Professor Sue Clegg

Friday, 12 February 2016

Emeritus Professor Sue Clegg will be the first of a number of visiting scholars to be hosted by the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE) throughout this year.

Profile of Professor Sue Clegg

Professor Clegg will share her extensive experience in the field of equity in higher education that will help with the development of CEEHE and some of the equity strategies outlined in NeW Futures.

Professor Clegg will also be starting off the Visiting Scholar Seminar Series with her talk on Translating Close-Up Research Into Action: A Critical Reflection, where she will explore some of the contradictions and tensions involved in translating research into action.

Sue Clegg is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Research at Leeds Beckett University.  She was previously Head of the Centre for Research into Higher Education and Director of Research Students at Leeds Metropolitan University.

View Professor Clegg’s full biography below.

CEEHE Director, Professor Penny Jane Burke, says that the Centre will benefit greatly from Professor Clegg’s visit.

“During her time with us, Professor Clegg will be building the capacity of our Equity Ambassadors and other early career researchers as well as helping us to develop cutting-edge research and evaluation approaches and methodologies” said Professor Burke.

“She brings with her a wealth of experience across the fields of higher education curriculum and pedagogies in both research and practice, so we are grateful for the opportunity to learn from her knowledge,” Professor Burke added.

CEEHE will be hosting a number of visiting scholars over the year to bring new perspectives and experiences to the Centre, as well as develop sustained relationships with people in the field internationally.

Biography

Sue Clegg is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Research at Leeds Beckett University.  She was previously Head of the Centre for Research into Higher Education and Director of Research Students at Leeds Metropolitan University.  She was awarded the Rector’s Award by the University of the Western Cape and the Distinguished Fellow Award by the University of Auckland. She was a Mellon Visiting Scholar at the University of Cape Town in 2014 and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

Her research draws on critical realism and feminist theory. It includes close-to-practice investigations, often in collaboration with practitioners, as well as more theoretical work. She has explored the social and pedagogical significance of the gendering of information technology and critically analysed the use of these technologies in learning and teaching. She has developed a critique of the debate about the nature of evidence-based practice.

In more recent work she has interrogated seemingly mundane pedagogical practices, such as those involved in personal development planning, and explored how these are understood by staff and students and how they are reframed in policy discourse. Drawing on this empirical research she has elaborated on importance of theorising temporality and reflexivity. She has taken a critical look at institutional practices designed to improve teaching, analysing the rhetorical repertoire of learning and teaching strategies and exploring how these strategies are mediated in practice. She has also explored issues of academic identity.

Most recently she has been involved in theorising the nature of curriculum and researching extracurricular activity and the formation and recognition of social and cultural capital. She is currently working on the significance of theorising powerful knowledge in higher education and the implications for theorising diversity.

She was Editor of Teaching in Higher Education from 2006 to 2014 and sits on the Editorial Boards of Studies in Higher Education and Higher Education Quarterly. She plays a major role in the Society for Research into Higher Education and chairs their Publications Committee.

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