Peter Kahn
Biographic Data
| ID | 3848865 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Kahn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Kahn |
| SIGNATURE | KAHN P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1609-7540 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Teacher agency and generative artificial intelligence: Teaching in higher education as a responsive, cultural activity
The widespread adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools by students poses a challenge to teachers in Higher Education. This study aimed to explore the nature of teacher agency in a setting where students were making extensive use of Large Language Models. The study was conducted in a research-intensive university in the UK, adopting a sequential mixed methods research design. It found that challenges entailed in university teaching ca…
Precarity and illusions of certainty in higher education teaching
The term ‘precarity’ has been used since at least the 1950s in theorising the nature of insecure employment relations (Millar 2017). Bourdieu (1998), for instance, used the term to refer to a speci
Two poems
Understanding the challenges entailed in decolonising a Higher Education institution: An organisational case study of a research-intensive South African university
Decolonisation is being embraced as an imperative within Higher Education, yet many institutions have struggled to formulate a coherent response. This article reports on a case study of a research-intensive South African university where the call for decolonisation emerged amidst considerable conflict on campus. The research takes as its departure point the notion that the discourse on decolonisation, thus far dominated by calls to re-examine Wes…
Employability as a capacity for agency in the workplace: The implications for higher education of a collective perspective on work
Graduate employability is now typically conceptualised in terms of the extent to which the capacities of individual students match the available employment opportunities. As a result, higher education is increasingly seen as an investment in a project of the self for economic reward. This theoretical study draws on critical realist perspectives to problematise existing understandings of employability. It explores a collective perspective on work,…
Higher education in a post-truth era: Whose agency is triggered by a focus on employability
Employability has developed into a key component of the policies of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide, whereby students convert into consumers and knowledge morphs into a marketable commodity that supports a supply of qualified graduates to a precarious labour market. In such a market, employability is influenced by post-truth narratives of marketization to sell education. This conceptual paper draws on critical realist theorizing of…
The organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: Forming critical leaders
Research on the impact of professional doctorates on students and their organisations has reported contested outcomes. We undertook a study to develop a causal explanation of how organisational change may, or may not, result from participation in a Doctor of Education programme (EdD). Drawing on critical realist perspectives, the research found that all the doctoral students shared professional concerns with their work colleagues. In some cases, …
Higher Education Policy on Student Engagement: Thinking Outside the Box
The flourishing and dehumanization of students in higher education
An economic agenda, characterized by the mastery of subject knowledge or expertise, increasingly dominates higher education. In this article, I argue that this agenda fails to satisfy the full range of students’ aspirations, responsibilities and needs. Neither does it meet the needs of society. Rather, the overall purpose of higher education should be the morphogenesis of the agency of students, considered on an individual and on a collective bas…
Theorising student engagement in higher education
Student engagement has become problematic following the rise of mass and universal forms of higher education. Significant attention has been devoted to identifying factors that are associated with higher levels of engagement, but it remains the case that the underlying reasons for student engagement and, indeed, the notion itself of ‘student engagement’ remain weakly theorised. In this article, we seek to develop the theoretical basis for student…
Raciocínio ecológico-moral: Um estudo desenvolvimentista numa amostra de sujeitos de Lisboa
Os problemas do ambiente não podem mais ser ignorados. Neste artigo, são apresentados alguns resultados de uma investigação realizada numa amostra de sujeitos de Lisboa (Kahn & Lourenço, 2000). Nessa pesquisa, foram explorados alguns aspectos da nossa compreensão da ontogénese da relação humana com a natureza. Cento e vinte participantes igualmente divididos por quatro níveis de escolaridade (5.o ano, 8.o ano, 11.o ano e 1.o ano da Universidade) …
Structure and agency in learning: A Critical Realist Theory of the Development of Capacity to Reflect on Academic Practice
Theories of learning typically downplay the interplay between social structure and student agency. In this article, we adapt a causal hypothesis from realist social theory and draw on wider perspectives from critical realism to account for the development of capacity to engage in reflection on professional practice in academic roles. We thereby offer a theory of professional learning that explores how social and cultural structures and personal e…
Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties
The Watcher and the Watched: Social Judgments About Privacy in a Public Place
Digitally capturing and displaying real-time images of people in public places raises concerns for individual privacy. Applying principles of Value Sensitive
The Institutional Framework of Privatised Public Pension Plans: The Case of Former Socialist Economies
The success of some Latin American countries in creating ‘privatised’ public pension systems has led to proposals that similar systems be created elsewhere. Such proposals warrant a high degree of scepticism, particularly in those countries in transition to capitalist economics with inadequately developed legal systems. Pension fund management presents opportunities for self-dealing and mismanagement, sometimes for political reasons. There must b…
The changing undergraduate experience: A case study of single honours mathematics in England and Wales
The shift from an élite to a mass system of higher education can be expected to have led to adjustments in the content of degree programmes. This study points to three main areas of change that have taken place in the content of single honours undergraduate mathematics degrees in England and Wales between 1989 and 1996. The range of mathematics covered has been broadened in favour of ‘new ̊s applications of mathematics, a smaller amount of advanc…
On Application of the Golden Ratio
Order: A Critical Definition
Theorising student engagement in higher education
Student engagement has become problematic following the rise of mass and universal forms of higher education. Significant attention has been devoted to identifying factors that are associated with higher levels of engagement, but it remains the case that the underlying reasons for student engagement and, indeed, the notion itself of ‘student engagement’ remain weakly theorised. In this article, we seek to develop the theoretical basis for student…
Structure and agency in learning: A Critical Realist Theory of the Development of Capacity to Reflect on Academic Practice
Theories of learning typically downplay the interplay between social structure and student agency. In this article, we adapt a causal hypothesis from realist social theory and draw on wider perspectives from critical realism to account for the development of capacity to engage in reflection on professional practice in academic roles. We thereby offer a theory of professional learning that explores how social and cultural structures and personal e…
The organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: Forming critical leaders
Research on the impact of professional doctorates on students and their organisations has reported contested outcomes. We undertook a study to develop a causal explanation of how organisational change may, or may not, result from participation in a Doctor of Education programme (EdD). Drawing on critical realist perspectives, the research found that all the doctoral students shared professional concerns with their work colleagues. In some cases, …
The flourishing and dehumanization of students in higher education
An economic agenda, characterized by the mastery of subject knowledge or expertise, increasingly dominates higher education. In this article, I argue that this agenda fails to satisfy the full range of students’ aspirations, responsibilities and needs. Neither does it meet the needs of society. Rather, the overall purpose of higher education should be the morphogenesis of the agency of students, considered on an individual and on a collective bas…
On Application of the Golden Ratio
Order: A Critical Definition
The changing undergraduate experience: A case study of single honours mathematics in England and Wales
The shift from an élite to a mass system of higher education can be expected to have led to adjustments in the content of degree programmes. This study points to three main areas of change that have taken place in the content of single honours undergraduate mathematics degrees in England and Wales between 1989 and 1996. The range of mathematics covered has been broadened in favour of ‘new ̊s applications of mathematics, a smaller amount of advanc…
The Institutional Framework of Privatised Public Pension Plans: The Case of Former Socialist Economies
The success of some Latin American countries in creating ‘privatised’ public pension systems has led to proposals that similar systems be created elsewhere. Such proposals warrant a high degree of scepticism, particularly in those countries in transition to capitalist economics with inadequately developed legal systems. Pension fund management presents opportunities for self-dealing and mismanagement, sometimes for political reasons. There must b…
The Watcher and the Watched: Social Judgments About Privacy in a Public Place
Digitally capturing and displaying real-time images of people in public places raises concerns for individual privacy. Applying principles of Value Sensitive
Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties
Raciocínio ecológico-moral: Um estudo desenvolvimentista numa amostra de sujeitos de Lisboa
Os problemas do ambiente não podem mais ser ignorados. Neste artigo, são apresentados alguns resultados de uma investigação realizada numa amostra de sujeitos de Lisboa (Kahn & Lourenço, 2000). Nessa pesquisa, foram explorados alguns aspectos da nossa compreensão da ontogénese da relação humana com a natureza. Cento e vinte participantes igualmente divididos por quatro níveis de escolaridade (5.o ano, 8.o ano, 11.o ano e 1.o ano da Universidade) …
Structure and agency in learning: A Critical Realist Theory of the Development of Capacity to Reflect on Academic Practice
Theories of learning typically downplay the interplay between social structure and student agency. In this article, we adapt a causal hypothesis from realist social theory and draw on wider perspectives from critical realism to account for the development of capacity to engage in reflection on professional practice in academic roles. We thereby offer a theory of professional learning that explores how social and cultural structures and personal e…
Theorising student engagement in higher education
Student engagement has become problematic following the rise of mass and universal forms of higher education. Significant attention has been devoted to identifying factors that are associated with higher levels of engagement, but it remains the case that the underlying reasons for student engagement and, indeed, the notion itself of ‘student engagement’ remain weakly theorised. In this article, we seek to develop the theoretical basis for student…
Higher Education Policy on Student Engagement: Thinking Outside the Box
The flourishing and dehumanization of students in higher education
An economic agenda, characterized by the mastery of subject knowledge or expertise, increasingly dominates higher education. In this article, I argue that this agenda fails to satisfy the full range of students’ aspirations, responsibilities and needs. Neither does it meet the needs of society. Rather, the overall purpose of higher education should be the morphogenesis of the agency of students, considered on an individual and on a collective bas…
The organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: Forming critical leaders
Research on the impact of professional doctorates on students and their organisations has reported contested outcomes. We undertook a study to develop a causal explanation of how organisational change may, or may not, result from participation in a Doctor of Education programme (EdD). Drawing on critical realist perspectives, the research found that all the doctoral students shared professional concerns with their work colleagues. In some cases, …
Higher education in a post-truth era: Whose agency is triggered by a focus on employability
Employability has developed into a key component of the policies of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide, whereby students convert into consumers and knowledge morphs into a marketable commodity that supports a supply of qualified graduates to a precarious labour market. In such a market, employability is influenced by post-truth narratives of marketization to sell education. This conceptual paper draws on critical realist theorizing of…
Understanding the challenges entailed in decolonising a Higher Education institution: An organisational case study of a research-intensive South African university
Decolonisation is being embraced as an imperative within Higher Education, yet many institutions have struggled to formulate a coherent response. This article reports on a case study of a research-intensive South African university where the call for decolonisation emerged amidst considerable conflict on campus. The research takes as its departure point the notion that the discourse on decolonisation, thus far dominated by calls to re-examine Wes…
Employability as a capacity for agency in the workplace: The implications for higher education of a collective perspective on work
Graduate employability is now typically conceptualised in terms of the extent to which the capacities of individual students match the available employment opportunities. As a result, higher education is increasingly seen as an investment in a project of the self for economic reward. This theoretical study draws on critical realist perspectives to problematise existing understandings of employability. It explores a collective perspective on work,…
Two poems
Precarity and illusions of certainty in higher education teaching
The term ‘precarity’ has been used since at least the 1950s in theorising the nature of insecure employment relations (Millar 2017). Bourdieu (1998), for instance, used the term to refer to a speci
Teacher agency and generative artificial intelligence: Teaching in higher education as a responsive, cultural activity
The widespread adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools by students poses a challenge to teachers in Higher Education. This study aimed to explore the nature of teacher agency in a setting where students were making extensive use of Large Language Models. The study was conducted in a research-intensive university in the UK, adopting a sequential mixed methods research design. It found that challenges entailed in university teaching ca…
Sociology (13 works) · Pedagogy (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Higher education (8 works) · Reflexivity (8 works) · Critical Realism in Sociology (7 works) · Social science (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Agency (philosophy (4 works)