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The purpose of this study to investigate the relationships between South Africa (SA) universities and universities surrounding communities (USC) for preserving community histories and serve the universities’ mandate to support their local communities and support universities’ teaching and scholarship.

The study used a multiple case study approach through interviews. The population of the study comprised representatives from selected universities and their USC.

The findings revealed a lack of effective relationships between universities and USC to preserve communities’ histories. Hence, the communities’ archives are tools for teaching and scholarship. Relations between universities and USC are to be built on trust. Accountability and transparency are to be considered by both parties.

The research is limited to selected SA universities, namely, University of Venda, Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Pretoria and SA and USC. The findings are applicable to all SA universities and USC.

The relationship between universities and USC has a practical impact on the National archives of South Africa (NARSSA) to collect communities archives because it is in conflict with the mandate of NARSSA. The National Archives’ Act 43 of 1996 obliged NARSSA to collect and preserve communities’ archives on behalf of societies.

Lack of universities and USC can lead to the loss of communities histories or archives.

This paper appears to be the first to research the relationship between SA universities and USC.

This article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this space.

The authors, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, draw on a history of collaborative teaching that stretches over more than a decade, bringing together conceptual reflective work and empirical data from a 5-year project working with Australian university students in an introductory-level Aboriginal history subject.

It argues that teaching this subject area in ways which are culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and which resist knowledge structures associated with colonial ways of conveying history, is not only about content but also about building learning spaces that encourage students to decolonise their relationships with Australian history.

This article considers collaborative approaches to knowledge transmission in the university history classroom as an act of decolonising knowledge spaces rather than as a model of reconciliation.

Seeking an answer to the question “how does organizational identity change?” we analyze the visual identity marker of universities, namely logos, as time-related artifacts embodying visual scripts. Engaging with the Stinchcombe hypothesis, we identify five processes to the creation of visual identities of organizations: In addition to (1) imprinting (enactment of the contemporary script) and (2) imprinting-cum-inertia (persistent enactment of epochal scripts), we also identify (3) renewal (enactment of an up-to-date epochal script), (4) historization (enactment of a recovered older epochal script), and (5) multiplicity (simultaneous enactment of multiple epochal scripts). We argue that these processes work together to produce contemporary heterogeneity of visualized identity narratives of universities. We illustrate this, first, with a survey of the current-day logos of 814 university emblems in 20 countries from across the world. Second, drawing on archival and interview materials, we analyze the histories of exemplar university logos to illustrate the various time-related processes. Therefore, by interjecting history – as both time and process – into the analysis of the visualization of organizational identity, we both join with the phenomenological and semiotic analysis of visual material as well as demonstrate that history is not merely a fixed factor echoing imprinting and inertia but rather also includes several forms of engagement with temporality that are less deterministic. Overall, we argue that enactment engages with perceptions of time (imaginations of the past, present, and future) and with perceptions fixed by time (epochal imprinting and inertia) to produce heterogeneity in the visualization of organizational identity.

The purpose of this paper is to present data and discussion on history researcher development and research capacities in Australia and New Zealand, as evidenced in analysis of history PhD theses' topics.

The paper is based on two independent studies of history PhD thesis topics, using a standard discipline coding system.

The paper shows some marked differences in the Australian and New Zealand volumes and distributions of history PhDs, especially for PhDs conducted on non‐local/national topics. These differences reflect national researcher development, research capacities and interests, in particular local, national and international histories, and have implications for the globalisation of scholarship.

Thesis topics are used as a proxy for the graduate's research capacity within that topic. However, as PhD examiners have attested to the significance and originality of the thesis, this is taken as robust. The longitudinal nature of the research suggests that subsequent years' data and analysis would provide rich information on changes to history research capacity. Other comparative (i.e. international) studies would provide interesting analyses of history research capacity.

There are practical implications for history departments in universities, history associations, and government (PhD policy, and history researcher development and research capacity in areas such as foreign affairs).

There are social implications for local and community history in the knowledge produced in the theses, and in the development of local research capacity.

The work in this paper is the first to collate and analyse such thesis data either in Australia or New Zealand. The comparative analyses of the two datasets are also original.

This study aimed to address the importance and effects of studying history and Islamic history on students’ political awareness.

To achieve the objectives of this study, a questionnaire was used. A total of 315 university students aged 17–50 years old participated in the study. These students represented three of the most influential universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The results revealed a strong, positive and significant correlation between the study of history and students’ political awareness.

The findings of this study indicated that studying history and Islamic history leads to an increased level of students’ political awareness. Therefore, studying history is important for university students to develop their political awareness and prepare them as future leaders.

The most obvious symptom of the most obvious trend in the building of new libraries is the fact that, as yet, no spade has entered the ground of the site on Euston Road, London, upon which the new building for the British Library Reference Division has to be erected. Some twenty years of continued negotiation and discussion finally resulted in the choice of this site. The UK and much more of the world awaits with anticipation what could and should be the major building library of the twentieth century. The planning and design of a library building, however large or small, is, relatively speaking, a major operation, and deserves time, care and patience if the best results are to be produced.

For the longest period of its history, the university was the guardian and transmitter – not the producer – of knowledge. This relatively recent change of transmitting canonical knowledge and generating new knowledge is normally associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt. Other highly influential university models were provided by France and Great Britain. The association of certain types of universities with particular countries is a strong indicator of the intricate link between nation-state and education. Hence, the history of tertiary education and its elite institutions, the research universities, must be considered in relation with a sea change in educational history – the gradual emergence of national education systems. Only under the conditions of the by now standard form of organizing modern societies as nation-states did education become a central institution (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997) collapsing individual perfectibility and national progress. The nationally redefined university was integrated into the education system as its keystone while also being considered the motor of societal development. From a social history perspective, the latter aspect in particular indicates the pragmatic (training professionals, imparting military and technical knowledge, etc.) and symbolic expectations, “myths” of the nation-state that have been so aptly described and analyzed in numerous macro-sociological neo-institutionalist studies (Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992; Meyer et al., 1997; Ramirez & Boli, 1987). In a macro-phenomenological perspective, the term “myth” is used to denote a fundamental change in the self-description of European society which since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries no longer views itself as consisting of separate collectivities divided from each other by social origin – as was the case under feudal conditions – with each collectivity providing itself the necessary education for its members or being provided for by others in the case of neediness. Instead, as a result of a number of material and immaterial changes, society now defines the individual as its key unit, with the nation being consequently the aggregate of individuals and not of collectivities and the state redefined as the guardian of the nation. This conception might be taken as a kind of overlapping area which includes different approaches, such as Michel Foucault's concept of the disciplinary society (Foucault, 1977), Balibar and Wallerstein's (1991) deliberations on the relation between race, class, and nation, and Benedict Anderson's (1991) description of nations as imagined communities. All these studies could be taken as sharing the notion of “constructedness” (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1972) of modern society with the neo-institutionalist perspective. The concept of a “world polity” which encompasses the “myths” society is based on, the overall notion of a cognitive culture, which takes Max Weber's concept of rationality as a point of departure, is identified as the basis of isomorphic change in the organizational structure of modern education systems (cf. Baker & Wiseman, 2006). However, the strong emphasis on international, world system embeddedness of nation-states and their education systems is not to be taken as a unidirectional dependence on external forces. While modern nation-states originate from and remain tied to international dynamics and developments, they are conceived as unique entities. For most of their history, modern nation-states have been preoccupied with making themselves distinct from each other. Thus, while international competition has always been present, looking abroad traditionally meant reworking, adapting, and reshaping what was imported, or borrowed (Halpin & Troyna, 1995; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). This is true for education as well as for other areas of society.

Based on the author's experience, this paper aims to provide tips for finding Chinese history journals on the web.

After reviewing a total of four portals, the author points out the challenge faced by searchers. The author provides six searching tips, including terms, databases, organizations, institutes, universities and publishers, for finding Chinese history journals online.

By following the hints provided by the author, most Chinese history journals can be found online and readers will be able to find full‐text articles or citations that will facilitate their research. In addition, examples are given to show how to catalogue online Chinese journals when building up an electronic library.

Contains very useful hints for librarians and researchers planning to build up an electronic library for China studies.

This paper offers practical help to librarians and researchers building up web sites or electronic libraries for China studies.

By the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial state with the education of Indians, and its anxiety with quelling political discontentment. The emerging Indian nationalist intelligentsia also utilized ideas from classical political economy, first taught in educational institutions, to critique colonial policy and proposed the development of “Indian Economics”, suited to national economic interests. This paper explores the development of political economy as a specific knowledge form in Calcutta University and Bombay University, and its connection with colonial educational policy^.

This study relies primarily on university records and the proceedings of the Education Department to bring out the politically sensitive nature of the teaching of economics in colonial India.

The study finds that political economy grew from being a minor part of the overall university syllabi to becoming part of the first university departments created in early-20th-century India. The government and nationalist forces both found the discipline to be relevant to their respective agendas. The circulation of knowledge theoretical framework is found to be relevant here.

The history of political economy in Indian universities, especially during the 19th century, has not been dealt with in any detail. This study tries to fill this gap. The close connection between politics and the teaching of economics has also not been studied closely, which this paper does.