Lecturers' accounts of their curriculum practices at a university of technology

Abstract

This article focuses on lectures’ accounts of their curriculum practices at a University of Technology (UoT). Based on semi-structured interviews with lecturers, it examines their engagement with the curriculum and the practices they adopt to ensure student learning. I draw on Bourdieu’s (1990) concepts of field, reflexivity, illusio and doxa to highlight the lecturers’ ability to negotiate the university’s field and the reflexive stances they adopt to change and adapt their teaching practices. The article highlights the importance of cultivating reflexivity in academic staff development programmes and the need to strengthen lecturers’ reflexivity at UoTs. The article’s findings show the tension lecturers experience between teaching and research and the subordinate role of research in their curriculum practices. The article discusses the lecturers’ commitment to the curriculum’s values and shows that these factors were crucial in developing lecturer agency and reflexivity. The lecturers’ beliefs about their teaching and pedagogical strategies they utilised are discussed as a part of their curriculum practices. These were critical in establishing their agency and in producing innovative curriculum practices. My research shows the significance of utilising information communication technologies (ICTs) by the lecturers as a pedagogical strategy in the enactment of the curriculum.

Keywords

• Reflexivity
• Curriculum practices
• Lecturer agency
• Teaching
• Research