EDITORIAL COMMENT | 7
6 | JADE
PAUL TROWLER
EDITORIAL COMMENT
The key question for me is: is it realistic to expect that systemic
change at the institutional or even national level can be brought
about by interventions aimed at individuals? Without an
understanding of the nature of social practices I think it is unrealistic
to have such an expectation, and my talk offered some examples
from another context, South Africa, to illustrate this.
At the same time I wanted to challenge accounts at the other
end of the scale, ones based on structuralist ideas in which
individuals simply act out social conventions. I used the example
of the early academic tribes and territories research to illustrate
such an approach. In contrast, an understanding of social reality,
social change and enhancement sees both agency and structure in
operation. Researching contexts of change from this perspective
raises new challenges and new opportunities, and I briefly explored
these.
The talk was based on research which set out most fully in the
following five publications:
•
Trowler, P. (2008) Cultures and Change in Higher Education:
Theories and Practices. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
•
Trowler, P., Saunders, M. and Bamber, R. (Eds) (2012) Tribes and
Territories in Higher Education: Practices in the 21st Century.
London: Routledge.
•
Trowler, P. (2013) Depicting and Researching Disciplines:
Strong and moderate essentialist approaches. Studies in
Higher Education, 39, 10, 1720-1732.