Teaching and Learning Regimes

Chapter 4 unpicks the different moments of teaching and learning regimes, illustrating them through two case studies. One concerns a merged university in South Africa dealing with difficult issues around merging disciplines and curricula in a context of continuing structured disadvantage. The second centres on a Danish university in which discourses were shifting in line with an increasingly dominant neo-liberal ideology permeating national policy-making. As well as illustrating the different moments of teaching and learning regimes in transition, these case studies are used to enrich the depiction of social practices as both bundled and nested. This is very significant both conceptually and for understanding and enacting change processes.

The Practice Sensibility and the Challenges of Change

Chapter 7 sets out synoptically the conceptual, analytical, and theoretical contribution of the book. Readers who want a concise summary of the theoretical position set out here can turn to the first few pages of this chapter. The contribution to research and for professional action is summarized, and some suggestions for research with a practice sensibility are offered. The chapter shows how the characteristics and functions of theory in general are specifically addressed in the approach taken here. It summarizes what this approach offers and outlines the areas that need supplementary theories and designs—those less amenable to the social practice approach.

Acquiring the Practice Sensibility

This chapter tells the reader why they should read the book and explains its purposes and underlying principles. It outlines the purpose of developing a practice sensibility and elaborates on the concept, giving examples from higher education and elsewhere. It also sets out the structure of the book and describes each chapter’s contents. The opening chapters refresh the idea of teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) and discuss the ways in which they can be investigated; the ethnographic approach is explored and a case is made for a more practice-focused methodology.

Accomplishing Change in Teaching and Learning Regimes

Chapter 6 focuses on change processes within their contexts, and how they have been, and can be, addressed. Drawing on vignettes and on well-documented case studies of organizational change in higher education contexts around the world, the chapter considers the forces of stasis and dynamism of the various elements which constitute teaching and learning regimes. The implications for change agents are unpicked and the notion of a practice-focused way of seeing is further elaborated. The chapter elaborates on how the practice sensibility helps practitioners look beyond quotidian events, conflicts, and issues. It helps change agents know where to look and what to look for in relation to the forces that shape practices, and how they might be addressed to enhance processes and outcomes.

Disciplines and the Generation of Teaching and Learning Regimes

This chapter develops a theoretical understanding of how teaching and learning regimes come about—their genesis and their evolution. It begins with a discussion of the power of disciplines in conditioning practices in university departments, a strong theme in the literature. While disciplinary differences are often important in conditioning local cultures, other factors are also at play. The genesis of teaching and learning regimes is multi-causal, dynamic, contextually contingent, and conditioned by history and its selective deployment. These characteristics are illustrated through vignettes and case studies. This chapter sets the scene for the one which follows.

Practice-Focused Strategic Ethnography

This chapter elaborates on the ways in which teaching and learning regimes in higher education can be investigated. The ethnographic approach, rooted in classical anthropology, is outlined and different flavours of it explored through critical engagement with examples of their application. The limits of ethnography are discussed, and a case is made for a practice-focused, multi-method research methodology to inform change initiatives.

Teaching and Learning Regimes

weThe central purpose of Chapter 2 is to refresh, finesse, and make more sophisticated the idea of teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) in higher education which I first developed in 2002, and which was subsequently deployed globally by higher education researchers and practitioners. Underlying the development of understanding TLRs in universities is social practice theory, which concentrates on recurrent behaviours in group contexts and the ways these are underpinned by tacit theories and sets of assumptions, meanings, and emotional responses. This is elaborated with a particular focus on issues around change processes.