Out of balance: lecturers’ perceptions of differential status and rewards in relation to teaching and research

Abstract

One of the few areas of consensus in the literature of higher education concerns the status of teaching. Unanimously, writers report the low status which higher education institutions give to teaching as an activity. This article draws on research investigating activities and perceptions of staff in a single discipline: social policy. The question on rewards for effort in improving teaching provoked more strength of feeling and a greater degree of consensus than any other in the interviews. With similar unanimity to that found in the secondary sources, the respondents perceived teaching to be accorded low status, with rewards of tenure and promotion accruing to research or administration. The article suggests that the impact of new developments to enhance teaching and learning are undermined by the persistent low status accorded to teaching.