McEwen, Celina, Muelle, Beatte, Trede, Franziska, Archer, Ben, and Zappia, Michaela (2024) Advancing inclusive practices in higher education: possibilities and limitations of a social justice professional development course. Studies in Continuing Education. (In Press)

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Abstract

Research on widening the participation of historically underrepresented university students tends to focus on student preparation and the structural adjustments needed to attract and retain them. Few studies have examined how to prepare university staff for the diversity of students that comes with such widening participation programmes. This paper contributes to this gap by discussing the impact that a professional development course on practising inclusion in higher education had on academic and professional staff participants’ understanding of equitable and inclusive practices. Using interview data, we found that participants developed a more nuanced and sensitive practice and greater confidence to act for change as they acquired new skills and knowledge associated with social inclusion practices, reflected on their professional identity changes, and gained critical insights into their roles. These findings support the need for this type of professional development to prepare all higher education staff to genuinely support university students from underrepresented groups. They also highlight the need for these professional development offerings to foster greater reflexivity about taken-for-granted assumptions, a deeper understanding of structural power and inequity in higher education, and higher education staff members’ capacity to enact change within these structures.

Item ID:	83842
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1470-126X
Keywords:	Social justice education, Professional development, Higher education, Widening participation, Inclusive practices
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Date Deposited:	21 Oct 2024 22:55
FoR Codes:	39 EDUCATION > 3903 Education systems > 390303 Higher education @ 100%
SEO Codes:	16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1601 Learner and learning > 160102 Higher education @ 50% 16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1603 Teaching and curriculum > 160301 Assessment, development and evaluation of curriculum @ 50%
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