Representations of a high-quality system of undergraduate education in English higher education policy documents

Ashwin, Paul; Abbas, Andrea; McLean, Monica

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which a high-quality system of undergraduate education is represented in recent policy documents from a range of actors interested in higher education. Drawing on Basil Bernstein's ideas, the authors conceptualise the policy documents as reflecting a struggle over competing views of quality that are expressed through pedagogic discourses. They identify two pedagogic discourses: a dominant market-oriented generic discourse and an alternative discourse that focuses on transformation. They argue that the market-oriented generic discourse is dominant because it is more coherent and more consistently presented than the alternative discourse, which is much more fractured. In conclusion, they argue that refocusing the alternative discourse of quality around students' relations to academic knowledge may offer a way in which to bring the different actors from the higher education field together in order to form a stronger, more cohesive voice.

Citation

Ashwin, P., Abbas, A., & McLean, M. (2015). Representations of a high-quality system of undergraduate education in English higher education policy documents. Studies in Higher Education, 40(4), 610-623. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.842211

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Oct 18, 2013
• Publication Date: Apr 21, 2015
• Deposit Date: Mar 23, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 23, 2016
• Journal: Studies in Higher Education
• Print ISSN: 0307-5079
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-174X
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 610-623
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.842211
• Keywords: Higher education policy, Pedagogic discourse, Quality, Basil Bernstein, Undergraduate education
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/987726
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2013.842211
• Additional Information: The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Studies in Higher Education 2015 http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03075079.2013.842211