Towards a Slow scholarship of teaching and learning in the South

Abstract

Although the concept of a scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) has emanated from the global North, it is a relevant and useful concept in the global South. The concept was initiated in the 1990s in the US. The original emphases in the seminal Boyer Report, on the integration of various forms of scholarship, the importance of intellectual thought and the collaborative nature of teaching have been subject to various distortions, in part due to the depredations of neoliberalism and performativity. We argue that Slow scholarship, which has resonances with Boyer’s notions of the scholarship of teaching and learning provides much potential for reconceptualising SOTL in the South. These claims are explored via a case study set in South Africa, where academic developers at eleven higher education institutions covering the range of institutional types were interviewed.