Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Teaching in Higher Education on 04/03/2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2015.1016417
Accepted author manuscript, 571 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Student engagement, ideological contest and elective affinity
T2 - the Zepke thesis reviewed
AU - Trowler, Paul
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Teaching in Higher Education on 04/03/2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2015.1016417
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - This paper takes up issues raised in two articles by Nick Zepke and portrayed here as ‘the Zepke thesis’. This thesis argues that the literature on, interest in and practices around student engagement in higher education have an elective affinity with neo-liberal ideology. At one level this paper counters many of the assertions that underpin the Zepke thesis, challenging them as being based on a selective and tendentious interpretation of that literature. It also points out the misuse of the concept of ‘elective affinity’ within the thesis. However, more significantly the paper argues that an understanding of how ideas are taken up and used requires a more sophisticated ontological understanding than the Zepke thesis exhibits. That thesis has strayed into the territory of the sociology of knowledge while ignoring the accounts and debates in that area developed over more than a century.
AB - This paper takes up issues raised in two articles by Nick Zepke and portrayed here as ‘the Zepke thesis’. This thesis argues that the literature on, interest in and practices around student engagement in higher education have an elective affinity with neo-liberal ideology. At one level this paper counters many of the assertions that underpin the Zepke thesis, challenging them as being based on a selective and tendentious interpretation of that literature. It also points out the misuse of the concept of ‘elective affinity’ within the thesis. However, more significantly the paper argues that an understanding of how ideas are taken up and used requires a more sophisticated ontological understanding than the Zepke thesis exhibits. That thesis has strayed into the territory of the sociology of knowledge while ignoring the accounts and debates in that area developed over more than a century.
KW - student engagement
KW - elective affinity
KW - neo-liberalism
KW - higher education
KW - ideology
U2 - 10.1080/13562517.2015.1016417
DO - 10.1080/13562517.2015.1016417
M3 - Journal article
VL - 20
SP - 328
EP - 339
JO - Teaching in Higher Education
JF - Teaching in Higher Education
SN - 1356-2517
IS - 3
ER -