Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is about practitioners studying and researching their practices in higher education settings. Improving practices therefore involves becoming aware of and interrogating the values that enter into and inform those practices; a study of practices becomes a study of the relationships between the practices in question and their values base. A main permeating theme emerges that education is informed by educational values, and so should not be seen simply in terms of a narrow conception of instrumental instruction, but more as a form of committed intentional action. This is where higher education researchers come under intense pressure to conform to normative understandings and practices. The New Literacies movements emphasise that simply knowing how to produce texts is not enough; we also need to know what is happening in wider contexts that affect the everyday lives of people.