From a diversifying workforce to the rise of the itinerant academic

Abstract

The literature on the diversification of the higher education workforce has tended to focus on broad brush changes to patterns of employment and working conditions. What has been less remarked is ways in which individuals are negotiating the structures and stretching the parameters within which they work, including experience outside higher education. Thus, academic work is also seen in the context of broader opportunities, for instance extended networks that enable individuals to construct new forms of professional capital. Arising from these conditions, two empirical studies, on which this paper draws, demonstrate the emergence of what might be termed itinerant identities. The triggers for these are seen as arising, on the one hand, from a spirit of exploration, that is an intrinsic interest in entering new areas of activity, and, on the other, from a desire for a greater sense of security by keeping a range of options open. The two motivations are not mutually exclusive and are likely to depend on individual circumstances and career stages. It would also appear that, in space outside higher education, individuals may find some of the freedom and autonomy they may feel that they have lost as a result of increased structural requirements including, for instance, workload models and performance assessment.

Constructing academic identity in the European higher education space: Experiences of early career educational researchers

“…The question of value is key in the exploration of academic-identity-building, the theories of which have moved in recent years from the earlier focus on how one becomes an academic (Bourdieu, 1990;Merton and Gaston, 1977;Metzger, 1977), to more recent exploration of the type of academic one becomes. The diversity of academic identities has been explained as a matter of disciplinary tribes and associated norms (Becher, 1989;Becher and Trowler, 2001), or as Henkel (2005Henkel ( , 2009 points out, a nexus of disciplinary and epistemic, organisational and institutional, and personal affiliations, as the previously bounded, self-regulated social category of 'academic' experiences influences from external communities affecting its mechanisms of valuation and regulation, the latter leading, in the case of the UK context, to the rise of 'hybrid' identities (Grove et al, 2018;Whitchurch, 2019).…”

Challenging career models in higher education: the influence of internal career scripts and the rise of the “concertina” career

“…& Career typologies focusing on the individual, including the concept of the kaleidoscope career (Mainiero & Sullivan, 2006), suggesting that the individual has multiple considerations when making decisions about their career (Baruch, 2013;Sullivan & Baruch, 2009), which can involve "intersecting identities" (professional, personal and relational) (Pifer & Baker, 2016: 192). & The interaction between individuals and institutional structures, and the degree of agency that they are able to exercise, for example via "boundaried" and "boundaryless" approaches (Dany et al, 2011;Dowd & Kaplan, 2005;Glaser & Laudel, 2015;Kaulisch & Enders, 2005;Ortlieb & Weiss, 2018;Siekkinen et al, 2019;Whitchurch, 2018). It is apparent from this literature that whatever type of career framework academic staff work within, the way that individuals interact with institutional structures is a common theme that crosses national boundaries.…”

"Mind the Gap": The Transformative Learning Process of Second Language Practitioners When Becoming Scholars

“…In recent decades, the academic employment market has been extensively restructured, with the rise of the worldwide casualization of academic labor (Whitchurch, 2019). These developments have led to the expansion of applied and practitioner doctorate programs, such as EdD in the field of Education (Wildy, Peden & Chan, 2015;Hawkes & Yerrabati, 2018).…”