Part-time academics’ perception of their role and academic development: a case study from Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Employing part-time and casual academics is now a widely accepted practice in higher education globally. We explored the issue of the identity of part-time academics in Indonesian higher education through interviews with 14 part-time and 11 full-time academics. Both groups identified more strongly with their teaching roles than with other roles. However, they differed in their perceptions of opportunities to enact their chosen academic roles and of the kind of academic development they needed. The current standardised model of academic development needs to be rethought to offer more flexibility and to invite departments’ participation in the development of their academics.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic identity
• academic development
• part-time academics
• Indonesia
• identity theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tatum Adiningrum

Tatum Adiningrum works as the Faculty and Academic Development Specialist and a faculty member at the Management Department, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia. She completed her PhD at the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education, the University of Auckland. Her research interests include academic integrity, academic identity, and higher education management.

Sean Sturm

Sean Sturm is Director of the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research interests include the philosophy of higher education and post-qualitative methodologies.

Barbara Kensington-Miller

Barbara Kensington-Miller is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Learning and Research in Higher Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her research interests include the development and support of early career academics, investigating peer mentoring, academic identity and threshold concepts, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.