Contextualising contexts – Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and cultural difference

Abstract

SOTL has an originary moment and a well-rehearsed history. It has been constructed as an approach to understanding teaching and learning with a focus on reflective practice to improve practice and student learning, but it excludes sociocultural influences. This paper argues that by concentrating on the ‘classroom’, and cognitive measures of success, SOTL conforms to a Western view of what is valuable in education. This instrumentalist perspective allows the process of SOTL to seem universally applicable. It is argued that this instrumentalist approach is a black-box perspective, analogous to the black box of the mind seen in behaviourism. Using Chakrabarty’s notion of “provincializing Europe”, some structural elements of SOTL history are analysed with an eye to provincialising SOTL. Following this, a personal teaching experience across two cultures is described to demonstrate the inability of SOTL to comprehend the behaviour of students across different cultures without providing more contextual information. Differences between East Asian and Western views of cognition are presented to suggest that cultural differences in conceptions of learning have a significant effect on what happens in the classroom. In conclusion, if SOTL is to be meaningful internationally, it needs both to embrace and be explicit about sociocultural influences and, crucially, it needs to be decentred from Western hegemonic practice.
 How to cite this article:
 LOOKER, Peter. Contextualising contexts – Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and cultural difference. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, v. 2, n. 1, p. 112-128, Apr. 2018. Available at: http://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=32
 
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Situating Some Aspects of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in South African Higher Education Within Southern Theories

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“…Such a process, we contend, should be defined by a constant and a continuous interrogation of knowledge and the tools for knowledge understanding and analysis, such as frameworks and methodologies. This is particularly important because there is often a colonial gaze embedded in most frameworks and methodologies in global knowledge production, which to a large degree, is sustained by a black box perspective (Looker, 2018), where local perspectives and experiences are downplayed and sometimes excluded (Banda & Banda, 2017). In this paper, we assert that to address this situation, universities need to be open by encouraging a wide range of voices where "deliberation, agreement and dissonance" (Waghid, 2021, p. 3) become acceptable practices in general, and more so, in knowledge production.…”

“…Numerous debates by scholars from both the Global North and the Global South have been published on the notion of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Consequently, there have been strong views advocating acknowledging the importance of context and not to understand SoTL in decontextualized ways (Looker, 2018). In this paper, we argue that to better understand SoTL within the Global South university environment, especially in the African context, it is important to revisit the notion of an African university, which is different from a Education, 2022, 17(2), pp.…”

Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

“…Acknowledging the influence of our culture on how we understand learning and teaching, and then situating ourselves within the global conversations is critical for truly international SoTL conversations. (See also Looker 2018. ) Peter Looker is chief learning officer at EON Reality.…”

Socially just pedagogies: perspectives from the ‘global south’

“…SOTL practitioners also need to engage in critical reflection, introspection and theorisation which are key to socially just and transformative teaching and learning (see Leibowitz, Naidoo & Mayet 2017). In relation to this journal and its emphasis on the 'global south', it is also crucial to acknowledge the importance of context and be mindful of Peter Looker's (2018) critique of SOTL as tending to ignore contextual influences on student learning. He highlights the importance of teaching as a social act and argues, therefore, that SOTL cannot be understood in decontextualised ways.…”