Research in Education

Using a Community-First Land-Centered Framework this article reflects on an analysis of the research findings of a SSHRC funded research project. The project examined the ways two universities were interpreting and taking up the TRC report and its 94 Calls to Action. This is a crucial time in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples and the results of this research demonstrate that reconciliation remains a complex and challenging endeavour that has no quick fixes and further, that universities play a key role making the meaningful changes that are urgently needed to to make higher education welcoming and supportive for Indigenous Peoples.

Higher education institutions are heavily reliant on part-time adjuncts to teach their students. These part-time adjuncts now account for the majority of faculty in the United States. This qualitative study utilizes a phenomenological approach to explore the essence of the lived experiences of part-time adjuncts who travel to more than one university in their work roles. This study utilized semi-structured interviews with eight traveling adjuncts. The interview questions were based on: the theory of underemployment, employee engagement theory, and the learned helplessness model. While higher education institutions are reliant on adjunct faculty for their survival, the findings uncovered negative factors within the work environment which included job dissatisfaction, low pay, and little or no benefits. The implications and recommendations of these findings and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

The complexity of contemporary higher education policy making and the multitude of evidences and actors in policy networks mean that relationships between higher education researchers, policy makers and research evidence are not straightforward. In this article, we use a theoretical lens of time, Adams’ Timescapes, to explore this relationship and better understand why the research and policy worlds are frequently described as divided. Drawing on in-depth interviews with higher education researchers, policy makers and research funders, we show how research and policy have different interpretations of time. We discuss the Timeframes, or lengths, of work and career, the Temporality, or complexity, of ‘evidence’, of networks and relationships, and the importance of elements such as Timing, or synchronisation, and Tempo, or pace. We conclude that policy makers and higher education researchers may be better able to make sense of the problematic nature of aligning their concerns, interests and actions through understanding different Timescapes.

Previous research has demonstrated a strong relationship between access to capital and academic achievement. The present study explores the mediating role of the individual mindset and class perception in the capital–achievement relation. A survey-based study is conducted on 314 Delhi based undergraduate students. Different measures/proxies of various forms of capital and achievement are used. To see the role of the individual mindset, psychological resources of individual are considered and operationalized in terms of self-motivation and self-confidence. Results show that economic, social, and cultural capital have a significant influence on academic achievement. However, class perception and involvement in highbrow activities do not show any role in academic achievement. Results further reveal a significant mediating role of psychological resources in the capital–achievement relation. Results demonstrate that in the Indian higher education system, various forms of capital largely shape academic achievement and psychological resources significantly facilitate this relationship. Though the individual mindset can help in breaking this capital–achievement nexus, mostly it seems to be facilitating the relation. The results and implications of the study are discussed.

Drawing upon earlier studies of reforms and institutional changes in higher education, the purpose of this paper is to trace how the understanding of accountability has changed over the past twenty years and how it is understood to have impacted on higher education institutions. We do so by reviewing more than 350 papers and by asking three questions: Who answers to whom? For what are they answering? And how to assess those accountability arrangements? With these three questions as guides, our results indicate that higher education institutions have been undergoing processes of what we term accountabilization. These results contribute to the scholarship on higher education governance by conceptualizing the processes of accountabilization.