Removing Dominance and Gatekeeping in HE

Andrew Kirton, School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science

Project overview

In teaching philosophy and ethics over the years, I’ve felt uneasy about a few things. One is
how much assessment seems geared around expecting that students grasp the norms of
their discipline/assessment by reading between the lines on things like marking criteria,
while we punish them (with low marks) for not grasping those standards immediately and
performing them back to us. Relatedly are worries that students rarely have scope to
genuinely play with the norms of the discipline – to test them, see how far they go and why
they are useful, e.g. by making mistakes (which is how I learn things). These are related to
my broader worry that as a marker I am at some level acting as a gatekeeper for disciplinary
standards that are not open to question or challenge, so the process by which the discipline
selects new recruits in fact feeds the power of a dominant gatekeeping demographic who
can set the rules how they like. I wanted to see how much teaching and assessment could
be rewired to leave the standards of the discipline ‘open’ and able to be challenged (if they
are the right standards they should survive challenge), but also easily understood, enacted,
and essentially ‘owned’ by anyone wishing to join in the discipline, rather than kept obscure
and existing as a matter of performing the right moves to a set of gatekeepers.

Key findings

As far as I can tell there are no specific findings I can point to; partly because of the types of
outputs this project has had, but also because it’s a philosophical project and so what you
get from philosophical projects are not really findings, as much as different ways of thinking
about our practices, which can then provide suggestions for how we should think or act in
different ways.

Implications for practice

As with findings above, it is difficult to pin down specific implications for practice. One of the
main themes to come out of the workshop that rounded off this project was the need for
more opportunities for empathy from teachers toward students; this might be in providing
feedback on their work in a way that tries to understand where they are coming from rather
than just blanket imposing a set of standards on them without explanation. This may also
require teachers reflect more on what the meaning or function of those disciplinary norms
is, so that they can fairly hold students to them in a way that is mutually agreeable. How this
has cashed out in my own practice over the time I’ve been doing the project is to create
extra plain-speaking guidance for students to break down what the norms are, in a way that
resonates with what they would care about (not just for the sake of getting good marks), so
that we’re on the same page and they see the value of those norms/standards too. I’ve also
developed techniques to ensure equality and valuing of students contributions in classroom
settings, but also so their contributions are meaningful and drive what happens in the
classroom so that they feel greater ownership over the discipline – not just at the mercy of
whatever I decide to hold them to.

If you want to find out more details about this fellowship or what the next steps were upon completion please read the LITE Snapshot or contact Andrew Kirton.