Forms of knowing and academic development practice

Abstract

Academic development has emerged as an important new site of practice in higher education internationally over the past 40 years, and has been influential in shaping the terms of debate about teaching and learning in higher education. Academic development has shifted its focus from the individual teacher to strategic interventions at institutional and national levels. This article argues that much of the writing by academic developers has a rhetorical function in legitimising academic development’s role. The article explores the sorts of accounts academic developers produce about themselves, and argues that academic development practice is a form of artistry and a ‘concrete science’. The article asks questions, therefore, about the contexts within which academic development has emerged, the stakes both for academic developers and the wider academic community, the sorts of knowledge being produced by academic developers about themselves and others, and the relationship between theory and practice and the possibilities of critique.