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ISSN NO: 1756-848X
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| | | This article examines an example of how academic research may inform how we teach. In this case study, we look at the use of auto/biography as a method in the sociological study of crime. Goodey‟s (2000) use of a „biographical continuum‟ to identify „epiphanal moments‟ in the life course was adopted by one of the authors of this paper for his PhD research on the experiences of war veterans. This was later adapted for use with first-year criminology students as part of their preparation for an essay assignment on identity formation which required them to utilise their own auto/biographical accounts. Despite the well-documented tension between research and teaching in universities, it is argued that our teaching can be enhanced by the appropriate use of research methods and findings.
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Please download the PDF version to read the full article. Despite Boyers claim in 1990 that "the time has come to move beyond the tired old 'teaching versus research' debate" (cited in Bostock, 2003), the argument shows little sign of dying. Serow (2000) suggests that universities are still characterised by a natural antagonism between research and teaching (p 455), a view shared more recently by Ashwin (2006: 101), who argues that academic staff are reluctant to see teaching as the defining characteristic of their own worth, and Furedi (2007) who complains that academics are rewarded for their research but not for their scholarship. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to integrate teaching and research, and in a recent review for the Higher Education Academy, it is argued that the teaching-research nexus is still central to university life (Jenkins, Healy and Zetter, 2007). They note that this does not occur automatically and has to be constructed and conclude that the best way to develop effective practice is to share case studies of discipline-based practice (Jenkins, Healy and Zetter, 2007: 2). Lueddeke (2008) is less optimistic, claiming that research-led teaching, which has the potential to enliven undergraduate study, is seldom used. In this paper we examine the ways in which the well-established use of auto/biography in the teaching of sociology was augmented by the ethnographic research methodology (personal testimony) employed by one of the authors in his PhD research. This does not contribute much to the wider debate but it does indicate that connections can be made between the worlds of research and teaching and demonstrates how PhD research contributed to teaching on a first-year sociology course.
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