Embedding a civic engagement dimension within the higher education curriculum: a study of policy, process and practice in Ireland.
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Date
30/06/2008Author
Boland, Josephine Anne
Metadata
Abstract
As the civic role of higher education attracts renewed critical attention, the idea
of engagement has come to the fore. Civic engagement, as espoused in many
institutional missions, encompasses a diversity of goals, strategies and activities. Latterly,
these have included particular approaches to teaching and learning. This research
examines the process of embedding a civic engagement dimension within the higher
education curriculum in Ireland. I use the term ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’as a
generic term for a range of academic practices –variously referred to as ‘service
learning’or ‘community based learning’–which share an explicit civic focus. Academic
practice serves as the central focus with attention to pertinent aspects of the prevailing
context. Using a multi-site case study conducted in the spirit of naturalistic enquiry, I
examine four cases of this curriculum innovation, drawn from the university and
institute of technology sectors in Ireland, with unstructured interviews and documents
as the main sources of data.
I interrogate the underpinning rationale for ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’–as
gleaned from the literature, the policy context and the case studies –exploring implicit
conceptions in relation to knowledge, curriculum, civil society, community and the
purpose of higher education. The study draws its empirical data from those responsible
for implementing this pedagogy –the ‘embedders’–and a range of other actors.
Interviews were carried out with academic staff, project directors, educational
developers, academic managers and leaders. Key actors from the national policy context
and from the international field of civic engagement also participated in the study. Four
orientations to civic engagement are identified, revealing the multifaceted rationale. I
explore the process of operationalising the pedagogy and the factors impacting on
academics’capacity and willingness to embed it. While the study does not directly
examine the experience of students and community partners their role within the
process, as perceived by academic staff and others, is problematised. The implications
of the putative unresolved epistemology of this pedagogy are explored in light of how
participants conceive of and practice it. Academics’ambivalence about the place of
values in higher education emerges as a theme and the issue of agency recurs. I explore
how the pedagogy may be conceived of in terms of the teaching, research and service
roles of academics and consider how it may be positioned within an institution.
Opportunities for alignment are identified at a number of levels from constructive
alignment within the curriculum to alignment with national strategic priorities. I explore
the unrealised potential of the Irish National Framework of Qualifications –specifically
the ‘insight’dimension –as a means of enabling and legitimising the pedagogy, in light
of the prominence afforded to the principle of subsidiarity in Irish higher education
policy.
The localised way in which these practices have been adopted and adapted
underlines the significance of context and culture. ‘Pedagogy for civic engagement’as a
concept and as a practice challenges a range of assumptions and traditional practices,
raising fundamental questions regarding the role and purpose of higher education –and
not just in contemporary Ireland.