Academic workforce in France and the UK in historical perspectives

ABSTRACT

This historical exploration of the development of the academic workforce in the UK and France was triggered by the observation of significant similarities in contemporary debates on casualisation, and segmentation despite their distinctive HE systems. We develop a quantitative history of academic staff to understand why the differences in the two HE systems are not as significant in respect to labour market and working conditions. The new data show that connected processes of casualisation, professional segmentation, and sectorial differentiation are used to manage tensions between massification and staff recruitment in both countries, in a context of declining and increasingly unequal distribution of resources, producing inequalities within institutions, as within the profession itself. The reorganisation of the academic workforce during three periods of growth of HE systems under traditional, Fordist and managerial influences has incrementally produced three groups of permanent, casualised, and precarised staff and a dual academic labour market.

摘要

尽管英国和法国的高等教育制度各具特色，但两国当前关于临时聘用和职业分割的争论却格外相似，基于这一观察，本文对两国的学术劳动力发展进行历史性探究。我们对学术人员史料进行定量分析，以理解两国学术劳动力市场以及工作条件方面的差异为何不如高等教育制度上的差异那样显著。新的数据显示，资源配置减少且日益不均衡，造成学术职业本身以及高等教育机构内部不平等，在这一背景下，两国采用临时聘用、职业分割以及部门差异化等相关联的手段，管控高等教育大众化与学术人员招聘之间的紧张关系。在高等教育系统受到传统式、福特式和管理式影响的三个发展时期，两国对学术劳动力的重组逐步产生了长期聘用、临时聘用和不稳定员工这三类群体以及一个二元的学术劳动力市场。

KEYWORDS:

• Academic staff
• higher education
• history
• massification
• differentiation
• segmentation
• casualisation
• France
• UK

关键词:

• 学术人员
• 高等教育
• 历史
• 大众化
• 差异化
• 分割
• 临时聘用
• 法国
• 英国

Acknowledgements

Many thanks for their comments on earlier versions of this paper to Julien Barrier and the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Vincent Carpentier gratefully acknowledges the funding support of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Office for Students and Research England [grant reference ES/M010082/1, ES/M010082/2 and ES/T014768/1].

Notes on contributors

Vincent Carpentier

Vincent Carpentier is a Reader in History of Education at the Department of Education, Practice and Society of the UCL Institute of Education. He is an Associate Editor of the London Review of Education. His comparative research on the historical relationship between educational systems, economic cycles and social change is located at the interface of history of education and political economy. His current research explores the long-term connections and tensions between funding, equity and quality in higher education at both national and global levels. He is a member of the Centre for Global Higher Education, Centre for Higher Education Studies and International Centre for Historical Research in Education.

Emmanuelle Picard

Emmanuelle Picard is a professor of contemporary history in ENS de Lyon, former head of the Social Sciences Department. She is a member of the International Commission for the History of University, co-founder of the European network Heloise on Digital Academic History, and chair of the RESUP (Réseau de recherche sur l’enseignement supérieur). She is a former editor of the journal Histoire de l’éducation. Specialist in the history of the French HE in the 19th-twentieth century, her research focuses on the history of the academic profession, the processes of professionalisation, and the place of disciplines in higher education institutions.