Andrea Abbas

University of Bath, Department of Education, Faculty Member

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Professor of the Sociology of Higher Education, University of Bath, U.K. Research focuses on exploring theoretically, how embedded in universities, including the knowledge, pedagogy and curricula, students, staff and leadership of universities, are contradictory mechanisms that increase, reinforce and undermine social justice. Projects focus on staff, students, pedagogy and curricula in the U.K. and Asia.
Address: Department of Education
University of Bath
Claverton Down
Bath
BA2 6AY

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Papers by Andrea Abbas

Book Reviews: The Politics of Postmodernity, The Sociological Revolution. From the Enlightenment to the Global Age, Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes, Expressions of Identity: Space, Performance, Politics, Managing like a Man: Women and Men in Corporate Management, The Golem at Larg...

Sociological Review, 1999

Keynote presentation and dialogues : The importance of the long view : the impact of COVID-19 on research into academic careers and internationally collaborative research

In this paper I argue for the importance of developing and theorising the historically long proce... more In this paper I argue for the importance of developing and theorising the historically long processes that generated inequalities, and which preceded COVID and will permeate how higher education research might influence its future, with and after COVID. The perspective presented incorporates a discussion of the value of a materialist concept of aufhebung and insights gained from Smith and Yang’s (2014) collection of papers presenting understandings of how indigenous studies of education can be viewed given a longer historical view. I develop the argument that critical approaches to higher education, that foreground key questions about historical injustices, are necessary if we are to emerge from these times with these priorities in-tact and with theories and methods in the process of being appropriately transformed into theories and actions significant to a future more beneficial to the planet and its inhabitants. The importance of the value of such critical approaches are illustrated through examples from two studies using critical realist lenses, whose extension through COVID-times raises new questions to be pursued: a longitudinal biographical study of early career academics careers extending over 11 years; and, a project focusing on how to generate more socially just knowledge in a research collaboration between the UK and China to develop a context appropriate inclusive educational practises in South West China

Using the Sociology of Basil Bernstein in Higher Education Research

Theory and method in higher education research, Oct 29, 2018

Abstract Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education ... more Abstract Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education researchers than would be expected. We argue that the international higher education field of research is ripe for further application of Bernstein’s theoretical ideas. Through reference to our own and that of others, we illustrate five key affordances of Bernstein’s theoretical framework. First, it provides a unique approach that leads researchers to pose formerly unthinkable questions and encourages the development of new knowledge to address them. Second, Bernstein’s valuable concepts raise questions about the specific but inter-related macro- (societal), meso- (organisational) and micro- (individual) level processes involved in producing (in)equalities. Bernsteinian analysis can help to identify how inequalities emerge from and can be addressed at these levels. Third, we contend that the approach encourages empirical exploration of the ways in which education may be disruptive of the social order. Fourth, we suggest Bernstein’s concepts can be adapted to capture the complexity of intersecting inequalities in a way that allows the object of analysis to determine what inequalities are foregrounded. Finally, we argue that concepts help to orientate questions around inequality and social justice in a way that does not over-determine answers.

Tackling inequality through quality

Tackling intersecting gender inequalities through disciplinary-based higher education curricula

Gender in Learning and Teaching, 2019

Quality in Undergraduate Education : How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Globally, the appetite for higher education is great, but what do students and societies gain? Qu... more Globally, the appetite for higher education is great, but what do students and societies gain? Quality in Undergraduate Education foregrounds the importance of knowledge acquisition at university. Many argue that university education is no longer a public good due to the costs incurred by students who are then motivated by the promise of lucrative employment rather than by studying a discipline for its own sake. McLean, Abbas and Ashwin, however, reveal a more complex picture and offer a way of thinking about good quality university education for all. Drawing on a study which focused on four sociology-related social science UK university departments of different reputation, the book shows that students value sociological knowledge because it gives them a framework to think about and act on understanding how individuals and society interact. Further, the authors discuss how what was learned from the study about how policy, curriculum and pedagogy might preserve and strengthen the personal and social gains of social science undergraduate education.

Socially Just Pedagogies, Capabilities and Quality in Higher Education

This series will engage with the theoretical and practical debates regarding citizenship, human r... more This series will engage with the theoretical and practical debates regarding citizenship, human rights education, social inclusion, and individual and group identities as they relate to the role of higher and adult education on an international scale. Books in the series will consider hopeful possibilities for the capacity of higher and adult education to enable citizenship, human rights, democracy and the common good, including emerging research and interesting and effective practices. It will also participate in and stimulate deliberation and debate about the constraints, barriers and sources and forms of resistance to realizing the promise of egalitarian Civil Societies. The series will facilitate continued conversation on policy and politics, curriculum and pedagogy, review and reform, and provide a comparative overview of the different conceptions and approaches to citizenship education and democracy around the world.

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Changing Practices, Changing Values?: A Bernsteinian Analysis of Knowledge Production and Knowledge Exchange in Two UK Universities

RE-BECOMING UNIVERSITIES?, 2016

Bernstein’s concept of classification and framing links notions of knowledge, democracy and socia... more Bernstein’s concept of classification and framing links notions of knowledge, democracy and social justice, providing a perspective from which to address critical questions of what knowledge is produced, who has access to it, and how knowledge is distributed. Bernstein’s conceptual framework is used to inform an analysis of national policies steering knowledge production and knowledge transfer in the UK, and the changing practices and values associated with knowledge production and knowledge transfer in two UK institutional case study universities. The analysis reveals how reputational and financial consequences of the formal assessment of research quality interacts with the institutional and disciplinary contexts of research units to differently shape what knowledge is valued and produced, and with whom it is shared.

Gender in learning and Teaching: Feminist dialogues across international boundaries

ChiPrints (University of Chichester), Apr 30, 2019

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Higher education

An encyclopedia entry in the Sage Encyclopedia of Consumer Cultur

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Book Reviews: The Death of Class, Social Change and the Middle Classes, Practical Sociology: Post-empiricism and the Reconstruction of Theory and Application, Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist Perspective, Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change, Daniel Bell, Canvases and Car...

Sociological Review, 1996

Book Reviews: Aramis, or the Love of Technology, Postmodernity and its Discontents, Key Debates in Anthropology, Postcolonial African Philosophy. A Critical Reader, Sociology on the Menu. An Invitation to the Study of Food and Society, Consumption, Food and Taste. Culinary Antinomies and Commodit...

Sociological Review, 1997

REPORT ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN CHINA: Results of needs analysis on inclusive education

The Pedagogic Device: Sociology, Knowledge Practices and Teaching–Learning Processes: Paul Ashwin, Andrea Abbas and Monica Mclean

Tribes and Territories in the 21st Century, 2012

This chapter draws upon Bernstein's notion of the pedagogic device to understand the role of ... more This chapter draws upon Bernstein's notion of the pedagogic device to understand the role of knowledge in teaching and learning processes. It draws upon the data of the Pedagogic Quality and Inequality Project.

Higher Education and Consumption

This is an entry into the Encycopedia of Consumer Culture, Edited by Dale Southerton on Higher Ed... more This is an entry into the Encycopedia of Consumer Culture, Edited by Dale Southerton on Higher Education and Consumption.

Teaching Social Sciences through students' biographies:: new pedagogies for the 'oppressed' or oppresssive technologies of the self

Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 2011

The relations between knowledge-as-research and knowledge-as-student-understanding: implications for the research-teaching nexus

‘Imagined Futures: Exploring performance and dance careers with first year students

Changing university-industry-government networks in knowledge transfer : A comparative analysis of Shenzhen and Hong Kong

Comparative Data Analysis: Performing, Dancing and Theorising the Data

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