Negotiating professional identities in higher education in Kenya: dilemmas and priorities of faculty

Abstract

This research builds on work carried out in England looking at how faculty negotiate their personal and professional identities. It focuses on a sample of full-time faculty in a private secular university in Kenya. Weekly time logs with follow-up individual semi-structured interviews were used as a basis for an examination on how faculty spend their time and cope with the dilemmas they face. The research probes the motivations and priorities of faculty and draws tentative conclusions regarding their professional identities. The picture emerges of a rapidly increasing workforce, very positive about teaching, facing the challenges of intensification of labour, conflicting priorities, outside pressures and a sense of lack of control over their professional lives. In contrast to the UK findings, what was most striking was the lack of dilemmas and agonising between competing claims on time that characterised the work of the UK lecturers. The Kenyan faculty appeared to approach tasks in a pragmatic way, with priority often given to family matters and a tendency to let things happen. Notions of professionalism appeared to be less well developed and appeared to point to compliance and acceptable standards of behaviour.

Keywords:

• professional identity
• professionalism
• higher education
• Kenya
• narrative
• agency