Transitioning Selves: Young Researchers Self-Concepts in Re-search and Teaching A practice theoretical perspective
Author(s):
Franziska Teichmann (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 02, Education and Research

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-08
11:00-12:30
Room:
303. [Main]
Chair:
Fiona Hallett

Contribution

Universities have to be regarded as core science organizations in the academic field, which are shifting and transitioning from a traditional Humboldtian model of the university into an entrepreneurial mode of international competitive research institutions (Weber 2013a). While competitiveness in research and academic success is a clear norm in the academic field (Bourdieu 1992; Weber 2013b), the relation between research and teaching seems to be shifting into a contested terrain, playing out in the daily routines of researchers and academics. The article highlights the question, how research and teaching plays out under the conditions of the mass-university, teaching – at least in Europe - still being a central task for most academics. What do reform processes like Bologna, expansion in Higher Education and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area mean for institutional differentiation on the one hand – and the daily practices of academics on the other hand? How do scientific institutions on the one hand – and academics on the other hand - balance these multi-faceted and multi-dimensional relations between research and teaching (Hattie & Marsh 1996)?

Even if the unity of research and teaching may have been a myth anyway (Ash 1999; Hattie & Marsh 1996), the relation between “excellence” and “expansion” is becoming structurally dilemmatic in the shifts and transitions described (Schimank 1995; Münch 2007; Kreckel 2011). Intentions to solve this dilemma lead into structural differentiation and different strategies like an internal differentiation of functions – like dividing up into “teaching -” and “research professorships”. A second strategy can be identified in institutional externalization, where research is outsourced into non-university research institutes (Kreckel 2011). Both structural differentiations imply possible shifts and splits regarding the structural dimensions of career development in the academic and scientific field. In an inequality perspective, vertical as well as horizontal shifts in research and teaching capital are to be expected (Angervall & Gustafsson 2014).

In a Bourdieuian perspective, the dilemma between excellence and expansion implies a symbolic order of “teaching” and “research” - and accordingly between perceived “researchers” and “teachers” in the academic field. As Angervall and Gustafsson (2014) have analyzed for the Swedish higher education system and careers within, the two career profiles of the “successful” and the “supportive” researchers were identified. What is the role, supervisors play within this process? The paper argues, that in a practice theoretical perspective, the structures of science organizations, self-concepts of supervisors and of doctoral candidates interweave into a daily practice of “doing academia”. What are the relevant dimensions in the self-concepts of young and experienced researchers? What is the relevance of institutional settings like universities or external (non-teaching) research institutions like Max-Planck Societies or others? How does the relationship between supervisor and doctoral candidate become relevant for the transitioning phase of young researchers into “becoming an academic”?

Method

The research methodology is based on a semi-structured interview, carried out with post-doctorals, who describe their daily practice of teaching and research during their doctoral phase. In a practice theoretical perspective (Bourdieu 1992, 1993, 2012), we understand the process of becoming a member of the scientific field as a process of incorporation of experiences within institutionalized structures, where the illusion of the academic field finally becomes incorpo-rated and a “sense of the game” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1996) is been developed. Social prac-tice is regarded as the playing out of objectivized institutional structures and incorporated habit-ual structures as interweaving two histories (Bourdieu 2004: 35). Investigating supervisors and their doctoral candidates, self-concepts as academics between re-search and teaching are analyzed. Moreover, analyzing university and non-teaching research institutions, two types of science organizations are taken into account and presented. While structures of supervision are understood as socially produced, semi-structured interviews are used for interviewing the supervisors and the postdocs. The set of questions addresses supervis-ing practice and the development of the academic relationship, the self-concept as lecturer and researcher, in order to analyze dispositions as incorporated structures. Supervisors and novices in the academic field will elaborate a mutual reflection of both perspectives (Brake 2006). The sampling of the couples of supervisor and young researcher is oriented at Theoretical Sam-pling (Glaser & Strauss 1973) and the analysis at the Documentary Method (Bohnsack 2003; Bohnsack et al. 2007; Nohl 2012). Interviewing focuses on the orientations and experiences which are documented in narrations in order to access practices of agents in the academic field and science organizations. We are not focusing on “types” of teachers or researchers, but take the logic of practice into account in order to avoid essentialist and substantialist reductions and limitations (Engler 2001; Beaufaÿs 2003).

Expected Outcomes

The paper points out the dimensions of academic self-concepts of seniors and novices in aca-demia and highlights the relationship between researchers and teachers an interweaving of insti-tutional and habitual structures in science organizations within the academic field. It takes into account European challenges, shifts and transitions in Higher Education organizations. It reflects the relevance of symbolic ordering along categories like social background and gender in sci-ence organizations.

References

Angervall, Petra; Gustafsson, Jan (2014): The Making of Careers in Academia: split career movements in education science. q. In European Educational Research Journal 13 (6), pp. 601–615. Ash, Mitchell G. (Ed.) (1999): Mythos Humboldt. Vergangenheit und Zukunft der deutschen Universitäten. Wien: Böhlau. Beaufaÿs, Sandra (2003): Wie werden Wissenschaftler gemacht? Bielefeld: Transcript. Bohnsack, Ralf; Nentwig-Gesemann, Iris; Nohl, Arnd-Michael (Eds.) (2007): Die dokumentarische Methode und ihre For-schungspraxis. Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung. 2., erweiterte und aktualisierte Auflage. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Bourdieu, Pierre (1992): Homo academicus. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (1993): Sozialer Sinn. Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (2004): Science of science and reflexivity. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, Pierre (2012): Die feinen Unterschiede. Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. 22nd ed. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhr-kamp. Bourdieu, Pierre; Wacquant, Loïc J. D. (1996): Reflexive Anthropologie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Brake, Anna (2006): Der Bildungsort Familie. Methodische Grundlagen der Untersuchung. In Peter Büchner, Anna Brake (Eds.): Bildungsort Familie. Transmission von Bildung und Kultur im Alltag von Mehrgenerationenfamilien. 1st ed. Wies-baden: VS Verlag, pp. 49–79. Engler, Steffani (2001): "In Einsamkeit und Freiheit"? Zur Konstruktion der wissenschaftlichen Persönlichkeit auf dem Weg zur Professur. Techn. Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Darmstadt. Konstanz: UVK. Glaser, Barney G.; Strauss, Anselm L. (1973, c1967): The discovery of grounded theory. Strategies for qualitative research. 1st ed. Chicago: Aldine Pub. Hattie, J.; Marsh, H. W. (1996): The Relationship between Research and Teaching. A Meta-Analysis. In Review of Education Research 66 (4), pp. 506–542. Hofbauer, Johanna (2012): Neue Geschlechterordnungen an Hochschulen? Zur theoretischen Fundierung einer empirischen Untersuchung im Sinne der Bourdieu'schen Feldtheorie. In Stefan Bernhard, Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg (Eds.): Felda-nalyse als Forschungsprogramm 1. Der programmatische Kern. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp. 427–451. Kreckel, Reinhard (2011): Zwischen Spitzenforschung und Breitenausbildung. Strukturelle Differenzierungen an deutschen Hochschulen im internationalen Vergleich. In Heinz-Hermann Krüger, Ursula Rabe-Kleberg, Rolf-Torsten Kramer, Jürgen Budde (Eds.): Bildungsungleichheit revisited. Bildung und soziale Ungleichheit vom Kindergarten bis zur Hochschule. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp. 237–258. Schimank, Uwe (1995): Hochschulforschung im Schatten der Lehre. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus Verlag. Weber, Susanne Maria (2013a): Imagining the Creative University. Dispositives of Creation, Strategies of Innovation, Politics of Reality. In Michael Peters, Tina Besley (Eds.): The Creative University. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, pp. 161–192. Weber, Susanne Maria (2013b): Transforming the Academic Field. In: Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul, Michael A. Peters (Eds.): Of Other Thoughts: Non-traditional Approaches to the Doctorate. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, pp. 115–130.

Author Information

Franziska Teichmann (presenting / submitting)
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Education
Marburg

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