ASSESSING SOCIOLOGISTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Assessing Sociologists in Higher Education
Edited by
ERIC HARRISON
ROBERT MEARS
First published 2001 by Ashgate Publishing
Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Eric Harrison and Robert Mears 2001
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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2001089779
ISBN 13: 978-1-138-72639-0 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-19142-3 (ebk)
Contents
Eric Harrison and Robert Mears
Robert Mears
Eric Harrison
Joan Chandler
Andrew Pilkington, Chris Winch and Ruchira Leisten
Barbara Harrison and Nod Miller
Victor Jupp, Lee Barron and Alan Heslington
Jennifer Piatt, Rebecca Willison, Tim Reed, Helen Graham, John Abraham and Ruth Woodfield
Eric Harrison and Robert Mears
John Abraham is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex.
Lee Barron is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle.
Joan Chandler is Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Plymouth.
Helen Graham is a Sociology graduate of the University of Sussex and is now working as manager of the Hanover Community Centre in Brighton.
Eric Harrison is a research student at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Barbara Harrison is Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of East London.
Alan Heslington works in the Quality Enhancement Unit at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle.
Victor Jupp is Head of the Sociology Division at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle.
Ruchira Leisten is Research Officer in the Centre for Research into Employment, Work and Training at University College, Northampton.
Robert Mears is Head of the Department of Sociology at Bath Spa University College.
Nod Miller is Professor in the Department of Innovation Studies and Assistant Vice Chancellor of the University of East London.
Andrew Pilkington is Head of the School of Social Studies at University College, Northampton.
Jennifer Piatt is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex.
Tim Reed is a research student at the University of Sussex.
Rebecca Willison is at the Institute of Employment Studies, Sussex.
Chris Winch is Professor of Education at University College, Northampton.
Ruth Woodfield is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex.
Our initial debt must be to the one hundred or so sociologists who took part in some of the events and activities organised under the auspices of the Assessment Strategies and Standards in Sociology project. Without the participation and lively debates in workshops and meetings, this collection would be much the poorer.
We would like to acknowledge our gratitude to the Higher Education Funding Council of England and Northern Ireland, whose Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning supported all the activities on which this book reports. However, we were only in a position to bid for the FDTL grant because of the success of sociologists at Bath Spa University College in the Teaching Quality Assessment exercise. Those colleagues at Bath Spa have been a source of support and inspiration before, during, and after the life of the project. Apart from their commitment to the discipline they also were unfailingly friendly and congenial.
Keeping the show on the road is of course the watchword of all time-limited projects and three project administrators ably assisted us in this during our two years. Helen Waterhouse got us off and running, treated us firmly but fairly, and made sure we had a programme of workshops to run. When Helen left for a Lectureship at the Open University, Nicky Wilson kindly saw us through the interim while also working for History 2000. Finally we were lucky enough to recruit Paulene Hudson, whose project management experience was essential in guiding us through the last frantic few months. She organised a great conference, and tolerated our shortcomings with good humour.
There are times when you wonder why you have ever started some things, and at those times it is important to have the support of staunch allies. For this we are indebted to the members of our steering committee and others working in the world of FDTL. However, special thanks are due to Sara Delamont for being such an effective Chairperson and advocate for our project. We would also like to thank Christine Eden, Chris Middleton and Clive Pearson for their friendship and camaraderie. From outside sociology we benefited hugely from getting to know Sally Brown and Phil Race. Graham Gibbs, from the Centre for Higher Education Practice at the Open University, provided timely and useful interventions which kept the project on track, and us on our toes.
Above all, we would like to offer our thanks to the contributors to this book. At many times in the text we allude to the low status of pedagogic research in sociology. Given the limited funds and the onerous reporting requirements, there was very little incentive for them to get involved, but they responded with great skill and enthusiasm. Above all we thank them for their patience while we prepared the book for the publishers.
Eric Harrison and Robert Mears
Oxford and Bath
ERIC HARRISON AND ROBERT MEARS
Introduction
Why write a book about assessment in sociology? During a period of rapid social change, surely there are more important things for sociologists to be doing than examining their own navels? After all, there is a world out there beyond our own practices and that is what we should be studying. This is a quite widespread view in the discipline. As we shall see in this book, sociologists tend not to regard the higher education system as worthy of analytical attention, least of all their own role and behaviour within that system. We do not share this view. This book takes its inspiration from Gouldner, Bourdieu and others who have been interested in constructing a sociology of sociology (Reynolds and Reynolds, 1970). For us that means not just the way sociologists do their research, but the way they pass on the discipline through their teaching (Goldsmid and Wilson, 1980), and the values they reward and reproduce through their assessment processes.
