Chapter 1. The transformative potential of higher education: engaging with educational philosophy to labour for justice and freedom -- Chapter 2. Influences on academic decision-making in university teaching: perspectives from policy, literature, and student-centred research -- Chapter 3. Purposeful decision-making for relationship-centred education: productive paradox in university teaching -- Chapter 4. Purposeful decision-making for relationship-centred education: engaging with speech and with silence in university classrooms -- Chapter 5. University teaching as situated work: imagining, experimenting, and working for change.

This book demonstrates how the pedagogical decision making of university academics can be shaped by engagement with an educational philosophy known as “relationship-centred education”. Beginning with critical analysis of concepts such as student engagement, student satisfaction, and student-centred learning, the author goes on to investigate how literature relating to social justice challenges educators to consider these terms in particular ways. From this basis, the book explores the factors featuring in inclusive, respectful, diverse and student-centred environments. In analysing these factors, the author illuminates the perspectives of university teachers who struggle with the unique challenges of working in the academy; including an increasingly broad set of employment demands and narrower criteria for determining ‘impact’, all while retaining focus on the transformative potential of higher education. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of transformative learning, as well as social justice within higher education. Leonie Rowan is Associate Professor in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, Australia. .