Dual-status academics: What makes for meaningful identity-work?

Within the predominance of managerial culture in universities, academics are facing two conflicting systems of meaning. The normative values of academic professionalism appear to collide with the tenets of managerialism; and while the organisation moves to adopt a hybrid form that incorporates both systems (Shams, 2019), academic staff are pressured to reconcile consequent and contradictory identity claims. By aligning their working practices and relationships with their professional values, academics may encounter competing compliance and accountability requirements. Inhabiting the dual-status of academic and doctoral candidate leads to conflicting activity systems (Clouder et al, 2019) and, akin to practitioner-researchers, colleagues experience ‘a fluid and complex relationship between the two identities’ (Rayner et al, 2015:158). Elements of doctoral candidature offer excitement and an enhanced sense of self-efficacy (Dann et al, 2018), but tensions arise when the implied contract between the two roles - promised by their university - ruptures. Dual-status academics report a range of impositions (Smith et al, 2019) that interfere with their potential to complete their doctorate, resulting in frustration. Having previously documented the experiences of dual-status academics from a more functional perspective, the theme of the conference encourages us to now re-examine their accounts as to how the concept of ‘meaningfulness’ plays out in this contested space. Holding two identities within this unique space demands exceptional skills of negotiating the university system and culture, particularly where staff are undertaking doctoral study in response to institutional pressure. The ways in which staff/student identity was fluidly managed and commitment to both roles sustained, indicates the need for further exploration of the emotive dimension associated with multiple-role development. We will draw on notions such as ‘integrated professional identity’ (Arvaja, 2017:302), ‘reassembling’ (Zukas & Malcolm, 2019:259) and hybridisation (Shams, 2019) to interrogate the values, authenticity, and meaningfulness to be found in dual-status academics’ narratives. References Arvaja, M. (2018). Tensions and striving for coherence in an academic’s professional identity work. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(3), 291-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1379483 Clouder, L., Billot, J., King, V., & Smith, J. (2020). Friend or foe: The complexities of being an academic and a doctoral student in the same institution. Studies in Higher Education, 45(9), 1961–1972 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1643307 Dann, R., Basford, J., Booth, C., O'Sullivan, R., Scanlon, J., Woodfine, C., & Wright, P. (2018). The impact of doctoral study on university lecturers' construction of self within a changing higher education policy context. Studies in Higher Education, 44, 1166-1182. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1421155 Rayner, S., Lord, J., Parr, E., & Sharkey, R. (2015). ‘Why has my world become more confusing than it used to be?’ Professional doctoral students reflect on the development of their identity. Management in Education, 29(4), 158-163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020614567247 Shams, F. (2019). Managing academic identity tensions in a Canadian public university: the role of identity work in coping with managerialism. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 41(6), 619-632. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2019.1643960 Smith, J., Billot, J., Clouder, L., & King, V. (2020). Juggling competing activities: Academic staff as doctoral candidates. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(3), 591–605. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1685945 Zukas, M., & Malcolm, J. (2019). Reassembling academic work: a sociomaterial investigation of academic learning, Studies in Continuing Education, 41(3), 259-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2018.1482861

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