Dr Elizabeth Hoult

National Teaching Fellow 2004 Institution at the time of award: Canterbury Christ Church University Dr Elizabeth Chapman Hoult is Director of Knowledge Transfer in the Faculty of Education, Canterbury Christ Church University. She is also joint co-ordinator of the South East Coastal Community project (SECC) which is a £3m core-funded initiative to develop new and innovative models for universities to work with their communities that incorporates nine universities along the south-east coast of England. Her doctoral thesis was an investigation into the nature of resilience in adult learning. It explored the reasons why some learners are able to survive and succeed in higher education, despite significant disadvantage and it drew on post-structuralist perspectives, particularly the work of Helene Cixous, to open up readings of learning that are not well served by conventional social scientific approaches. Her work combines the methodologies and texts associated with the study of English Literature with educational research practices in order to attempt to understand the complex and profound nature of adult learning in higher education. She is interested in the practical application of feminist post-structuralist thinking to professional and pedagogical practice in the academy and in particular she is interested in how the ideals and the ethic of Cixous' feminine economy might subvert and liberate dominant discourses around knowledge as property in the higher education sector for the benefit of learners, teachers and communities.