Problems of Insularity and Specialisation within British Educational Culture: the case of Development Studies |
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| Abstract: | Abstract This paper reports some experiences of teaching a university third year degree level option paper on Equal Opportunities to students on an Applied Social Studies degree programme. It examines the social context in which courses on equal opportunities have developed, issues of course design and assessment, teaching materials, and the students and their response to the course. Among the observations drawn from the first year of teaching are the importance (and difficulty) of conveying to students the variety of concepts of equal opportunities, and the need to recognise an age gap in both knowledge and also often attitudes of staff and students, which meant that younger students tended to take equal opportunities for granted, as being simply the law, while lecturers started from the perspective that equal opportunities policies had come about as a result of struggles for equality by social movements such as the Civil Rights movement in the USA, the feminist movement and the disability rights movement. Experience of teaching the course also indicated, as anticipated, the importance of maintaining academic standards of objectivity in teaching and assessment of controversial social issues. There were also important presentational issues which emerged in teaching literature critical of the operation of equal opportunities policies in practice, since this literature can be misunderstood by students to imply that equal opportunities policies are ineffective and therefore not worth maintaining and defending. |
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