A dialogue between partnership and feminism: deconstructing power and exclusion in higher education |
| |
| Authors: | Lucy Mercer-Mapstone Gina Mercer |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;2. Independent scholar |
| |
| Abstract: | Students as partners (SaP) has seen an increase in focus as an area of active student engagement in higher education. Many complexities and challenges have been shared in this evolving field regarding inclusivity and power. We discuss, in this dialogue, insights that can be uncovered by exploring SaP through a feminist lens – illuminating the fact that both fields seem to be seated in similar radical processes of challenging, questioning, destabilising, deconstructing, and empowering. We unravel issues of power and exclusion by exploring: what feminist theories might add to SaP; embedded binaries and what they reveal about power relations within the language of SaP; and ways of writing about SaP that are inclusive. We aim to step away from dominant understandings, incite acts of self-reflection, and open possibilities for future research and practice by questioning the boundaries and binaries that currently shape the institutions of higher education. |
| |
| Keywords: | Students as partners student-staff partnership feminism pedagogy power |
|
|
