Around the world, the landscape of Higher Education is increasingly shaped by discourses of employability, rankings, and student satisfaction. Under these conditions, the role of universities in preparing students for all facets of life, and to contribute to the public good, is reshaped in significant ways: ways which are often negative and pessimistic. This book raises important and pressing questions about the nature and role of universities as formative educational institutions, drawing together contributors from both Western and non-Western perspectives. While the editors and contributors critique the current situation, the chapters evince a more humane and compassionate framing of the work of and in universities, based on positive and valued relationships and notions of the good. Drawing together a wide range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks to illuminate the issues discussed, this volume changes the debate to one of hopefulness and inspiration about the role of higher education for the public good: ultimately looking towards a potentially exciting and rewarding future through which humanity and the planet can flourish.
Chapter 1. Editors’ Introduction.- SECTION I. Institutional Possibilities.- Chapter 2. Resources of Hope: Truth and Reason; Jon Nixon.- Chapter 3. Pedagogies of Hopefulness and Thoughtfulness: The Social-Political Role of Higher Education in Contemporary Societies; Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen.- Chapter 4. A Public University’s Balancing Act: Institutional Possibilities, Pedagogical Advancement, Individual Benefit, and State Economic Development; Rebecca Watts, Gabriel Swarts, Leslie Rush and Cynthia Brook.- Chapter 5. Hygge, Hope and Higher Education: A Case Study of Denmark; Marianne A. Larsen.- SECTION II. Pedagogical Possibilities.- Chapter 6. Is caring pedagogy really so progressive? Exploring the conceptual and practical impediments to operationalizing care in higher education; Caroline Walker-Gleaves.- Chapter 7. The pursuit of compassionate hope – repurposing the University through the Sustainable Development Goals agenda; Paul Warwick, Alun Morgan and Wendy Miller.- Chapter 8. Folds, Fractals and Bricolages for Hope: Some Conceptual and Pedagogical Tactics for a Creative Higher Education; Craig Hammond.- Chapter 9. The Enchantment of Social Theory: Engaging Equity Imaginaries in the Neoliberal Academy; Linda Muzzin.- Chapter 10. Cultivating Confucius’ Ren in Hong Kong Higher Education; Cindy S.B. Ngai and Rita Gill Singh.- SECTION III. Inter / Intra-Personal possibilities.- Chapter 11. A whole life change: An including and empowering higher education for non-traditional students; Angela Scollan.- Chapter 12. Is Higher Education inherently good, educative practices intrinsically good and universities instrumentally good? What should we hope for?; Paul Gibbs.- Chapter 13. Centering humanism within the milieu of sustained student protest for social justice in higher education within South Africa; Labby Ramathran.- Chapter 14. Working in the neoliberal university: Other-regarding virtues and hope; Andrew Peterson
Paul Gibbs is Director of Education Research at the University of Middlesex, UK. He is also the founder of the Centre for Education Research and Scholarship at the University of Middlesex, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Open University in Hong Kong and the University of Cyprus.
Andrew Peterson is Professor of Character and Citizenship Education at the University of Birmingham, UK and Adjunct Professor of Education at the University of South Australia, Australia.
Stimulates debate concerning the nature and role of universities as formative educational institutions
Offers a more humane and compassionate framework of the work both of and in universities
Reframes the debate to one of hopefulness and inspiration about the role of higher education for the public good
