Representing the self in education: The tensions of authorship, authenticity and authority

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 29: Critical Visions Thinking, learning and researching in higher education

July, 2006, 392 pages
Published by
Alison Bunker and Iris Vardi
ISBN
0 908557 69 8
Abstract 

This paper explores identity and representation in education. The author reflects on and compares three academic events – the development of a portfolio for a teaching fellowship, the presentation of a CV in support of a job application, and the submission of an evidence portfolio for a research assessment exercise. These events are treated as frames through which the themes of authorship, authenticity and authority are traced. It is argued that identity and representation are central to education, and that they are imbued with power relations. Education is learning how identity is constructed, represented and deconstructed. Critical theory, despite its limitations, offers a rich intellectual resource for analysing how current trends in (higher) education refract power through the processes of identity construction and representation. Educators should be concerned about how they are implicated in this process, and it is suggested maintaining a clarity and tension between the ideas of authorship, authenticity and authority may help educators negotiate this implication. Finally, it is suggested it may be a relative insensitivity to these issues that contributes to confusion between structure and process, method and content, and accountability and trust. Such confusion is inimical to a civil society.

Keywords: identity, representation, education