Coderch, Marion2024-11-262024-11-262024Marion Coderch, "Low expectations in a hostile environment: the challenges of conducting scholarship in a research-focused university". The Language Scholar, 14 (2024), pp. 119-128. URL: https://languagescholar.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/11/Issue-14-Autumn-2024.pdf2398-8509https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/24525The registered version of this article, first published in “The Language Scholar, 14 (2024)", is available online at the publisher's website: University of leeds, https://languagescholar.leeds.ac.uk/ La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en “The Language Scholar, 14 (2024)", está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: University of leeds, https://languagescholar.leeds.ac.uk/In this piece, the author looks back on her ten-year journey as a language teaching scholar in the modern foreign languages department of a UK research-focused university. On the basis of the descriptions of the scholarship of teaching and learning offered in the literature, she compares these depictions with her own experience, adding first-hand observations that complement and illustrate these published accounts. Besides the well-known obstacles faced by teaching staff who wish to conduct scholarship, such as lack of available time and insufficient institutional support, she identifies low expectations on behalf of management and the lack of positive role models as some of the reasons why scholarship drifts along the margins of academic life. To remedy this state of affairs, several actions are required: the establishment of a clear definition of what constitutes scholarship; the development of a set of transparent and unambiguous criteria for the evaluation of scholarship; and the assignment of scholarship evaluation exercises to qualified professionals who would conduct blind peer-reviews, following the evaluation model of other academic dissemination networks. Lastly, the author proposes a course of action to systematically challenge the low expectations placed by universities on language teaching staff and to reclaim the role of scholarship as a key agent in the pursuit of equality, inclusivity and social justice, for staff as well as for students.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess55 Historia::5505 Ciencias auxiliares de la historia::5505.10 Filologíaartículolanguage teaching scholarshipevaluation of scholarshipassessment of scholarshiplow status of scholarshipscholarship vs research