Academic identities under threat?

TLDR

Academic identity is viewed as a dynamic, context‑dependent aspect of a person’s professional project rather than a fixed trait. The study investigates how practising academics experience and construct their academic identities. Data were collected from a small, single‑university study of practising academics. Academic identity is complex, not reducible to teaching, research, or management roles, and is shaped by class, gender, and family; academics maintain distinct identities and exercise autonomy despite performativity pressures, highlighting the importance of examining lived experiences to theorise sector trends.

Abstract

This article focuses on the lived experience of practising academics as part of an inquiry into the vexed question of ‘academic identities’. Identity is understood not as a fixed property, but as part of the lived complexity of a person's project. The article reports on data from a small study in one university. The data suggest that academic identity is complex and that, moreover, it cannot be read off from descriptions of teaching, research, or management roles. Respondents in all roles were able to maintain highly distinctive, strongly framed academic identities. Experiences of class, gender and the significance of family are reported as having continued salience in respondents' lives. Moreover, despite all the pressure of performativity, individuals created spaces for the exercise of principled personal autonomy and agency. The article concludes that paying detailed attention to how changes are being experienced is an important element in theorising trends in the sector.