How should we conduct ourselves? Critical realism and Aristotelian teleology : a framework for the development of virtues in pedagogy and curriculum

Abstract

Faced with the marketization of Higher Education in England, pedagogy is under pressure in ways that often undermine lecturers’ deeply held values. For instance, this pressure results in the reduction of significant aspects of teaching to narrow metrics and requires universities to operate within intrusive structures that subordinate their pedagogical aims to profit-orientated objectives. In this paper, I analyse the way that people can preserve their agency in this pedagogical context. I guide my analysis with a framework that combines critical realism with Aristotelian virtue ethics and MacIntyre’s ideas of qualities within human practices. I suggest the kinds of qualities that might assist faculty to preserve and advance rich pedagogical projects in the current circumstances. Finally, I use a critical realist morphogenetic approach to argue that people may be able to resist losing their way when faced with ubiquitous performativity regimes.