Dear Colleagues,

There are many exciting and worthy innovations that are currently being promoted within the literature on learning and teaching within higher education. However, I would venture that many of these innovations are doomed to failure. This is because the environments in which these innovations need to be activated are not receptive to them. In particular, there are conflicting discourses and tensions within the education system that result in pedagogic frailty (as described by Kinchin & Winstone, 2017). This is seen to occur within the university when there are tensions between key elements of the teaching environment, namely,

• The focus of the teaching discourse and whether it concentrates on the mechanisms and regulations that govern teaching as promoted by a culture of managerialism, or on the underpinning theories and professional values that direct our personal perspectives;
• The degree of authenticity within teaching and assessment practices, and the alignment of the pedagogy with the nature of the discipline;
• The nature of the research-teaching nexus and how this is made explicit in our teaching;
• The degree to which teachers perceive their proximity to and influence on the decision-making processes and management of teaching.

Where these elements of the environment are in tension, teachers succumb to academic stress and burnout. In such instances, any new innovations are unlikely to succeed as they will be seen as a threat to the perceived stability of the system. Helping these elements to complement and support each other as a coherent whole will produce an environment exhibiting pedagogic health, in which innovations have a greater chance of success. This Special Issue invites contributions that consider elements of the university teaching environment that may contribute to the wellbeing of teachers and the construction of a healthy learning environment.  

References:

Kinchin, I.M. & Winstone, N.E. (Eds.) (2017) Pedagogic frailty and resilience in the university. Rotterdam, Sense Publishers.

Kinchin, I.M. (2019) Care as a threshold concept for teaching in the salutogenic university. Teaching in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1704726

Prof. Ian Kinchin
Guest Editor

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• Pedagogic frailty
• Teacher resilience
• Salutogenesis in education
• Neoliberal values
• Care in the curriculum.