In a conversation with Gunter Grass towards the end of his life Pierre Bourdieu drew a distinction between 'the intellectual' and 'the public writer'. He himself wrote in both domains but saw one of his last collaborative works, The Weight of the World, as an example of public writing. The book explores the experiences of the oppressed, marginalised and forgotten through a series of interviews. By such public writing the social scientist is able to help others tell their stories better. It is not a rewriting of specific experiences into a particular literary form, for any such move risks losing authenticity and significance. Yet, the accounts in the book are literary as Gunter Grass recognised. Bourdieu never lost his belief that a central task for social science is to write publicly and with commitment. Such commitment is no simple form of detached writing, it requires practical and political engagement. In what was probably his last published paper he wrote: ‘For example, when a government takes measures that are racist, I think that it is important that, like Zola, the intellectuals, with the means at their disposal, should intervene so as to remind us of the values of universality which constitute their profession’ (2002: 4-5).It is fitting that these ideas from Bourdieu introduce and frame the first issue of Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences (ELiSS). Bourdieu’s work is interdisciplinary in ways which support the endeavours of the C-SAP Subject Centre. He wrote not only to people interested in Anthropology, Politics and Sociology but to everyone who wanted to challenge and comment on social arrangements. There is ongoing debate over both the value and the likely application of some of the concepts he developed. Some will not stand the test of time while others are likely to remain contested. What cannot be gainsaid is his extensive contribution to public writing. In this 2002 paper on the role of intellectuals Bourdieu uses a two axis model of disciplinary expertise and commitment to public engagement. Engagement without disciplinary expertise can lead to ‘rent a quote’ commentary while disciplinary involvement without a desire to commit to the public sphere is of little value.The C-SAP disciplines have traditions of extensive disciplinary research developed through engagement with wider publics. C-SAP recognised this by inviting Michael Burawoy to give a keynote at the November 2007 conference on his work on the discipline of Sociology. We are pleased to carry the text of this keynote in our opening issue. Burawoy showed in response to questions at the time that his model was applicable to other social sciences. Thus, much of what he claims for Sociology can apply to Anthropology and Politics and to other disciplines. Social science as public activity, as resource for learning, belongs to many debates over the university in contemporary society. The contradictions, search for allies, frameworks for learning are part of the HE landscape and part of the work of academics in social science departments.ELiSS takes an eclectic approach which is commented upon below. The composition of our editorial board reflects not simply the C-SAP disciplines but a willingness to pursue the interdisciplinary, to engage directly with all the national and institutional support available for academics, to take notions of student support and disability seriously. These debates play out at different levels which will be reflected in ELiSS over time. In our first issue we present work from an experienced placement organiser, two in-house projects, a university-wide perspective from a Vice-Chancellor and senior staff, two academic papers by social scientists. Some of our articles were commissioned while others were submitted through the usual refereeing process. In our second issue we will apply this approach to video and audio submissions. Together these provide an immediate level of supporting disciplinary engagement with public activism. Thus we combine Burawoy’s discipline-based discussion of academic study with active inquiry alongside Norton’s practice paper on Politics students undertaking placements in Parliament. The latter is reflective on ways in which students gain political understanding and practice. In Barnett’s terms the paper shows how creative approaches require reframing by students, MPs, and organisers.In this issue we also address a specific aspect of activism. Paul Ransome builds on a debate from within postmodernism on two discourses: ‘the hero of liberty’ and ‘the hero of knowledge’. His focus is on the very purpose of the university and the support needed for academics as intellectuals. In a university world which Foucault, no friend of postmodernism, captured pithily as ‘an institutional apparatus through which society ensures its uneventful reproduction, at least cost to itself’ (1977: 224) we need to explore ways of bringing together diverse experiences for reflection, analysis and debate.But, importantly, we need to offer reflective reports and exemplars that others can take and adapt according to circumstances. These need to be set within a context of critique. ELiSS deliberately seeks project reports and papers on professional practice outside the social sciences where the exemplars can be of interest to social scientists and all involved in educational development. Moira Bent was invited to present her work as an information specialist on student groups acquiring information skills in English and Chemistry. Bent is a national teaching fellow (2005) and we are pleased to present papers and reports from national teaching fellows who raise issues for ELiSS. Bent raises questions on the information skills and their acquisition by students on social science courses. This is very much writing for public audiences with students not necessarily aware as to what is involved in achieving skills for such work. Alongside this Norma Sharrett outlines how the Social Sciences department at the Open University has promoted dialogue and sought relevance. Sharrett refers to Burawoy’s work in this. Part of her argument is for the enhanced role of e-learning and the use of new technologies. She brings out how such work has developed at an institution which is the largest provider of distance learning in the UK. Her paper enables use to reconsider how best to promote dialogue and what forms dialogue might take in the future while recognising some of the difficulties involved in thisFor many readers and viewers of ELiSS questions of the promotion of dialogue take place with students physically present on campus and in seminars and lecture rooms. We need a perspective on the institution as provider of such. There are many papers available on how e-learning and technology is changing institutional experience. But much of this work comes from specialist developers, learning technologists, and sometimes through institutional overviews. Clearly a network such as JISC is important here. But what we see less often is an institutional view on student learning from a Vice-Chancellor and Director of Learning and Information Services. Peter Noyes and Tony Rucinski provide this by showing how an institution can not just find out from students what they do and why (the straightforward part) but can then act on this and take institutional leadership of teaching and learning forward. It is important for ELiSS to take forward the experiences and work of senior staff who provide a close grained account of life within their institutions. We will follow this approach in succeeding issues.It is public writing of all sorts that ELiSS seeks. Such writing is not ‘practical’ in the narrow technicist sense. In his academic paper ‘Pointing to Race’ Paul Warmington raises questions as to how race is conceptualised in teaching in classrooms. He draws on direct classroom experience (both his own and that of others) to raise questions and issues. Warmington’s paper is also set within a C-SAP context. The Centre has established a vibrant national community exploring race through conferences, workshops, monographs. This is a focus of interest which ELiSS can contribute towards. Warmington’s paper provides one starting point and we are pleased to publish this in our first issue. We plan to upload and make available a plenary session from the February conference ‘Rac(e) ing Forward’ in our second issue and to take forward many of the dynamics of debate and practice in the field of race in future issues.The categories outlined by Burawoy do not just characterise a social science which holds public commitment as part of its raison d’etre. There is an important connection to higher education discussions on links between research and teaching. Barnett (2000) sees the university as a central force for handling uncertainty. As he puts it the university is a ‘site of organised inquiry for generating and managing uncertainty’ (2000: 143). Generating uncertainty is part of the work of research while enabling individuals to live with uncertainty forms part of the teaching task. Barnett distinguishes between a paradigm-endorsing function within academia and a creative approach. Both have a projection beyond academia. The within-house paradigm endorsement can be expressed through commentary. On the other hand the creative use of research and teaching can lead to a reframing of issues and experience. ELiSS will address all approaches. Our work enables colleagues to write within a paradigm to explore teaching and learning in HE. We also seek to encourage submissions that take a creative approach and enable readers, site visitors to
consider how reframing can be achieved. In effect the contributions to this first issue provide commentary and also begin to yield ideas on how reframing might be achieved at institutional, course levels as well as within the experience of individual learners in higher education.Many new journals come, shine brightly and then either transmute into something else or wither. Why should ELiSS see a different future and what will make it important for a diverse social science community in the future? ELiSS has to establish itself, find out what it can do well but also see where it can provide a lead. ELiSS is supported directly by C-SAP and so is one outlet both the Centre and the Higher Education Academy has for promoting successful and interesting work by social scientists. The journal of course has its independence and can provide analysis and critique of policy and practice. It is a web 2.0 journal and we will over our first eighteen months show how flexible such a medium can be. We have used a standard submission format in our first issue which reflects the standard written paper. But increasingly we will use video and audio formats and thereby seek to put dialogue into practice. Just as important the use of web 2.0 provides for discussion and feedback online. The standard journal procedure of paper and then reply and further right of reply is recognised of course. We hope, however, to encourage directly comment and feedback on published submissions. Such dialogue can lead to further submissions and also promote active networking amongst interested participants. This does require those who submit work to ELiSS to be prepared to take part in organised, moderated discussion and dialogue as it arises.Our focus of course is on teaching and learning within teaching-research links and within scholarly environments. The editorial board wishes to encourage work that is new and to support a range of work. This includes student writing and presentation.
The board takes a supportive approach to submissions and all papers sent out for review are read anonymously by two referees. Inevitably we have not accepted all submissions but we will continue to work with colleagues to publish innovative material and ideas. Our focus on academic papers and reports and practice papers enables us to cover a wide spectrum. Editorial work over time will in part involve cross referencing submissions and drawing threads together. We do not have a fixed standpoint from which we start. Our use of commissioned pieces and requested submissions in our early issues allows us to put interesting material forward. But it also allows social scientists a measure of time to see what ELiSS offers and then make their own submissions. We welcome work on all aspects of teaching and learning in social science and we go further. We encourage work from wider sources that will illuminate experiences and activities within our disciplines. In order to take critical debate forward we welcome a commissioned paper in our next issue from Joyce Canaan and Sarah Amsler on critical pedagogy. ELiSS will host this paper but we will also use GoogleDocs to broaden interest. The paper will be commented up by two educational developers (Janet Strivens and Ranald Macdonald) to enable us to use some more of the opportunities of a web 2.0 environment. We also bring further submissions that use video technology as well as traditional papers.We hope our readers will feel minded to seek us out to explore how to write for publication by ELiSS. We particularly seek papers and submissions that involve students, present collaborative work as well as individual academic papers. Much work in the social sciences over the last decade has sought o explore their individuality as well as cross-discipline linkages. This is important for learning and teaching. We welcome all submissions that explore such interdisciplinary inquiry. This might take the form of showing how two disciplines can be drawn upon in a single inquiry, or debate how disciplines have used particular concepts. We are interested in what has been termed ‘hybridization’. Again this is a debated concept but it can capture the linkages Barnett and others have seen between research and teaching. It has been important for cultural studies exponents, so we can render it as an exploration of how aspects of teaching and learning become ‘sociocultural processes in which discrete structures or practices, previously existing in separate form, are combined to generate new structures, objects, and practices’ (Garcia Canclini, 2005: xxv). Our initial juxtaposition of practice, project and academic papers is simply an initial formulation of this. Within the papers themselves lie deeper connections and contrasts. We explicitly seek work that builds bridges drawing on different areas of experience and of course we welcome submissions that critique such approaches.ELiSS reflects C-SAP’s work with all parts of the UK. We are pleased that following the C-SAP annual conference in Cardiff in November 2007 we have been able to publish papers from colleagues in two Welsh universities. In our second issue we will publish a paper on PDP from a Scottish perspective and we also explore different aspects of e-portfolio work through the work of national teaching fellow Julie Hughes and two of her colleagues working on the national coalition for e-portfolio research which is a US-based consortium with a limited number of UK members. We hope to publish reports or presentations from a forthcoming C-SAP workshop on teaching religion. The Scottish viewpoint will be relevant to our second issue as its publication will come shortly before a two day C-SAP conference in Scotland.Over the next few months the editorial board will review how things have progressed as we reach a point where by and large we can provide an online journal with seven to eight papers or equivalent per issue. We need to hear from readers and others what topics and fields they feel should be covered given the approach we take. Of course we want colleagues to commit to write for the journal to enable us to expand as appropriate. Perhaps, just as important we welcome writing from undergraduate and postgraduate projects and students.We welcome response to the editorial. From an editor’s perspective the contributions to the first issue raise the following topics for consideration in future issues: (i) how race formulates classroom practice and institutional approach; (ii) exemplars through project and practice paper reports of online work through vle or through open source provision such as ‘Moodle’; (iii) consideration of institutional strategies on learning and teaching in response to changing external environments, student needs and social science contributions to such. Paul Warmington raises questions which are found in all our classrooms and in all our institutional approaches. As with other topics in this first issue there are external policy factors but Warmington challenges us to go inside the classroom and to be honest when we are there. ELiSS will benefit from further work on this so we will welcome further contributions in addition to those we have accepted for the next issue.Sherratt provides a case study from within an open source framework but one where there is institutional support for such. Noyes and Rucinski take this further when they show how an institutional strategy can allow local determination of need and pedagogy. However, very many institutions leave it to single vle provision with ‘add ons’ or localised experiments. Given potential changes in funding of teaching and learning in HEFCE institutions with less ring fencing of teaching and learning funds in favour of the block grant, the issues of vle usage become ever more important. ELiSS would like to hear more about institution-wide innovation and social science innovations in all its variety. The issues Bent raises become part of this focus.Funding support for learning is not of course limited to online provision. As Norton notes the institution has similar issues to bear in mind in any placement scheme. His sustained work on placement provision in Parliament is one exemplar of how work builds up over time. We welcome further practice papers on student placements. This is a field to which all the C-SAP social sciences make innovative contributions so ELiSS provides a forum for taking this work forward. We hope you enjoy this first issue of ELiSS and hope you will become regular readers of the journal.ReferencesBarnett, R. (2000) Realising the University in an age of supercomplexity, Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2002) 'The role of intellectuals today'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, No. 99, pp. 1-6. Bourdieu, P. et al (1999) The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Foucault, M. (1977) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, (translated by Donald Bouchard and Sherry Simon), Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Garcia Canclini, N. (2005) ‘Hybrid Cultures in Globalized Times’, in N. Garcia Canclini (1995) Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, pp. xxiii-xlvi Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.AcknowledgementI am grateful to my colleague Ranald Macdonald for sight of a paper of his which explores Barnett’s ideas on research and teaching.