The reluctant academic: early-career academics in a teaching-orientated university

Abstract

This paper is based on research into academic identities amongst early-career academics in a UK post-1992, teaching-orientated university. Literature around academic identity suggests five major academic roles: teaching, research, management, writing and networking. However, this appears to be a picture of an established mid-career academic in a research-orientated university. Literature focusing on the process of assuming an academic identity proposes that academics, even early in their career, work within strong collegial and disciplinary structures. This research suggests that both notions are problematic, and that for early-career academics in this post-1992 institution it is relations with students, the teaching arena, and organisational practice that are much more central.

Keywords:

• academic identity
• early career academics
• critical incidents