CRAL Seminar - what postgraduate students say about developing their own voice

Dr Richard Pemberton, School of Education, University of Nottingham, is giving the CRAL seminar in the School of English Studies. 

Criticality in Western(ised) higher education: what postgraduate students say about developing their own voice

"There has been much said, particularly with the increasing internationalisation of university education in wealthy Anglophone countries from the 1990s onwards, about the cultural clash between what have been perceived to be Western traditions of critical thinking and individual voice, and non-Western traditions of rote learning and respect for authority. Very broadly speaking, the solutions proposed, whatever the view taken of cultural differences, have been ‘change the student’ or ‘change the system’.

In this talk I will outline the positions that have been taken on both sides of the academic culture debate and argue for a much more open discussion of what lecturers and postgraduate students expect of academic study, and why universities in Westernised contexts tend to set such store by critical reading and writing. Data from an ongoing study of student experiences of ‘learning criticality’, along with data from other institutions, suggest that where students progress beyond ‘playing the criticality game’ to finding their own academic voice and becoming a critical reader/writer, they see great benefit in the journey they have taken. The process is often very stressful, though, and I will suggest ways in which universities can be more supportive, and more effective in helping students to find their own way of participating in the academic world."