Experimental authority in the lecture theatre

Brigstocke, Julian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2455-0504 2020. Experimental authority in the lecture theatre. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 44 (3) , pp. 370-386. 10.1080/03098265.2019.1698527

PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Download (439kB)

Abstract

Authority is one of the most problematic and ambiguous concepts in social and educational theory. Authority is a relation that is based on disparities of knowledge, expertise or experience. Drawing on teaching observations and interviews with undergraduate students and lecturers about their experiences of large-group teaching, I argue that in contrast to lecturers’ focus on professional authority and expertise, many students respond most strongly to experiential forms of authority in lectures. In other words, there is a disparity between students’ and educators’ conceptions of pedagogic authority. Through a discussion of a teaching intervention aiming to playfully experiment with authority relations in the lecture theatre, the paper contributes to a conceptualization of an emancipatory and experimental politics of educational authority, one where students are challenged, not only to think independently, but to see their own existence – the grounds for their actions – as an important intellectual problem to engage with. This requires moving beyond the dominant Weberian ideal types of educational authority (traditional, rational-legal, charismatic, and charismatic-intellectual) towards a fuller understanding of experiential forms of authority.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	0309-8265
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 December 2019
Date of Acceptance:	25 November 2019
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2024 09:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/127586

Citation Data

Cited 2 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item