Scholarship, research and teaching: A view from the social sciences

ABSTRACT It is now common in policy-making circles to argue that teaching in higher education can be sound without back-up from staff engagement in research; and, in particular, that the country cannot afford to widen student access substantially unless provision for research is uncoupled from provision for teaching, and limited to a small number of select institutions. The paper challenges proposals of this kind for institutional concentration of research provision. It argues, first, that such a policy would accentuate a hierarchy of provision for higher education in a pattern that would effectively, even if not intentionally, reinforce social inequalities of opportunity. It argues, second, that it would frustrate the larger purposes of widening student access. Those purposes, the author suggests, should not be just to spread established knowledge and current skills more widely. They should be also, and equally, to spread alertness of minds to today's uncertainties and tomorrow's changes. Advanced teachi...