Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education Learning to Transgress Routledge Research in Higher Education Series

Higher education has been presented as a solution to a host of local and global problems, despite the fact that learning and assessment can also be used as mechanisms for exclusion and social control. Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: Learning to Transgress demonstrates that even when knowledge may appear to be the solution, it can be partial and disempowering to all but the dominant groups. The book shows the need to contest such knowledge claims and to learn to transgress, rather than to conform. It argues that transformative spaces need to be found and that these should be about the creation of new opportunities, ways of knowing and ways of being.

Working in and through spaces of transgression, the contributors to this volume develop frameworks for the possibilities of transformative spaces in learning and teaching in higher education. The book critiques the ways in which Western higher education culture determines the academic agenda in relation to dialogue on social differences, minority groups and hierarchical structures, including issues of representation among different groups in the population. It also explores the personal and political costs of transgression and outlines ways in which transitions can be transformative.

The book should be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of higher education, education studies, teacher training, social justice and transformation. It should also be essential reading for practitioners working in post-compulsory education.

Table of contents:

Preface

Sue Jackson

Section 1 - Identities and border crossings

Section editor: Sue Jackson

Introduction to section : Sue Jackson

Chapter 1 - Spaces of Identity -Transgressions and Transformations in Multicultural Encounters in Israel

Miriam Schildkraut and Mueen Fakhereldeen

Chapter 2 - Crossing expected and unexpected borders in the way to higher education: The "Window to the Academy" programme

Idit Katz and Hanoch Flum

Chapter 3 - Transitional, transformative and transgressive spaces in university education

Linden West

Conclusion to section 1: Sue Jackson

Section 2 - Knowledges, truths and stories

Section editors: David Owen and Juliet Millican

Introduction to section 2: David Owen and Juliet Millican

Chapter 4 - ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: The Role of Higher Education within Conflict Societies

David Owen, Juliet Millican, Waleed Dallasheh, and Ihab Zubeidat

Chapter 5 - Contested Spaces: Power and authority in an introductory undergraduate course

Uzi Zevik Brami and Iris Tabak

Chapter 6 - ‘Sometimes it’s appropriate to Scream at them’: The University as a platform for Resistance and Free Speech

Peter Watts and Ruth Rogers

Conclusion to section 2: David Owen and Juliet Millican

Section 3 - Transformative pedagogies

Section editors: Ihab Zubeidat and Waleed Dallasheh

Introduction to section 3: Ihab Zubeidat and Waleed Dallasheh

Chapter 7 - The Development of Higher-Order Cognition Skills: the contribution of a teacher training programme in the Excellence track

Yaser Awad, Ibtesam Azaiza, Mahmood Khalil and Varda Bar

Chapter 8 - Transforming Curriculum: Case studies on International Collaboration for Curricular Reform in Multicultural Education and Cultural Diversity

Rhonda Sofer and Hava E. Vidergor

Chapter 9 - Transgressing power structures in Assessment: not a step too far, just far enough

Maddalena Taras

Conclusion to section 3: Waleed Dallasheh and Ihab Zubeidat

Section 4

Transgression and transformation: the role of universities

Section editor: Maddalena Taras and Roxana Reichman

Introduction to section 4: Maddalena Taras

Chapter 10 - The university challenge: students' transformation

Roxana G. Reichman

Chapter 11 - Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: An Epistemological Rationale

Nurit Basman Mor

Chapter 12 - Telling tales: a transformative space for alternative discourses in research

Hazel Reid

Conclusion to section 4: Roxana Reichman

Final words: Sue Jackson

Sue Jackson is Professor Emerita of Lifelong Learning and Gender at Birkbeck University of London, where she was Pro-Vice-Master Learning & Teaching and Director of the Centre for Transformative Practice in Learning and Teaching until she retired in September 2016.