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The establishment of academic voice, authority and identity in international fora, this chapter argues, is both a central challenge and a central benefit of international academic relations. For the presentation (of new ideas, papers, paradigms: the lifeblood of academic interchange) entails the mediation not just of a text but also of persona: both must be ‘translated’ for the ‘foreign’ and host audience; both are changed in the process. As always, that which is found, as well as lost, in translation reveals much about the essential qualities of the ‘original’: here the author's ‘original’ academic voice and identity.

This chapter draws on ethnographic and inter-cultural representational models to explore the proper form of recording and reflecting/reflecting on one particular intercultural academic encounter. It uses explanatory models drawn from Academic Literacies, Sociolinguistics and Translation Studies to try to analyse and understand the process, effect and implications of that encounter. In order to establish that which is performative in academic identity, it gives an evaluative account of what it means to lose, and regain, one's academic voice.

This chapter seeks to contribute to an ongoing discussion about Asian Canadian identities, model minority stereotypes, and structural racism against Asian Canadian youth in the Canadian education system. Using a Bourdieusian lens, this narrative study explores how to understand the experiences of Asian Canadian youth who are streamed into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related occupational trajectories. Using data obtained from semi-structured interviews, I explore how streaming in high schools affects the identity formation of these youth. I argue there is an insight to be gained by paying closer attention to homologies between racial tensions and disciplinary tensions within the public school system. Doing so opens up new ways of framing and recognizing partial and diffuse acts of resistance among Asian Canadian youth who would otherwise appear to have internalized dominant stereotypes and norms.

In the context of rapid change in higher education, there is a great demand for powerful theory and methods to address key issues, particularly related to teaching and learning. This chapter traces the uptake of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in higher education studies in South Africa to make sense of how and why this theory has become so popular. LCT draws on the works of Bernstein and Bourdieu to provide a powerful theoretical and analytical toolkit with which to analyse social practices. In the chapter, we argue that the attraction of this theory is that it attends to a ‘knowledge blindness’ whereby much higher education research, particularly that focussed on teaching and learning, fails to consider the nature and effects of the discipline or field being learned. The use of this theory is illustrated in the chapter by reference to a number of publications. In doing so, we illustrate the importance of conceptual tools that allow an interrogation of what we are teaching, who we are teaching and how this social practice takes place.

Learning-via-gaming is an emerging area of interest and research within kindergarten to grade 12 (k-12), in US schools. As a vital part of the k-12 instructional mission, school libraries are exploring the potential role of videogames in mediating information-oriented skills development. Although the general concept of learning-via-gaming is not new to school libraries (e.g., library review card games), empirical knowledge of videogames’ representational landscapes is needed to assist school librarians in developing instructional programming. This study examined representations of information across three distinct genres of mainstream videogames (shooters, action-adventure, and role-playing). Specifically, qualitative content analysis was used to examine the types of inscribed, information resources that players could use to generate solutions during problem-solving events. Across the three video gaming genres studied, there were seven strata of information: socially constructed, interpersonal, environmental, process, resource, task, and symbolic stratums. The results of this study could assist school librarians in (1) designing instructional lessons around videogames and/or (2) guiding students through the process of transporting meanings from the domain of gaming to other domains (e.g., academic, community, and everyday information problem-solving).

Interdisciplinary approaches to doctoral education have been identified as a route towards enhancing research capacity to address pressing technical and socio-technological challenges. Increasingly, technological supports for part-time, distance, and flexible access to doctoral programmes are bringing together international groups of supervisors and students. Doctoral programmes in the field of educational technology often include academic staff and doctoral candidates from a fairly wide range of originating undergraduate and graduate disciplines. While technologies provide these diverse, dispersed doctoral students and their supervisors with digital connectivity, theoretical continuity remains a challenge for both new and established contributors to the field. This chapter reports results of a grounded theory informed study of doctoral supervisors’ experiences in dealing with disciplinary issues in educational technology. Resultant supervisory challenges and practices are reported. We posit a conceptual framework for examining perspectives on disciplinarity within educational technology and present an argument that the field provides fertile trans-disciplinary ground for represented disciplines to influence and potentially be reoriented by others. Trans-disciplinary reorientation provides a promising avenue towards developing shared discourses and theoretical underpinnings for at least broadly uniting the field and could make a substantive contribution to resolving persistent concerns in educational technology doctoral supervision and perhaps beyond.

An investigation into the leadership behaviours of academic staff undertaking interdisciplinary research and teaching drew on interviews with 10 senior members of staff at two research institutions, in the United Kingdom and Australia, in order to illuminate the nature of interdisciplinary leadership. Key terms are defined: disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, identity, leadership and learning. A model is developed, based on an analysis of the interview data, drawing on Adair's three-part model of leadership, modified for the context. It is proposed that interdisciplinary leadership can be understood as being at the intersection of identity, discipline and learning, and requiring an understanding of all three for effective practice. The model also includes areas of activity: need and opportunity, co-ordination and direction, communication and motivation. The implications for the support of academic staff in such roles are considered. It is suggested that there is value in conceptualising interdisciplinary leadership as the leading of learning.

Some scholars believe that students should achieve discipline-specific competence before attempting an interdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge. Furthermore, one of the often-cited downsides of interdisciplinary scholarship is its lack of identity with, and consequently its failure to benefit from, membership of a discipline. Monash and Flinders universities have challenged that perspective by introducing interdisciplinary programmes to novice biotechnology undergraduates in their first semester of tertiary study. The lack of knowledge in the various disciplines presents significant pedagogical challenges. However, the programmes have the benefit of developing the professional identity of the students as biotechnologists and, additionally, through exploration of contexts, can help students understand why they study some disciplines: chemistry being one example. Both programmes use the interdisciplinarity of authentic cases to provide a framework for students to explore particular discipline issues and their interrelationships. The success of these programmes in creating identity reflects their focus beyond the internal and external boundaries of the university.

In this chapter, we review the ways in which scholars have conceptualized and relied on the notion of identity to understand the academic career. We explore the use of identity as a theoretical construct in research about the experience of being an academic. We discuss the individual and organizational factors that scholars have focused on when seeking to understand the role of professional and personal identity in academic careers, as well as recent and emerging shifts in the use of identity within this line of scholarship. Research suggests that if we are to understand the future of the academic career, we must understand the identities of its current and prospective members and, more importantly, how those identities shape goals, behaviors, and outcomes. We close with recommendations for future research and theory development.

This chapter seeks to examine the ways in which university-based researchers can facilitate the understanding and awareness of public policy-makers and key decision-makers in the contribution to theory and complexity research can make to contemporary public policy.

The chapter provides a systematic literature review informed by reference to key urban regeneration strategies in the United Kingdom.

The chapter argues that it is through the promotion of inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding and learning that we might develop the reflective capacities of decision-makers.

The chapter is intentionally speculative and seeks to encourage critical self-reflection.

Sustainability education has at its heart an ethic of interdisciplinary research and teaching practice. This is because sustainability problems require integrated solutions, multiple perspectives, bodies of knowledge and skill sets. Given the imperative to address looming environmental challenges and the need for every graduate to be equipped to do so, how do we enable and support interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability education within our disciplines and professional programmes? It is increasingly apparent that organisational learning for change must be taken forward in the context of local disciplinary meanings and priorities; this is how academics know themselves and identify and value their research – and teaching – priorities. However, at the same time this may create tensions when disciplinary boundaries need to be crossed and disciplinary identities are challenged. This chapter will consider (inter)disciplinarity in engagements with organisational learning and change, and suggest a way forward in order to create ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ transformation in education for sustainability.