Pedagogy, Performance and E/quality: Challenges for Higher Education Policy
 
Dr Andrea Abbas (University of Lincoln), Dr Paul Ashwin (Lancaster University) and Professor Monica McLean (University of Nottingham)

Basil Bernstein and the Improvement of Constructions of Learning and Teaching (E)quality in Higher Education.

In this paper we draw upon the multiple data sets which have been generated as part of a three year mixed-method ESRC funded project to demonstrate and explore how the theories and concepts of Basil Bernstein can be used to develop more socially just constructions of learning and teaching quality.  We consider the benefits of and issues involved in drawing upon theory to try to intervene in discussions of policy change.
 
Dr Cath Lambert (University of Warwick)

Taking political participation seriously: the pedagogy of Fierce Sense

Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of young people’s participation in Fierce, a live art festival in Birmingham (http://www.wearefierce.org/), this paper argues that participatory public art has the potential to enable radically different forms of political engagement and knowledge generation, opening up the realm of the aesthetic as a critical space for the recognition and validation of political subjectivities. Particular attention is paid to the (educational) policy implications of these findings.