‘I need a grant but spend time on teaching’: how academics in different positions play out the teaching–research nexus in interdependence with their contexts

Weenink, Kasja; Aarts, Noelle; Jacobs, Sandra

doi:10.1080/21568235.2023.2221839

“…Since the teachers are already recognized agents in the academic eld of Health Professions, it is most likely that they already know that the expectations inscribed in the eld of research-intensive universities is to set high standards for research. They have also been socialized in an academic system where the dominant position is that of the researcher, while teaching has lower status (Weenink et al, 2023), and yet they chose to occupy a less doxic (cf. doxa) position.…”

Section: Scholarship Of Teaching: Objecti Ed Cultural Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Teaching Capital” – a sociological analysis of medical educator portfolios for promotion

Christensen,

Pedersen,

Wichmann-Hansen

2023

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Medical educator portfolios (MEP) are increasingly recognized as a tool for developing and documenting teaching performance in Health Professions Education. However, there is a need to better understand the complex interplay between institutional guidelines and how teachers decode those guidelines and assign value to teaching merits. To gain a deeper understanding of this dynamic, this study employed a sociological analysis to understand how medical educators aspiring to professorships use MEPs to display their teaching merits and how cultural capital is reflected in these artefacts. We collected 36 medical educator portfolios for promotion from a large research-intensive university and conducted a deductive content analysis using institutional guidelines that distinguished between mandatory (accounting for the total body of teaching conducted) and optional content (arguing for pedagogical choices and evidencing the quality, respectively). Our analysis showed that the portfolios primarily included quantifiable data about teaching activities, e.g., numbers of students, topics and classes taught. Notably, they often lacked evidence of quality and scholarship of teaching. Looking at these findings through a Bourdieusian lens revealed that teachers in this social field exchange objectified evidence of hours spent on teaching into teaching capital recognized by their institution. Our findings highlight how institutional guidelines for MEPs construct a pedagogical battlefield, where educators try to decode and exchange the “right” and recognized teaching capital. This indicates that MEPs reflect the norms and practices of the academic field more than individual teaching quality.

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“Teaching capital”– a sociological analysis of medical educator portfolios for promotion

Christensen,

Pedersen,

Wichmann-Hansen

2024

Adv in Health Sci Educ

0

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Medical educator portfolios (MEP) are increasingly recognized as a tool for developing and documenting teaching performance in Health Professions Education. However, there is a need to better understand the complex interplay between institutional guidelines and how teachers decode those guidelines and assign value to teaching merits. To gain a deeper understanding of this dynamic, this study employed a sociological analysis to understand how medical educators aspiring to professorships use MEPs to display their teaching merits and how cultural capital is reflected in these artefacts. We collected 36 medical educator portfolios for promotion from a large research-intensive university and conducted a deductive content analysis using institutional guidelines that distinguished between mandatory (accounting for the total body of teaching conducted) and optional content (arguing for pedagogical choices and evidencing the quality, respectively). Our analysis showed that the portfolios primarily included quantifiable data about teaching activities, e.g., numbers of students, topics and classes taught. Notably, they often lacked evidence of quality and scholarship of teaching. Looking at these findings through a Bourdieusian lens revealed that teachers in this social field exchange objectified evidence of hours spent on teaching into teaching capital recognized by their institution. Our findings highlight how institutional guidelines for MEPs construct a pedagogical battlefield, where educators try to decode and exchange the “right” and recognized teaching capital. This indicates that MEPs reflect the norms and practices of the academic field more than individual teaching quality.

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Purposes and tensions in organising knowledge: trajectories of student evaluations in two research universities

Weenink,

Aarts,

Jacobs

2024

Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

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‘I need a grant but spend time on teaching’: how academics in different positions play out the teaching–research nexus in interdependence with their contexts

Cited by 3 publications

References 17 publications

“Teaching Capital” – a sociological analysis of medical educator portfolios for promotion

“Teaching Capital” – a sociological analysis of medical educator portfolios for promotion

“Teaching capital”– a sociological analysis of medical educator portfolios for promotion

Purposes and tensions in organising knowledge: trajectories of student evaluations in two research universities

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