Jennie Billot

The imagined and the real: identifying the tensions for academic identity

Changes within the higher education sector have had significant effects on the identity of the individual academic. As institutions transform in response to government‐driven policy and funding directives, there is a subsequent impact upon the roles and responsibilities of those employed as educational professionals. Academic practices are changing as multiple roles emerge from the reshaping of academic work. Institutional pressures to produce specific research outputs at the same time as teaching and undertaking managerial/administrative responsibilities are creating tension between what academics perceive as their professional identity and that prescribed by their employing organisation. Reconciling this disconnect is part of the challenge for academics, who are now seeking to understand and manage their changing identity. Narratives obtained from research in a university with a polytechnic background and an institute of technology (aspiring to be a university), provide some subjective reflections for examining this issue.

The changing research context: implications for leadership

Within the changing tertiary environment, research activity and performance are coming under greater pressure and scrutiny. External policy and funding directives are resulting in revised institutional objectives, requiring variations to organisational structures and processes. These changes have an impact on the relationship between the institution and the individual. Institutional executives provide benchmarks for revised activity and performance, while academic staff respond to new internal directives and accountability requirements by reprioritising their responsibilities. At the same time, there will inevitably be an informal evaluation of the resourcing and support provided for staff as they experience the institutional push to attain greater research outputs. Within this dynamic environment there is the potential for tensions and negative outcomes if interactions are not carefully directed. The implications for leadership are obvious. What is less evident is whether the strategic intent of the institution resonates through the institution in alignment with the development of a supportive research culture.

Negotiating academic teacher identity shifts during higher education contextual change

ABSTRACT Higher education teachers’ roles and identities are constantly shifting in response to contextual change. Pedagogy, values, and professional and personal narratives of self are all affected, particularly by technological change. This paper explores the role and identity shifts of academics during the introduction of large-class videoconferencing. Their experiences of personal and pedagogical ‘doing’ and ‘being’ demonstrate how ambiguity of role, non-alignment of values with practice realities and unanticipated disruption of self-representation are variably resolved by individuals. The findings suggest that successfully negotiating identity shifts may be essential for coherent personal and professional narratives, while lack of a collective response to contextual change may explain why academic teacher identity challenges are overlooked at the institutional level. We recommend identification, discussion, and alignment of institutional, professional, and personal pedagogical goals prior to contextual change.

Resituation or Resistance? Higher Education Teachers' Adaptations to Technological Change.

This paper presents the findings from a project that explored teachers’ adaptations to technological change in four large classes in higher education. In these classes, lecturers changed from single- to multi-lecture settings mediated by videoconferencing, requiring them to transfer their beliefs and practices into a new pedagogical space. The intent of the study was to obtain a ground-level view of teaching with videoconferencing to better reveal the complex relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices around technological integration. An ethnographic approach was used and data were collected through semi-structured accounts, focus group interviews and video recordings of lectures. By conceptualising teachers’ adaptation to technology as resituation, the authors highlight how teachers’ beliefs and practices are integrated, negotiated and reconciled with the demands of a changed context. They argue that, for any technological initiative to result in positive outcomes, teachers need a clearly communicated plan that provides scaffolding through the transitional stages.

Falling between the real and the ideal: The role of the New Zealand principal

often conflicting demands of their role. There appears to be a significant gulf between changes to the principal’s role as initiated through educational reform and the priorities held to be essential by the principals themselves. Negotiating the gap between what principals believe they should be doing and that which they find themselves doing, presents a challenge that many find daunting. Consider what is expected from principals as school leaders. In reality how effective can they really be? New Zealand principals have been exposed to a change of role expectations since educational reform in 1988 under Tomorrow’s Schools (Minister of Education, 1988). This reform decentralised authority to the school community and gave greater autonomy to principals. Within this regime, the implications for the principalship include increased demands, greater accountability and a wider set of responsibilities. If principalship acts as a hub through which the reform cycle operates, then one would assume the role

Exploring teachers' perceptions of videoconferencing practice through space, movement and the material and virtual environments

Abstract Space and the bodily use of the material environment are intimately connected to work practices. Using data from an ethnographic study of higher education teachers in a videoconferencing context, this study explored the effects of space, movement and environment on teachers’ perceptions of practice by creating maps of the physical environment and movements from video recordings. Space and movement dialogue was extracted from focus group data using modified text mining and analysed thematically in relation to the maps. Bodily use of space, and the material and virtual environments had significant effects on teachers’ perceptions of practice, especially screen-mediated connection with students. Perceived similarities between videoconferencing and television created identity confusion for teachers as presenters and academic professionals. The findings suggest that spatial data are a valuable lens through which other types of work practice data can be analysed and interpreted.

Understanding academic identity through metaphor

Metaphors used by higher education teachers in their narratives of academic life provide insight into aspects of academic identity. Drawing on an international study of leader/follower dynamics, the teachers’ narratives reveal how academics interpret their interactions with leaders; the perceived distance between expectations and experience, and the subsequent impact on motivations. Applying Bourdieus ‘thinking tools’ of field, habitus and capital as an analytical framework for revealing participants’ conceptualisations of academia enriches our understanding of how workplace ideals are perceived to resonate with academic reality. Metaphors used by teachers indicate both alignment and dissonance between expectations of leaders and the reality of being led. The study recognises the effect of experiences with leaders on identity and how followers can be effectively proactive. Using these findings we posit that the wider organisational aspects of identity which may trouble newer academics could be addressed through guided theoretical and conceptual critique.

Voicing the Tensions of Implementing Research Strategies: Implications for Organizational Leaders.

When higher education institutions seek to align their research goals with nationally driven imperatives, various members of the institutional community need to work in concert to achieve them. The identification of effective strategies and the development of a contextually appropriate research culture are fundamental elements to progressing institutional objectives and achieving planned performance outcomes. Because all parties frequently have differing motivations, there are obvious challenges for organizational leadership. This article examines some of the issues facing academic leaders in the changing research environment within New Zealand and links them to a research study of efforts made in two differing tertiary institutions to enhance research productivity. Data indicate that there is great complexity in integrating organizational purpose with academic staff aspirations and endeavours. Of necessity, strategy and initiatives need to be situated contextually and leadership becomes a crucial mechanism for dovetailing the institutional agenda with individual enterprise.

The missing measure? Academic identity and the induction process

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of academic induction is under-monitored by higher education institutions (HEIs) despite growing evidence that some academics, facing increased expectations and rising accountability within higher education (HE), perceive a lack of support from their institution. In this paper, we argue that HEIs should follow the example of other sectors to promote socialisation through adequate and supportive scaffolding of the multiple responsibilities that new academics are required to take on. We offer a dual lens into the induction of early career academics in the contemporary university. Using corpus analysis techniques, we survey recent research into induction from the fields of HE studies and of human resources (HR). The HR literature displays a greater emphasis on organisational socialisation but also on performance measures. Secondly, drawing on an empirical study of researcher experiences within a measured and funding-directed environment, we surface the challenges faced by new academics and the tensions of juggling multiple roles and identities. We find that induction programmes that encourage and educate individuals to take responsibility for their socialisation can enhance positive outcomes. Paradoxically, traditional, one-size-fits-all, induction that focuses on the ‘doing’ of academic practice leaves individuals unequally prepared for academic life. The empirical study findings echo claims in the literature that communities of practice can act to positively support newer academics. The induction challenge then is to provide personalised, professional scaffolding for scholarly development and to monitor its effectiveness, while seeking opportunities to build a more supportive academic culture.

Creative Research Strategies for Exploring Academic Identity

In this chapter, we encourage the exploration of academic identity using less conventional research strategies which involve metaphor. The first examines metaphors used within narratives to delve deeper into participants’ academic stories, while the other employs visual metaphors to represent academic identity.