Put up a picture of Einstein in your class and most of your students will be able to name him and some will be able to tell you what theory he is famous for. However, if you put up pictures of other influential figures in the fields your students wish to study, or even academics in your own institution, the chances are that very few students will be able to identify them. Why does this matter?
Studying at university means joining an academic discipline or tribe (Becher, 1989), which involves learning its particular values, assumptions, history and aspirations. Becher’s (1989) metaphor of a tribe highlights the social features of a discipline: its customs, language and hierarchy, which students need to learn if they are to become members of that tribe. Students often believe that they have come to university to learn facts and skills that will enhance their competitiveness in a jobs market. They do not always realise that they have been granted legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in the main activities of the academic tribe: identifying and exploring problems carrying out research arguing about the conclusions that can be drawn from findings publishing this developing knowledge.
These activities are always carried out in the context of what has already been explored, researched and argued about, i.e. in the context of previous research. By building this context for their own research, through a review of relevant literature, students can show that they are aware of community values and aspirations.
In order to understand their place in the hierarchy of the community, students also need to know and cite the key figures – the celebrities – who have moved their discipline forward. Sometimes these figures will have theories or methods or entities named after them, e.g. Newton’s theory of gravitation, Fourier Transform, Epstein Barr virus. As students move up the hierarchy of their discipline, e.g. through PhD research, they can attend conferences and be inspired by presentations from the current celebrities.
One way to encourage students to identify and explore their communities of practice is to ask them to visit the web pages of the academic department they intend to join and find out who the key academic staff are and what contributions they have made to the field. By exploring staff descriptions but also listed publications, students can see how academics establish research profiles for themselves. Students can also explore social media platforms such as LinkedIn to follow a specific member of their academic community.
The benefit of this in the longer term, especially for students planning to move to postgraduate research, is that it makes the search for relevant published research a little easier. If you know who the celebrities are, you can search for seminal articles they have written. A reference list at the end of an article then becomes a valuable source to uncover collaborations between these senior academics and their research teams or PhD students, who in turn will go on to establish their seniority and mentor junior colleagues. Reading skills such as skimming and scanning are made more performative and meaningful, when applied to a reference list, by asking students to identify the collaborative partnerships they can find, i.e. who writes with whom; who is cited as the lead author; how does this change over time?
Becher, T. (1989) Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual inquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Milton Keynes: Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
EAP Essentials 