relevance for research

‘You have to change, the curriculum stays the same’: decoloniality and curricular justice in South African higher education

This article reports on a study that focuses on students from rural areas of South Africa and their experiences of higher education. These students have attracted little attention in widening participation research in South Africa, despite being one of the most marginalised groups. The article, drawing on the experiences of student co-researchers and using the concepts of decoloniality and curricular justice as a theoretical framework, argues for greater acknowledgement of epistemic reciprocity in curriculum development as a way to ensure more socially just curricula. Findings illustrate the importance that students attribute to being able to relate to curricula that reflect their experiences, curricula that they rarely experience in higher education. Students report feelings of marginalisation, lack of recognition of the importance of knowledge and skills developed in their communities and their relevance to higher education together with the challenges they face accessing and engaging with the curriculum.</p