The Possibilities of Sustaining Critical Intellectual Work Under Regimes of Evidence, Audit, and Ethical Governance

Authors

  • Sue Clegg

Abstract

This paper explores three closely related practices: the turn to 'evidence' and re-endorsement of positivist assumptions; audit and the commodifcation of knowledge; and the new governance of research ethics. In each case I show that these moves involve a discursive shifts in the meaning of higher education, analyse the ways in which they represent newer forms of control within the academy, and consider the implications for critical intellectual work. I argue that disrupting dominant ideas and practices that currently pervade universities is important as part of the debate about more creative ways of moving forward.   

Author Biography

Sue Clegg

Professor Sue Clegg heads the Centre for Research into Higher Education at Leeds Metropolitan University. She has written about the ‘personal’ from a feminist perspective and explored students’ understandings of personal development planning and the significance of temporality for understanding higher education. She has recently published work on academic identities and research exploring how teaching and learning have become an object of scrutiny. 

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Published

2010-12-08