This study explores how academic xenophobia and class hierarchies intersect within South African higher education institutions. Drawing on a decade of the author’s personal experiences through autoethnography and vignettes, it reveals the subtle, non-violent forms of xenophobia embedded in recruitment, classroom dynamics, and academic interactions. The research demonstrates how race, class, and nationality intersect to marginalise foreign academics, reinforcing exclusion and perpetuating structural inequalities rooted in apartheid. Framed by intersectionality and critical race theory, the study argues that these institutional practices mirror broader societal discrimination. The implications extend beyond individual experiences, affecting academic culture, staff wellbeing, and the pursuit of inclusive scholarship. By centring my lived experiences as a site of critical inquiry, this study contributes to the humanities debate by calling for a re-examination of policies and attitudes within universities to better support equity, diversity, and an inclusive scholarly environment.
The arts and humanities have historically made a significant contribution to disability studies. This paper seeks to build on this history by exploring what researchers from these disciplines consider to be priority future research agendas. Following a review of the relevant forward focused literature, a qualitative investigation was undertaken with participants who are currently involved in disability inclusive arts and humanities research. The analysis reveals that researchers have optimism with regards to the potential of their disciplines to explore themes relating to disability inclusion, but to achieve this potential, action must be taken to address both thematic and process related concerns. Both researchers and funders must ensure that any research on disability is accessible, meaningfully inclusive, and addresses existing power imbalances. Further critical methodological approaches are needed to understand of the contribution, impact, and future potential of the arts and humanities to explore disability studies.
The humanities PhD is undergoing extraordinary change. Against this backdrop, this article argues that humanities doctoral education should be structured, supported and evaluated in ways that recognise its differences from other fields. It shares the findings of a qualitative survey of 60 humanities graduates from British and Irish universities who reflected on the value of their doctorates to various areas of life since graduation. Employing reflexive thematic analysis, the article explores the intense ambivalence with which graduates perceive this value. While describing known financial and emotional costs, participants articulate unmissable benefits connected to the situated form of knowledge creation distinct to the humanities: meaningful relationships, self-fulfilment and an enhanced capacity to interpret the world. This addresses gaps in scholarship by indicating what is unique about humanities doctorates. Through drawing on the findings, the article recommends strategies for funders, institutions and researchers to promote humanities doctoral experiences of high personal value.
New modes of online and hybrid course delivery can pose significant challenges for teaching film studies. The shift from in-class screenings to online delivery of course films impacts what is available to screen—privileging work available in digital form—and how this material is accessed and engaged with. This article discusses some of the issues and opportunities that can arise from the move to online learning for film programs by reflecting on the place of ‘unseen’ films in the curriculum and classroom. Over the past few years ‘unmade films’ have become an area of interest for film scholars for understanding how material resources and opportunities are allocated in screen industries. This article proposes that contemporary film studies teaching needs an analogous discourse of unseen cinema, and explores how teaching ‘the films we can’t see’ might offer a productive way of teaching film studies in the age of online delivery.
As institutions of higher education in the United States continue to address the legacies of exclusion that have limited educational opportunities for students of color, leaders across academia, government, and the private sector are called upon to implement meaningful remedies that increase engagement. The Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative (LAMI) is one such program in the U.S. that addresses the underrepresentation of aspiring researchers in the humanities and social sciences. This article examines whether undergraduates with no prior research experience appear to “catch-up” to peers with earlier research exposure through an intensive summer research program. Findings suggest that students without prior research experiences achieve comparable outcomes in research skill development, researcher identity, self-efficacy, and future career planning, positioning both groups as equally competitive graduate school applicants. Long-term data further show similar graduate school matriculation rates, suggesting that structured, equity-oriented research experiences can mitigate disparities in preparation and access.
Sustainability as an educational objective in higher education is becoming increasingly prevalent. Design studies, and future designers, play a significant role in promoting sustainability. However, sustainability education must prioritize experiential learning alongside conventional methods. To achieve this, learning beyond the classroom through active methodologies is crucial, allowing students to comprehend the environment as an integral part of the society in which they reside. Incorporating local ecological knowledge into the curriculum enhances the perceived value of the surrounding territory, thereby contributing to its preservation and appreciation. This paper presents the outcomes of a pedagogical proposal involving challenge-based learning in the Baix Llobregat Agrarian Park (Catalonia, NE Iberian Peninsula) across various higher education design courses. The proposal has a dual objective: firstly, to utilize territorial capital as a central theme for project-based learning in design studies, fostering the development of knowledge, skills, and values necessary for addressing contemporary societal challenges and advancing a more sustainable and equitable future. Secondly, design activities serve as an initial step in highlighting the distinctive characteristics of the territory through the materialization of products, services, or strategies. The research encompasses 26 projects from 37 students, each representing design scenarios aimed at communicating the potential of territorial resources to local communities. A detailed case study is provided, along with an evaluation of student perceptions regarding the suitability of this approach through surveys. The results demonstrate the potential of integrating the disciplines of ethnoecology and design to enhance both the territory and local ecological knowledge.
This paper evaluates a pilot Methodology Seminar Series, designed to support Contemporary Art Higher Degree Research (HDR) candidates in developing and articulating practice-led research methodologies. Conducted over six sessions from June to October 2025, the series provided a structured, dialogic environment for exploring practice-led research frameworks through key readings, reflective discussion, and practitioner insights. Using a mixed-methods evaluation- pre- and post-series surveys and participant observation- the study reports gains in candidates' confidence, conceptual clarity, and ability to articulate methodology within creative practice research. Although limited by a small cohort size and one author's involvement in supervising participants, findings highlight the effectiveness of discipline-specific, cohort-based training in bridging theoretical and practical knowledge, fostering research culture, and mitigating isolation often experienced in HDR pathways. Recommendations include extending session duration, incorporating writing workshops, and adopting blended delivery modes to enhance accessibility. This initiative offers a replicable framework for strengthening methodological development in creative arts doctoral education.
The present study aims at presenting and analyzing the impact of the embodied arts-based pedagogical experience "Future Teaching," implemented through creative bodily practices focusing on kinesthetic and radical imagination, within Teacher Education. The study involved a group of 7 teacher-students in an artistic workshop of 3 hours about future teaching. It developed through a hybrid methodological approach, combining qualitative and artistic methods, adopting creative movement. Results were presented through performative writing, art-educational tool, and content analysis of artistic results in relation to theoretical framework and the lenses of phenomenological analysis. The study concludes that embodied arts-based pedagogies connecting kinesthetic and radical imagination can creatively reframe Teacher Education of the future as a kind of epistemic activism.
This study explores the implications of adopting an ecological and playful approach to teaching in higher education. Using speculative design as a methodological framework, it analyses scenes from works of fiction to generate sensitising concepts that can inform contemporary pedagogical practice. Three recurring themes are identified in the narrative material through thematic analysis: challenging conventional norms in higher education, student frustration accompanied by signs of transformation, and learning that unfolds beyond the classroom. These themes are interpreted through an ecological and play-based theoretical lens. In line with speculative design, the sensitising concepts identified at the individual, intermediate, and structural levels function as heuristics rather than prescriptive recommendations. They suggest that learning emerges through engagement with affordance-rich environments, that uncertainty and emotional intensity within a safe setting should be embraced, and that playful approaches in higher education require structural support at the institutional level to take root and scale meaningfully.
Public-sector leaders navigate complex, paradoxical demands and are under the imperative to improve citizens' lives. This article explores how arts-based, performative, and affective education can scaffold leaders' imagining of utopian work futures (Levitas, 2013, 2017). Drawing on a teaching day in an 8-day leadership course, field notes, a conference paper, and a follow-up interview 1 year later, classroom events are analyzed as performative and affective thresholds and as enacted educational cuts that enable or hinder the imagination of alternative work futures. It builds on post-qualitative and posthuman methodologies and performative learning theory (Barad, 2007; Dahl et al., 2024; Ostern et al., 2019; Richardson and St Pierre, 2005). This article offers insight into how educational thresholds and design cuts enable or hinder utopian imagination in leadership education (Levitas, 2013, 2017), and how educators and researchers can explore the threshold between actual and potential utopian futures through affective attunement and resonance.
This study investigates the potential of contemporary drama courses in higher education and the importance of integrating them into curricula to raise ecological awareness among students. Through a comprehensive needs analysis and qualitative research methodology, the students were engaged in a 9-week Contemporary Drama Course. The course featured ecological plays-Chantal Bilodeau's Sila (2015), Mike Bartlett's Earthquakes in London (2010), and Duncan Macmillan and Chris Rapley's 2071 (2014)-to explore their impact on students' perceptions and proposed actions regarding climate change. The findings revealed that the course enhanced students' understanding of climate change, categorizing their insights into physical, social, economic, and psychological implications. The most emphasized category was physical implications, highlighting changing weather patterns, water availability, ecosystems and biodiversity, and health risks. Students also proposed actions at individual and social levels, including energy conservation, sustainable transportation, waste reduction, water conservation, eco-friendly consumption, policy advocacy, community engagement, educational initiatives, and infrastructure development.
It has been widely noted that creative practice research agitates in positive ways certain attitudes, understandings and/or practices towards 'knowledge' and 'research' within the university context. Not only this, or partly because of this, creative practice research complicates established scholarly protocols of assessment and evaluation. This has been a topic of concern and debate for the field for the past 30 years (since the emergence of the field as such). This research was conducted in the Australian context where the government research evaluation program has been under review since 2021. The Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts (DDCA) felt a duty to step into this context and facilitate a sector-wide series of activities that would address the main issues for the field. This was done with the view to writing a set of key recommendations pertinent to the sector which would enable a new and fit-for-purpose approach to creative practice research assessment and evaluation. This article details the seven key recommendations that resulted from these activities.
Generative Artificial Intelligence is reshaping design education by influencing how students develop ideas and make creative decisions. Unlike earlier digital shifts that mainly changed production methods, generative AI introduces cognitive changes by moving part of ideation and evaluation into human-AI collaboration. This study offers a rare perspective by comparing design educators' views on integrating AI in El Salvador and Indonesia, with Denmark as a comparison case. Using a qualitative interpretive approach, interviews with nine academics reveal key themes such as AI as a thinking partner, the persistence of manual-first pedagogy and the rising importance of prompt literacy. Findings show that in resource-limited programs, manual-first traditions provide an important foundation for making curatorial judgments about AI-generated ideas, while Denmark educators use a more structured integration aligned with industry demands. Design educators emphasise ethical awareness and critical judgment, framing AI as a catalyst for rethinking creative processes rather than replacing them.
When we started teaching English in the university context, perhaps none of us expected to be teaching it online: in hybrid, hyflex, or asynchronous modes. But by the 2020s, this is where we find ourselves. Coming from a reading-rich discipline where classroom reading, often interpreting collectively, remains the core practice, many English teachers may have felt quite unprepared for what has happened next. This paper presents an investigation of teaching English in the asynchronous mode. It offers some reflections on ours and students' experiences of teaching and learning English asynchronously. It provides evidence for how we might best respond to student needs for flexibility, while retaining our commitment to the core skills and practices of English Literary Studies.
Music students have a very high academic motivation. However, the different challenges they face during the academic process may alter it. The aim of this study is to analyse this construct through the Academic Motivation Scale (EME-E) in a sample of 249 students studying higher music studies in conservatories in Spain and Portugal on the basis of course, speciality, language knowledge and other higher education. The results indicate that students who obtain higher scores in intrinsic motivation study performing specialities; by year, students in the second year are the most motivated, as well as those whose dedication is exclusive to musical studies. It is concluded that the motivation of music students is indeed high, although there are variables related to training that condition it.
This paper explores the intersection of utopian imagination with higher education, addressing the opportunities and tensions between pragmatic, holistic and transversal utopias and their place within education theory and practice. In response to contemporary crises in higher education, we argue that we must reimagine educational futures by broadening the frameworks through which utopian educational institutions, systems and practices can be imagined and critiqued. Working with the multiplicity of educational utopias and emphasising the conflicting framings of pragmatic and holistic utopias, the paper uses the idea of transversal future-making and the 'placeness' of utopia to discuss how it might be mobilised in the design of educational futures. These theoretical approaches are illustrated and examined through two examples from future-making in education - Speculative Higher Education Futures and Playtopias.
This article examines how students in higher education can be inspired to develop creativity, initiative, and visionary thinking through playful, arts-based explorations of pedagogical entrepreneurship. In the study, students analyzed transcribed interviews with pedagogical entrepreneurs using exercises rooted in aesthetic and arts-based approaches designed to foster engagement, identification, and immersion. Drawing from a design-based research methodology, these exercises were refined through iterative cycles. Initial versions were developed by the research team and subsequently tested with approximately 200 students as part of their compulsory courses. The study suggests that arts-based approaches in analysis sessions can enhance emotional engagement and identification among students, helping them connect with pedagogical entrepreneurs as role models and envision themselves as future pedagogical entrepreneurs.
While the word 'creativity' is used liberally in contemporary discourse, some studies show that creativity has been in steady decline for decades, particularly within the education system. This paper addresses the reason for this decline, focussing specifically on the teaching and practice of creativity in the visual art studio setting at the tertiary level. A case is presented by way of a pedagogical structure - broadly informed by constructivist principles - and an assessment regime that can facilitate a different way of engaging artistic creativity in the classroom. The assessment regime is formalised through a schema designed to illustrate the 'play with determinants' delivered through the pedagogical design. This approach provides a space for 'play' between the assessment criteria, the pedagogical setting and course materials, institutional determinants and the developing creative interests of the student. Such an approach offers a new way to encourage and formally capture creativity in the tertiary visual art classroom.
This paper focuses on the aspirational stance of varieties such as environmental and urban humanities to better understand the opportunities and risks associated with the humanities reaching outward, especially in the context of so-called societal challenges, wicked problems, and missions. The analysis takes a genealogical and discourse-centered approach, considering individual epistemic traditions alongside shared patterns in relation to how these fields have been negotiated and developed, to bring forth tensions useful for considering the how of engaging humanistic knowledge to collaboratively respond to challenges and problems, not only through individual projects or even fields, but in terms of capacity building.
