The recontextualisation and cultural compatibility of student-centred education: the case of the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

This article examines the purposeful introduction of the pedagogy of student-centred education (SCE) in one educational institution in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to consider its cultural compatibility. The study was undertaken in the largest higher education (HE) institution in the country where a key element of the institution’s two strategic plans over a nine-year period was to blend traditional and innovative teaching methods, including student centred approaches, into programmes of study. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to analyse the perspectives of seven non-citizen, Western teachers, as they recontextualise their practice. Drawing on Heidegger, the study explores the philosophical nature and significance of place as a way of thinking about the world. Findings revealed aspects of the teachers’ student-centred practice are challenging; the universal value of SCE is understood in relative rather than absolute terms with an overall need to diversify universal imaginings of pedagogy. Centralised curricula, high stakes final assessments and individualised performance management models ultimately determined learning experiences, leaving little room for any sustained inquiry into the recontextualisation of SCE. The study concludes that pedagogy is inescapably situated: practiced in terms of place orientated thinking. Transformation necessitates an epistemic institution where change is a public endeavour and teachers are positioned inside participatory processes with possibilities to renegotiate, rearticulate and resignify pedagogy.