[SSC] SSC Digest - Quality and Peer Review working group

Wed Jan 4 17:55:32 UTC 2012

Sorry I can't attend the meeting tomorrow but here are a few comments on
your paper for possible discussion.

You say: 'Our affirmative practice begins from a social and political
ontology of plurality and diversity'. This seems to suggest that you
regard plurality and diversity as socially and politically desirable. I
would question this, or at least I would want to argue that the
important thing is to understand the limits of plurality and diversity
and not to regard them as having inherent value (and if they do not have
inherent value, why start your practice from them?). A starting point
from plurality and diversity lacks any clear ethical framework and leads
to the acceptance of all kinds of unethical views and practices (female
genital mutilation was an actual example not so many years ago -
defended on the grounds of cultural diversity). This ethical vacuum
reflects the Schumpeterian view of (plural and diverse) capitalism as
the institutional aggregation of individuals' (moral) choices.

Quality is, to quote Tina Turner, 'simply the best'. It has nothing to
do with hierarchy. But then it is not clear what you mean by hierarchy.
Obviously, if something is the best then, unless it is the only one of
its kind, something else of the same kind might be second best. But how
could it be otherwise? If you don't want to accept that everything has
the same quality (and, if you did, what would that quality be?), then
you must agree that some things have more value than others. Personally,
I would not call this hierarchy.

You ask why we desire to make judgments about quality. I answer: because
it is the primary purpose of education precisely to develop this faculty
of judgment. What does a learner learn? To describe things, yes, to
analyse, yes, but above all to evaluate, which requires making
judgements about the value of what they learn. The role of a teacher is
to help them do all this. In academia, as in life generally, we are all,
to different degrees (no hierarchy implied!), learners and teachers.

Best

Pete

-----Original Message-----
From: ssc-bounces at lists.aktivix.org
[mailto:ssc-bounces at lists.aktivix.org] On Behalf Of Amsler, Sarah
Sent: 02 January 2012 01:12
To: ssc at lists.aktivix.org
Subject: [SSC] SSC Digest - Quality and Peer Review working group

Dear all,

We have been thinking about how to develop the workers' enquiry group to
explore issues around 'quality and peer review', and would like to start
working on this collectively at our upcoming meeting. We have pulled out
what we feel to be some important themes and concepts from our initial
paper (attached), and that have been emerging in some of the SSC
discussions, and suggest that we dedicate part of the meeting to
discussing these and mapping out some directions for deeper enquiry. Our
proposed themes for discussion are quality (including judgement and
value), non-hierarchical principles and non-hierarchical practices. If
you have any other suggestions or points that you feel it is important
to discuss, please do bring them along. We're looking forward to the
meeting.

Best,

Sara and Sarah

Dr Sarah S Amsler
Lecturer in Sociology
Aston University
Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK
+44 (0) 121 204 3072
s.s.amsler at aston.ac.uk

Campaign for the Public University: http://publicuniversity.org.uk
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Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 12:00 PM
To: ssc at lists.aktivix.org
Subject: SSC Digest, Vol 12, Issue 4

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Today's Topics:

   1. Next meeting (Joss Winn)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:47:08 +0000
From: Joss Winn <joss at josswinn.org>
To: "ssc at lists.aktivix.org ssc at lists.aktivix.org"
        <ssc at lists.aktivix.org>
Subject: [SSC] Next meeting
Message-ID: <48C9CA43-991A-4DBD-BC9F-AC30C26891E5 at josswinn.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear all,

Just a reminder that our next meeting is on January 5th 7.30-9.30pm.

It will be at the Involvement Centre on Mint Lane, Lincoln (where we've
met several times before). This time we will have the main, central
room. Please note that it will not be at Croft Street, as previously
advertised.

We'll also have some guests who have offered to help with the design
work we've been discussing and I'd like to discuss the curriculum
further and start to plan student recruitment.

If there's anything you'd like to add to the agenda, please let the
mailing list know.

Best wishes

Joss

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End of SSC Digest, Vol 12, Issue 4
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