In my thesis, I explore how practical forms of teaching and knowledge production influence the overall dissemination of knowledge in higher education. More specifically, I focus on the study practices in the form of camps of deinstitutionalization that took place in social care institutions in Serbia. In the first part of the theoretical introduction, I present institutionalization as a social phenomenon and deinstitutionalization as its opposite pole or ideological alternative. In the second part of the theoretical introduction, I focus on knowledge production in higher education processes and postmodern conceptions of higher education. I bring these two works together in a chapter on the teaching and learning of deinstitutionalization, where I explore critical analyses of higher education with an emphasis on the field of social work and connect power relations within academic processes with power relations in total institutions. I then present a brief history of deinstitutionalization camps in Slovenia for easier narrative contextualization of "our" camps.
In my empirical work, I investigated how this form of camp-based learning affects the democratization of relationships between mentors and students, as well as how this form of teaching and knowledge creation differs from conventional higher education teaching practices. By processing empirical data, I have found that such study practices foster more equal relationships in the processes of knowledge acquisition and production. I have also explored how camps of deinstitutionalization can contribute to the development of knowledge in institutions undergoing transformation and have found that the readiness of the institution or its leadership for change is crucial. While the institutions where we carried out our traineeships in the form of a camp of deinstitutionalization indicated a stated preparedness for the process of institutional transformation, our findings revealed substantial differences in their actual openness to embrace change. Where the readiness for deinstitutionalization was more symbolic, the camps were also less successful in facilitating knowledge development for institutional transformation.
The research is qualitative, exploratory, and partially action-based. I addressed the research questions through the use of focus groups and my own diary entries. The research population consisted of all students from the Faculty of Social Work who underwent traineeships in the form of deinstitutionalization camps, and the sample consisted of students who underwent traineeships in the institutions in Tešice and Novi Bečej during the academic year 2015/2016. The sample was non-random and convenient.
|
