Autoethnographic Journeys in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

In this article, the author describes how the methodological approach of autoethnography enabled her to interrogate the philosophical underpinnings of the learning and teaching practices that she espoused as a university academic. This critical questioning was provoked through her interactions with postgraduate students from a range of contexts and academic traditions in a School of Education in a university in the United Kingdom. Through personal reflections and conversations with her ‘selves' on her teaching and on her supervisory relationships with doctoral researchers, the author strives to show how she reduced her reliance on familiar ideas and changed the shape of her teaching through questioning her ‘selves’, beliefs and values. The value of autoethnography in enabling this critical exploration when working in an international European higher education context is highlighted. An aim is to encourage greater use of this methodological approach in European higher education research to enable greater sensitivity to our diverse constituencies.