Academic Activism in Higher Education (eBook)

This book argues for renewed understandings of academic activism, understandings that conceive of the ideas, arguments and scholarship of the academe as embedded within the practices of what the academy does. It examines why and how a renewed notion of academic activism informs a philosophy of higher education specifically in relation to teaching and learning. The book focuses on the theories and practices of teaching and learning, in particular how such pedagogical actions are guided by social, political and cultural influences outside of the university as a higher education institution. The authors advocate for a living philosophy of higher education that is commensurate with real actions and imaginary fictions of what constitutes higher education and what remains in becoming for the discourse. With a focus on South African social justice education, the book imagines pathways for academic activism to manifest in revolutionised pedagogical actions or actions that bring into contestation what already exists with the possibility for the cultivation of renewal. 

Nuraan Davids is a Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, Stellenbosch University. Her research interests include democratic citizenship education; Islamic philosophy of education; and philosophy in higher in education.  She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Education in Muslim Societies; an Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Higher Education and an Editorial Board Member of Ethics and Education.  She is a CASBS fellow at Stanford University (2020 - 2021).

Yusef Waghid holds doctorates in education, policy, and philosophy from the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa respectively and is among Africa's leading philosophers of education today. As a distinguished professor at Stellenbosch University he has been a prolific author with 380 publications to date of which forty-three are academic books and seventy-three invited contributions to books. His commitment to the advancement of doctoral education including having promoted thirty-one candidates to completion and examined seventy-eight doctorates culminated in having been honoured by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa in 2015 as a worthy recipient of the prestigious Education Research in Africa Award: Outstanding Mentor of Education Researchers. In recognition of his scholarly works and having published in many of the leading journals in his field, the National Research Foundation in South Africa rated him as an internationally acclaimed scholar who provides exemplary leadership in advancing philosophy of higher education in Africa. He was honoured with the editorships of two prominent academic journals, namely Citizenship, Teaching and Learning (since 2018), and South African Journal of Higher Education (since 2005) through which he meritoriously supports scholars to publish their seminal works. From 2020 to 2021, he collaborated with renowned international scholars on a leading UNESCO pioneered research project, Education for Flourishing and Flourishing in Education initiated by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. His advancement of higher education in Africa is also acknowledged by the Council of Higher Education in South Africa of which he has been a board member since 2019.

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This book argues for renewed understandings of academic activism, understandings that conceive of the ideas, arguments and scholarship of the academe as embedded within the practices of what the academy does. It examines why and how a renewed notion of academic activism informs a philosophy of higher education specifically in relation to teaching and learning. The book focuses on the theories and practices of teaching and learning, in particular how such pedagogical actions are guided by social, political and cultural influences outside of the university as a higher education institution. The authors advocate for a living philosophy of higher education that is commensurate with real actions and imaginary fictions of what constitutes higher education and what remains in becoming for the discourse. With a focus on South African social justice education, the book imagines pathways for academic activism to manifest in revolutionised pedagogical actions or actions that bring into contestation what already exists with the possibility for the cultivation of renewal.