Authenticity in and through Teaching in Higher Education: The transformative potential of the scholarship of teaching

What does it mean to be authentic? Why should it matter whether or not we become more authentic? How might authenticity inform and enhance the social practice of the scholarship of university teaching and, by implication, the learning and development of students?

Authenticity in and through Teaching introduces three distinct perspectives on authenticity, the existential, the critical and the communitarian, and shows what moving towards greater authenticity involves for teachers and students when viewed from each of these angles.

In developing the notion of ‘the scholarship of teaching as an authentic practice', this book draws on several complementary ideas from social philosophy to explore the nature of this practice and the conditions under which it might qualify as 'authentic'. Other concepts guiding the analysis include ‘virtue’, 'being', ‘communicative action’, 'power', ‘critical reflection’ and ‘transformation’.

Authenticity in and through Teaching also introduces a vision of the scholarship of teaching whose ultimate aim it is to serve the important interests of students. These important interests, it is argued, are the students’ own striving and development towards greater authenticity. Both teachers and students are thus implicated in a process of transformative learning, including objective and subjective reframing, redefinition and reconstruction, through critical reflection and critical self-reflection on assumptions. It is argued that, in important ways, this transformative process is intimately bound up with becoming more authentic.

Rather than being concerned principally with rendering research evidence of ‘what works’, the scholarship of teaching emerges as a social practice that is equally concerned with the questions surrounding the value, desirability and emancipatory potential of what we do in teaching. The scholarship of teaching, therefore, also engages with the bigger questions of social justice and equality in and through higher education.

The book combines Carolin Kreber's previous research on authenticity with earlier work on the scholarship of teaching, offering a provocative, fresh and timely perspective on the scholarship of university teaching and professional learning.

Carolin Kreber is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Edinburgh, UK.