Teaching and Learning Politics: A Survey of Practices and Change in UK Universities
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00191 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Author | Janet Henney,Neil Stammers,Helga Dittmar |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Teaching and Learning Politics: a Survey of
Practices and Change in UK Universities
NEIL STAMMERS,HELGA DITTMAR AND JANET HENNEY*
University of Sussex
The paper presents the results of a survey of practices and change in respect of
teaching and learning politics in UK universities for the period 1991/92±1994/95. It
begins by contextualizing the survey; summarizing changes that occurred in higher
education in the UK in the early 1990s and reviewing key strands in contemporary
British literature on teaching and learning in higher education. Following a methods
section, the ®ndings of the survey are then presented. These suggest that, in 1994/95,
UK politics departments were struggling to cope with increasedstudent numbers and
resource constraints whilst retaining a broadly traditionalist approach to teaching
and learning. Implications of these ®ndings are then considered in a short concluding
discussion.
This paper presents the results of a survey of reported practices in the teaching
and learning of politics in UK universities.1The need for such a survey has to be
understood in the context of the dramatic upheavals which have taken place in
the UK's higher education sector in recent years ± upheavals which, in one form
or another, look set to continue into the foreseeable future and which pose
enormous challenges to traditional forms of teaching and learning.
The Context of the Study
The General Context
The rapid expansion of student numbers in the early 1990s, coupled with static
or declining resources, presented an obvious and urgent challenge to institu-
tions, departments and individual tutors. Claimed potential for `eciency
gains' notwithstanding, it is widely believed that student/sta ratios rose sub-
stantially with consequent increases in class size and pressure on faculty time.
Furthermore, libraries reported increasing diculties in providing resources
and materials students needed for their studies; physical space (in terms of
#Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Political Studies (1999), XLVII, 114±126
* The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and
suggestions in respect of an earlier draft of this paper.
1The survey was undertaken by the politics Teaching and Learning Network Project at the
University of Sussex which received funding for an initial period of one year from the Training,
Enterprise and Education Directorate of the Employment Department. Its main objective was to
facilitate the establishment and maintenance of a discipline-wide network to consider issues and
innovations in the teaching of politics. This network worked closely with the Political Studies
Association teaching and learning specialist group formally launched at the Association's 1995
Annual Conference. The network project received one year's further fundingfor 1995/96 from the
Department for Education and Employment.
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