Developing Social Justice and Inclusion Competencies Through Semi-Structured Reflection Papers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1158-1174
Author(s):  
Annemarie Vaccaro ◽  
Brooke D'Aloisio ◽  
Tiffany Hoyt ◽  
Athina Chartelain ◽  
Sarah D Croft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Student Affairs Professionals ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Competency Development ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
University Employees ◽  
Cultural Inclusion

As higher education institutions strive to foster cultural inclusion, it is imperative that university employees develop relevant competencies. This chapter offers insight into one “best practice” for fostering social justice and inclusion competencies (ACPA/NASPA, 2015). A professor and former students discuss the benefits of using self-reflection papers for competency development. The chapter begins with an overview of social justice and inclusion competencies for higher education and student affairs professionals. That section is followed by a description of graduate-level courses and reflection paper assignments aimed at developing social justice and inclusion competencies. The majority of the chapter focuses on the educational process (e.g., meaning-making, critical reflection) and products (e.g., awareness, knowledge, skills, action) of semi-structured reflection papers. Recommendations for future practice and research are included.

Developing Social Justice and Inclusion Competencies Through Semi-Structured Reflection Papers

2017 ◽  
pp. 75-91
Author(s):  
Annemarie Vaccaro ◽  
Brooke D'Aloisio ◽  
Tiffany Hoyt ◽  
Athina Chartelain ◽  
Sarah D Croft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Student Affairs Professionals ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Competency Development ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
University Employees ◽  
Cultural Inclusion

As higher education institutions strive to foster cultural inclusion, it is imperative that university employees develop relevant competencies. This chapter offers insight into one “best practice” for fostering social justice and inclusion competencies (ACPA/NASPA, 2015). A professor and former students discuss the benefits of using self-reflection papers for competency development. The chapter begins with an overview of social justice and inclusion competencies for higher education and student affairs professionals. That section is followed by a description of graduate-level courses and reflection paper assignments aimed at developing social justice and inclusion competencies. The majority of the chapter focuses on the educational process (e.g., meaning-making, critical reflection) and products (e.g., awareness, knowledge, skills, action) of semi-structured reflection papers. Recommendations for future practice and research are included.

Leading the Transformation of Higher Education Institutions Through Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Maricela Alvarado ◽  
Catherine Ward
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Student Affairs ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Student Affairs Professionals ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Equity And Inclusion ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

This chapter will highlight the stories of two student affairs professionals who have some identities and experiences in common, but their differences have marked essential lessons for how they lead. This chapter also proposes being a student-ready educator takes a commitment to examine ourselves, our values, beliefs, and attitudes, and how they play out in our service to students. With this in mind, the authors recommend essential characteristics for being a student-ready educator, which includes (1) self-reflection, (2) empathy and compassion, (3) authenticity, (4) gratitude, (5) advocacy, and (6) personal sense of belonging. This chapter will expand on these characteristics and ways to skillfully engage them in meeting the needs of students from diverse backgrounds in these contested times to become more effective student-ready educators.

scholarly journals Reframing market-orientation: A comparative study of the market orientation concept in the subcultures of university employees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Chandler ◽  
Balázs Heidrich ◽  
Karina Szászvári ◽  
Richárd Kása
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Performance Appraisal ◽  
Market Orientation ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Higher Education Institution ◽  
University Employees ◽  
External Focus

AbstractIn a higher education institution, perceptions and values are split due to the emergence of subcultures, and market orientation is split into competitive, customer (student) and interfunctional orientation. This study seeks to shed light on the concept of market orientation in this context through a comparison of perceptions and values of market orientation in subcultures in a higher education institution in Hungary and consider avenues for potential best practice. Through a mixed method approach, subcultures are identified and are found to exhibit a combination of overlapping and disparate market-oriented values and perceptions. Market orientation is found to be a continuum and affected by an array of latent variables, such as level of support (institutional and collegial), attitudes to performance appraisal and extent of external focus. Management must tailor the initial message of a market orientation strategy to the shared values at the organizational level, and then adjust the message and incentives to each subculture. In this way, management can create an atmosphere of cohesion, whilst addressing diversity in subcultures.

scholarly journals Researching higher education in Africa as a process of meaning-making: Epistemological and theoretical considerations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael Cross ◽  
Logan Govender
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
African Experience ◽  
African Higher Education ◽  
Political Epistemology ◽  
Theoretical Considerations ◽  
Education In Africa

In this article, we argue for a new way of thinking about knowledge construction in African higher education as a basis for developing new theoretical and epistemological insights, founded on inclusivity, epistemic freedom, and social justice. We recognise coloniality as a fundamental problem that needs us to scrutinise our knowledge of decolonisation (about decolonisation itself) and our knowledge for decolonisation (to make change possible). Following Bourdieu (1972), such thinking also requires degrees of vigilance that entail fundamental epistemological breaks, or put differently, it requires epistemological decolonisation as a point of departure. Thus, the future of tertiary education in Africa must be located within a new horizon of possibilities, informed by a nuanced political epistemology and ontology embedded in the complex African experience and visibility of the colonised and oppressed. In short, there can be no social justice without epistemic justice.

scholarly journals EDUCATIONAL DIALOGUE AS AN INNOVATIVE AND HUMANITARIAN TECHNOLOGY FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Radchuk
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Development ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Partner Communication ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Joint Activities ◽  
Educational Dialogue

The article investigates the essential aspects of a dialogue with a purpose of further implementation it in higher education teaching practice. The author argues that educational dialogues can be regarded as a humanitarian technology that integrates cultural, axiological, existential, phenomenological ideas about learning on value-semantic level and coherent professional development of an individual in university environment. Educational dialogue is analyzed as a form of active learning, which aims at mastering of professional knowledge at a value-semantic level, and also as a form of communication, which provides environment for personality development, giving it psychological support, and social interaction skills. It is proven that the deployment of educational dialogue at formal, content and value-semantic levels involves development of teacher and student capabilities for conducting a dialogue, and training material that is suitable for teaching in a dialogue format. The author identifies the following conditions for implementation of educational dialogue in higher education 1) development of readiness for a dialogue in teachers both on personal and professional levels; 2) formation of dialogue culture in students; 3) development of self-reflection processes in students; 4) student mastering the skills for organizing joint activities; 5) formation of subjective student positions in educational process; 6) modeling of cooperation and joint creative activities, that serve as a model of future professional partner communication; 7) creating educational situations as close to the life situations as possible within the process of meaningful learning cooperation; 8) bringing training content closer to the realities of future profession.

scholarly journals Developing critical citizenship in LLB students: the role of a decolonised legal history course

Fundamina ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-363
Author(s):  
Lize-Mari Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Development Of Students

Within the neoliberal ideals of society, social science subjects are battling for their rightful place in curriculums. As a result, legal history courses are being presented by increasingly less universities in South Africa. In the tendency towards a skills-based LLB, higher education institutions are neglecting to acknowledge the immense impact students’ ideologies and critical thinking will have on the future of South Africa. This contribution argues that it is not only possible to deliver competitive graduates, to retain social subjects and to heed the call for decolonisation, but that a transformative, decolonised legal history course is vital to these ideals. The contribution explores the role of such a course in the development of LLB graduates where it strives towards constitutional ideals and social justice. Furthermore, it takes a look at legal history as a form of critical citizenship education, where it is based on the holistic development of students within constant critical self-reflection and the promotion of a common set of shared values. The development of critical citizenship in students are explored by defining this concept, as well as by discussing the manner in which it can be taught and the importance to the so-called born-free LLB student. This study concludes with broad outlines of the manner in which a legal history course would have to be presented within a critical pedagogy to achieve the aims of critical citizenship.

Aspiring Social Justice Ally Identity Development: A Conceptual Model

NASPA Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith E. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Student Affairs ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Student Affairs Professionals ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Social Justice Allies ◽  
Ally Identity

Individuals who are supportive of social justice efforts are not always effective in their anti-oppression efforts. Some who genuinely aspire to act as social justice allies are harmful, ultimately, despite their best intentions, perpetuating the system of oppression they seek to change. Different underlying motivations of those who aspire to be allies can lead to differences in effectiveness, consistency, outcome, and sustainability. The conceptual model presented here, using underlying motivation to frame the different issues and challenges facing those who are aspiring allies, is offered as a tool for student affairs professionals’ self-reflection and developing students as allies for social justice.

scholarly journals “There’s a Human Being Here”: A Doctoral Class Uses Duoethnography to Explore Invisibility, Hypervisibility, and Intersectionality

10.28945/4658 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 637-652
Author(s):  
Annemarie Vaccaro ◽  
Chiquita Baylor ◽  
Desiree Forsythe ◽  
Karin Capobianco ◽  
Jana Knibb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Post Secondary

Aim/Purpose: This paper contributes to the scholarly literature on intersectionality and social injustice (invisibility, hypervisibility) in higher education and serves as a model for enacting doctoral education where research, theory, and practice converge. Background: Invisibility and hypervisibility have long been documented as social injustices, but very little literature has documented how doctoral students (who are also university employees) make meaning of intersecting privileges and oppressions within post-secondary hierarchies. Methodology: This study used a 10-week Duoethnography with co-researchers who were simultaneously doctoral students, staff, instructors, and administrators in higher education settings. Contribution: This paper offers a unique glimpse into currere—the phenomenon of theory and practice converging—to offer an intensive interrogation of life as curriculum for five doctoral students and a professor. Findings: This paper illuminates rich meaning-making narratives of six higher educators as they grappled with invisibility and hypervisibility in the context of their intersecting social identities as well as their varied locations within post-secondary hierarchies/power structures. Recommendations for Practitioners: Duoethnography can be an effective strategy for social justice praxis in doctoral programs as well as other higher education departments, divisions, or student organizations. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can use Duoethnography to explore a plethora of social justice issues in doctoral education and across staff, faculty, and Ph.D. student experiences within the power structures of post-secondary education. Impact on Society: Examining intersectionality, invisibility and hypervisibility is an important way to delve into the complexity of oppression. There will be no justice until all forms of oppression (including hypervisibility and invisibility) are extinguished. Future Research: Future research can more deeply explore social injustices and the intersections of not only social identities, but also social locations of doctoral students who are simultaneously employees and students in a university hierarchy.

EXTERNAL INDEPENDENT EVALUATION IN ENGLISH AS A CRITERION FOR ADMISSION TO MASTER`S DEGREE PROGRAMS IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Л. Е. Бєловецька
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Degree Programs ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Independent Evaluation

The problem of external independent evaluation in English for admission Master`s degree programs in Ukraine is considered in the article. The perspective for further improvement of English teaching and learning standards at Ukrainian universities has been found. The correspondence to the CEFR basic levels and English proficiency has been identified. Conceptual Principles of State Policy on the Development of English in the Field of Higher Education are considered. The study included 1546 participants. The age of students, who studied to gain the first higher education, was between 17 and 20. The students were not familiar with the structure of External Independent Evaluation and they have never passed it. The research was carried out during the period 2018–2019. The relevance of English language competence in the professional context is noted emphasized as a key point of the presented research. The necessity to provide a sufficient competitive level for Ukrainian graduates through improving correspondent English language training has been considered. The study is based on a study of reports by British experts and contemporary scientific publications presented international researchers have focused on the problems of internationalization and perspectives for Ukrainian universities in the English language dimension. The relevance of studying and adaptation of the UK higher education successful practice has been highlighted. The problems and potential ways of improving students` English language proficiency in the given context are identified. In particular, the study contains important recommendations regarding the number of contact hours and the required levels of English proficiency for the main groups of participants in the educational process in higher education according to international standards.

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