Quality in Undergraduate Education: How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Product Description Globally, the appetite for higher education is great, but what do students and societies gain? Quality in Undergraduate Educationforegrounds the importance of knowledge acquisition at university. Many argue that university education is no longer a public good due to the costs incurred by students who are then motivated by the promise of lucrative employment rather than by studying a discipline for its own sake. McLean, Abbas and Ashwin, however, reveal a more complex picture and offer a way of thinking about good quality university education for all. Drawing on a study which focused on four sociology-related social science UK university departments of different reputation, the book shows that students value sociological knowledge because it gives them a framework to think about and act on understanding how individuals and society interact. Further, the authors discuss how what was learned from the study about how policy, curriculum and pedagogy might preserve and strengthen the personal and social gains of social science undergraduate education. Review A lively and engaging book about the importance of sociology as a subject in undergraduate students' lives and how it might empower such students' futures. It neatly uses Bernsteinian perspectives to enrich the argument about continuing inequalities and qualities in higher education and society.Miriam E. David, Professor, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UKAn important and grounded critique of the simplistic notion that quality is related primarily to university status. The study offers encouraging findings on how, across four very different university contexts, young people experienced higher education as profoundly transformative. Notably, the authors' analysis is able to identify the kinds of curricular and pedagogical arrangements that are making the greatest impact in terms of ameliorating social inequities in students' background.Jennifer Case, Head and Professor in the Department of Engineering Education, Virginia Tech, USA About the Author Monica McLean is Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her publications includes Pedagogy and the University and Professional Education, Capabilities and the Public Good.Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education at Lancaster University, UK.